Peyton Place

There can be neither beauty, nor trust, nor security between a man and a woman if there is not truth.

The public loves to create a hero....Sometimes I think they do it for the sheer joy of knocking him down from the highest peak. Like a child who builds a house of blocks and then destroys it with one vicious kick.

She saw hopelessness as an old enemy, as persistent and inevitable as death.

It was as if each of them sensed vaguely that the Saturday afternoons of youth are few, and precious, and this feeling which neither of them could have defined or described made every moment of this time together too short, too quickly gone, yet clearer and more sharply edged than any other.

Indian summer is like a woman.

Indian summer is like a woman. Ripe, hotly passionate, but fickle, she comes and goes as she pleases so that one is never sure whether she will come at all, nor for how long she will stay.

If God was going to do what He thought was best anyway, why bother to ask for anything one wanted? If you prayed, and God thought that what you asked should be granted, He would grant it. If you did not pray, and it was true that God always acted in one's best interest, you would receive whatever He wanted you to receive anyway.Prayer, thought Allison, was a dreadfully unfair, rather unsportsmanlike affair, with all the advantages on one side.

Dead folks can't hurt you none. It's the ones that are alive, you have to watch out for.

Did it ever occur to you, Charlie, that tolerance can reach a point where it is no longer tolerance? When that happens, the noble-sounding attitude on which most of us pride ourselves degenerates into weakness and acquiescence.

If every man, ...ceased to hate and blame every other man for his own failures and shortcomings, we would see the end of every evil in the world, from war to backbiting.

when you start telling a man he’s got to do this, that or the other thing, you’re coming pretty damned close to infringing on a citizen’s rights.

Well, then, thought Allison, why pray at all? If God was going to do what He thought was best anyway, why bother to ask for anything one wanted? If you prayed, and God thought that what you asked should be granted, He would grant it. If you did not pray, and it was true that God always acted in one’s best interests, you would receive whatever He wanted you to receive anyway. Prayer, thought Allison, was a dreadfully unfair, rather unsportsmanlike affair, with all the advantages on one side.

Give me a child until he is seven, thought Tom, and he is forever after mine. When the Fascists say it, they're bums and kidnappers, but when the Church says it, it is known as putting a kid on the right track.

Sometimes, I've thought of each life as a tree. First there are the little green leaves, that's when you're little, and then there are the big green leaves. Thais when you are older, the way I am now. Then there is the time of Indian summer and fall, when the leaves are bright and beautiful, and that's when you're really grown and can do all the things you've always wanted to do. Then there are no leaves at all, and its winter. Then you are dead, and it's over.

If every man ceased to hate and blame every other man for his own failures and shortcomings, we would see the end of every evil in the world, from war to bacbiting.

- Y yo le pregunto, señor Makirs, ¿cómo esperan los protestantes mantener una iglesia fuerte si se niegan a prohibir el control de la natalidad? Me temo que los católicos han sido más listos que nosotros en este aspecto. Mire el número de niños que van todos los domingos a San José. Hay el doble de los que tenemos nosotros. Es necesario tener muchos, y atraerlos mientras son jóvenes, para obtener un resultado duradero. «Dame un niño hasta los siete años -pensó Tom- y será eternamente mío. Cuando los fascistas lo dicen son despiadados y secuestradores, pero cuando es la Iglesia quien lo dice, significa poner un niño en el buen camino.» - Escuche, reverendo - dijo Tom cuando el pastor hizo una pausa-. ¿Por qué da tanta importancia a todas esas diferencias ceremoniales y a la cuestión de las reglas? Es ridículo, ¿no cree? Si les tuviera a usted y al padre O'Brien aquí reunidos e intentara empezar una discusión sobre el número de ángeles que pueden bailar sobre la punta de una aguja, los dos pensarían que me había vuelto loco. Por lo tanto, ¿no es igualmente absurdo discutir sobre si un niño debe ser bautizado por inmersión total o echando unas gotas de agua sobre su cabeza? ¿O si comer carne los viernes constituye pecado o no?

He hears every single word,” assured the Reverend Fitzgerald, but Allison asked silently, If He really hears, why is it that He often does not answer? “Sometimes,” said the minister, “The Almighty Father must refuse us. Like a loving father on earth, refusing a child for his own good, so must our Heavenly Father sometimes refuse us. But He always acts in our best interests.” Well, then, thought Allison, why pray at all? If God was going to do what He thought was best anyway, why bother to ask for anything one wanted? If you prayed, and God thought that what you asked should be granted, He would grant it. If you did not pray, and it was true that God always acted in one’s best interests, you would receive whatever He wanted you to receive anyway.