Stoner Quotes
"He did not rise above the rank of assistant professor, and few students remembered him with any sharpness after they had taken his courses."
"His mother regarded her life patiently, as if it were a long moment that she had to endure."
"It was a lonely household, of which he was an only child, and it was bound together by the necessity of its toil."
"At school he did his lessons as if they were chores only somewhat less exhausting than those around the farm."
"I never had no schooling to speak of... Sometimes when I’m working the field I get to thinking."
"He had never before seen anything so imposing."
"He was aware that he had learned things that he had not known before, but this meant to him only that he might do as well in his second year as he had done in his first."
"He became conscious of himself in a way that he had not done before."
"It’s love, Mr. Stoner... You are in love. It’s as simple as that."
"The thin chill of the late fall day cut through his clothing."
"The past gathered out of the darkness where it stayed, and the dead raised themselves to live before him."
"The future lay bright and certain and unchanging."
"He felt his inadequacy to the goal he had so recklessly chosen and felt the attraction of the world he had abandoned."
"He carried this feeling of loss with him throughout the graduation exercises."
"He thought of his parents, and they were nearly as strange as the child they had borne; he felt a mixed pity for them and a distant love."
"He looked at them curiously, as if he had not seen them before, and felt very distant from them and very close to them."
"He looked around him, at the bare gnarled branches of the trees that curled and twisted against the pale sky."
"He had no plans for the future, and he spoke to no one of his uncertainty."
"He had no friends, and for the first time in his life he became aware of loneliness."
"He found that he had nothing to say to them; already, he realized, he and his parents were becoming strangers."
I don’t know," his father said. "I didn’t figure it would turn out like this.
"He was aware of the world outside his room, of the far murmur of shouting students, of the swift clatter of a buggy on the brick streets."
"He felt no guilt for his decision... but he was aware of the looks that he received from his older colleagues."
"He never went into that room that he did not glance at the seat he had once occupied."
"He felt that they were strangers in a way that he had not thought they would be, and he knew that he was in love."
"Her moral training... was negative in nature, prohibitive in intent, and almost entirely sexual."
"Her life was invariable, like a low hum; and it was watched over by her mother."
"She was educated upon the premise that she would be protected from the gross events that life might thrust in her way."
"The love of literature, of language, of the mystery of the mind and heart showing themselves in the minute, strange, and unexpected combinations of letters and words, in the blackest and coldest print—the love which he had hidden as if it were illicit and dangerous, he began to display, tentatively at first, and then boldly, and then proudly."
"It was a knowledge of which he could not speak, but one which changed him, once he had it, so that no one could mistake its presence."
"He felt himself at last beginning to be a teacher, which was simply a man to whom his book is true, to whom is given a dignity of art that has little to do with his foolishness or weakness or inadequacy as a man."
"He suspected that he was beginning, ten years late, to discover who he was; and the figure he saw was both more and less than he had once imagined it to be."
"He knew that no longer could the sight of her bring upon him the agony of desire that he had once known, and knew that he would never again be moved as he had once been moved by her presence."
"It seemed delicate and alive, like a child. He had reread it in print, mildly surprised that it was neither better nor worse than he had thought it would be."
"It was himself that he was slowly shaping, it was himself that he was putting into a kind of order, it was himself that he was making possible."
"He spoke more confidently and felt a warm hard severity gather within him."
"He felt a distant pity and reluctant friendship and familiar respect; and he felt also a weary sadness, for he knew that no longer could the sight of her bring upon him the agony of desire that he had once known."
"His expectations for his first book had been both cautious and modest, and they had been appropriate; one reviewer had called it 'pedestrian' and another had called it 'a competent survey.'"
"Her voice was thin and high, and it held a note of hopelessness that gave a special value to every word she said."
"I must tell you, sir, that I had not considered these material matters before. Edith’s happiness is, of course, my—If you believe that Edith would be unhappy, then I must..."
"He felt a distant closeness to her, and a pity for her helplessness; desire thickened in his throat so that he could not speak."
"They returned to Columbia two days earlier than they had planned; restless and strained by their isolation, it was as if they walked together in a prison."
"He awoke early. Their suite, arranged and paid for by Edith’s parents, as a wedding gift, was on the tenth floor, and it commanded a view of the city."
"Life, like a dome of many-colored glass, Stains the white radiance of eternity, Until Death tramples it to fragments."
"She has grown during the past year, William thought; and a small, not unpleasant sadness caught briefly at his throat."
"The possibilities he could see so exhilarated him that he could not keep still."
"The only hope we have is to keep him out. For if we do, we become like the world, just as unreal, just as… The only hope we have is to keep him out."
"I am preventing him from getting his degree, and I’m preventing him from teaching in a college or university. Which is precisely what I want to do."
"I will lie if necessary; I will frame you if I have to."
"Her expression did not change, but Stoner thought for a moment that she was angry; something fierce glinted behind her eyes."
"He could not believe that this was the same man who had taken his seminar, whom he thought he knew."
"He felt her body stiffen, and he saw her face go bewildered and afraid."
"He looked at his desk, littered with notes and open books; he walked slowly across the room and aimlessly rearranged the sheets of pape"
"We know what we are, but not what we may be."
"The purpose of life is to find your own path."
"Happiness is not something ready-made. It comes from your own actions."
"Life is 10% what happens to us and 90% how we react to it."
"Success is not final, failure is not fatal: It is the courage to continue that counts."
"The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today."
"Believe you can and you're halfway there."
"The only way to do great work is to love what you do."
"The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched - they must be felt with the heart."
"It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop."
"He began his lectures and discussions fumblingly and awkwardly."
"‘Begone, begone, you bloody whoreson Gauls!’"
"She was a brilliantly talented artist who had given up her career to devote herself to Stoner."
"After his illness, and out of an indifference that became a way of living."
"In her fortieth year, Edith Stoner was as thin as she had been as a girl."
"Always withdrawn, she grew in these middle years increasingly remote and absent."
"She was almost beautiful; her body, which had been very thin and then suddenly very fat, was delicately limbed and soft."
"For a number of years, Stoner had, every month, put aside a few dollars so that Grace could, when the time came, go away from Columbia to a college."
"Grace got her wardrobe, refused her mother’s offer of a little car, and entered the University of Missouri as a freshman student."
"I have taught at this University for nearly forty years."
"The dying are selfish, he thought; they want their moments to themselves, like children."
"He was himself, and he knew what he had been."