John Cheever

People look for morals in fiction because there has always been a confusion between fiction and philosophy.

I can't write without a reader. It's precisely like a kiss - you can't do it alone.

That's the way I remember them, heading for an exit.

All literary men are Red Sox fans - to be a Yankee fan in a literate society is to endanger your life.

The need to write comes from the need to make sense of one's life and discover one's usefulness.

The deep joy we take in the company of people with whom we have just recently fallen in love is undisguisable.

Wisdom is the knowledge of good and evil, not the strength to choose between the two.

Wisdom we know is the knowledge of good and evil, not the strength to choose between the two.

When I remember my family, I always remember their backs. They were always indignantly leaving places.

Homesickness is nothing. Fifty percent of the people in the world are homesick all the time.

For me, a page of good prose is where one hears the rain and the noise of battle. It has the power to give grief or universality that lends it a youthful beauty.