Quotes from Old School

“a true piece of writing is a dangerous thing. It can change your life.”
― Tobias Wolff, quote from Old School

“The beauty of a fragment is that it still supports the hope of brilliant completeness.”
― Tobias Wolff, quote from Old School

“We even talked like Hemingway characters, though in travesty, as if to deny our discipleship: That is your bed, and it is a good bed, and you must make it and you must make it well. Or: Today is the day of the meatloaf. The meatloaf is swell. It is swell but when it is gone the not-having meatloaf will be tragic and the meatloaf man will not come anymore.”
― Tobias Wolff, quote from Old School

“You boys know what tropism is, it's what makes a plant grow toward the light. Everything aspires to the light. You don't have to chase down a fly to get rid of it - you just darken the room, leave a crack of light in a window, and out he goes. Works every time. We all have that instinct, that aspiration. Science can't dim that. All science can do is turn out the false lights so the true light can get us home.”
― Tobias Wolff, quote from Old School

“Rhyme is bullshit. Rhyme says that everything works out in the end. All harmony and order. When I see a rhyme in a poem, I know I'm being lied to. Go ahead, laugh! It's true—rhyme's a completely bankrupt device. It's just wishful thinking. Nostalgia.”
― Tobias Wolff, quote from Old School

“When your power comes from others, on approval, you are their slave. Never sacrifice yourselves - never! Whoever urges you to self-sacrifice is worse than a common murderer, who at least cuts your throat himself, without persuading YOU to do it.”
― Tobias Wolff, quote from Old School

“You felt it as a depth of ease in certain boys, their innate, affable assurance that they would not have to struggle for a place in the world; that is already reserved for them.”
― Tobias Wolff, quote from Old School

“Without pandering to your presumed desire to identify with the hero of a story, they made you feel that what mattered to the writer had consequence for you, too.”
― Tobias Wolff, quote from Old School

“آن زندگی را که باعث نوشتن می‌شود نمی‌توان روی کاغذ آورد. آن زندگی بی آن‌که خود نویسنده بداند به پیش می‌رود. فارغ از اشتغالات فکری و هیاهو، در گودال‌هایی عمیق و تاریک که خاطرات شبح‌وار به‌خاطر ما در آن‌جا نبرد می‌کنند، یکدیگر را از پا درمی‌آورند و در پایان که چندتاشان باقی می‌مانند در پیش چشم ما ظاهر می‌شوند، اما با همان برخورد بی‌اعتنایی مواجه می‌شوند که پیشخدمت‌ها هنگام آوردن فنجانی قهوه‌ی اضافه.”
― Tobias Wolff, quote from Old School

“Say you've just read Faulkner's 'Barn Burning'. Like the son in the story, you've sensed the faults in your father's character. Thinking about them makes you uncomfortable, left alone you'd probably close the book and move on to other thoughts. But instead you are taken in hand by a tall, brooding man with a distinguished limp who involves you and a roomful of other boys in the consideration of what it means to be a son. The loyalty that is your duty and your worth and your problem. The goodness of loyalty and its difficulties and snares, how loyalty might also become betrayal - of the self and the world outside the circle of blood.

You've never had this conversation before, not with anyone. And even as its happening you understand that just as your father's troubles with the world - emotional frailty, self-doubt, incomplete honesty - will not lead him to set it on fire, your own loyalty will never be the stuff of tragedy. You will not turn bravely and painfully from your father, as the boy in the story does, but foresake him, without regret. And as you accept that separation, it seems to happen; your father's sad, fleshy face grows vague, and you blink it away and look up to where your teachers leans against his desk, one hand in a coat pocket, the other rubbing his bum knee as he listens desolately to the clever bore behind you saying something about bird imagery.”
― Tobias Wolff, quote from Old School

“They’ll die, and then they’ll be dead.”
― Tobias Wolff, quote from Old School

“I am thinking of Achilles’ grief, he said. That famous, terrible, grief. Let me tell you boys something. Such grief can only be told in form. Form is everything. Without it you’ve got nothing but a stubbed-toe cry—sincere, maybe, for what that’s worth, but with no depth or carry. No echo. You may have a grievance but you do not have grief, and grievances are for petitions, not poetry.”
― Tobias Wolff, quote from Old School

“Memory is a dream to begin with.”
― Tobias Wolff, quote from Old School

“The Outlaws generally write as well as the bankers, though more briefly. Some writers flourish like opportunistic weeds by hiding among the citizens, others by toughing it out in some sort of desert or another.”
― Tobias Wolff, quote from Old School

“She'd laugh at odd times as we talked and this flustered me pleasantly and made me laugh too, as if we both understood something we couldn't say.”
― Tobias Wolff, quote from Old School

Video

About the author

Popular quotes

“I'd made it back to the land of the living. No matter how boring or mediocre a world it might be, this was it.”
― Haruki Murakami, quote from A Wild Sheep Chase

“Those who betray me do it only once.”
― Kresley Cole, quote from Demon from the Dark

“Real love isn't ambivalent. I'd swear that's a line from my favorite best-selling paperback novel, "In Love with the Night Mysterious", except I don't think you've ever read it. Well, you ought to, instead of spending the rest of your life, trying to get through "Democracy in America." It's about this white woman whose daddy owns a plantation in the Deep South, in the years before the Civil War. And her name is Margaret, and she's in love with her daddy's number-one slave, and his name is Thaddeus. And she's married, but her white slave-owner husband has AIDS: Antebellum Insufficiently-Developed Sex-organs. And so, there's a lot of hot stuff going down, when Margaret and Thaddeus can catch a spare torrid ten under the cotton-picking moon. And then of course the Yankees come, and they set the slaves free. And the slaves string up old daddy and so on, historical fiction. Somewhere in there I recall, Margaret and Thaddeus find the time to discuss the nature of love. Her face is reflecting the flames of the burning plantation, you know the way white people do, and his black face is dark in the night and she says to him, "Thaddeus, real love isn't ever ambivalent.”
― Tony Kushner, quote from Millennium Approaches

“I finally found him sitting on his balcony. He was leaning back against the wall with his eyes closed. Soft music played, and a cool ocean breeze blew back my hair as I stepped on to the balcony and inhaled the scent of the sea.
"May I join you?" I asked softly.
He didn’t bother opening his eyes. "If you like."
The moon in the dark sky looked like a giant white plate dipping its edge into the ocean. We sat quietly for a while. I closed my eyes too and listened to him hum along in harmony with the music.
"You haven’t played your guitar in a long time. I miss it," I said when the song was finished.
Ren turned away. "I fear there is no music left in me.”
― Colleen Houck, quote from Tiger's Destiny

“Es la compasión, no el miedo, lo que crea armonía en la mayoría de las razas, y es la armonía -la unión para conseguir metas compartidas- lo que precede a la grandeza.”
― R.A. Salvatore, quote from Homeland

Interesting books

About BookQuoters

BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.