John Dufresne famous quotes

03-24-2025

The universe may be tenderly indifferent to our fate, but we shouldnâ€™t be. We are our brothersâ€™ keepers. There is right, and there is wrong. There are consequences to our actions or inactions. Disregard can be an act of violence.
-- John Dufresne

#Brother #Fate #May
Reading honest literature makes you love the world. Knowledge and understanding are love. Reading educates our feelings and enhances our sympathy. When you read for understanding, you are fundamentally changed. You are a different person at the end of the story or the novel than you were when it began.
-- John Dufresne

#Reading #Understanding #Feelings
You will feel discouraged; you will lose confidence in your abilities; you will be bored with the charactersâ€“and the only way to overcome these obstacles is to write your way through them. And writing always works.
-- John Dufresne

#Writing #Character #Bored
A lack of narrative structure, as you know, will cause anxiety.
-- John Dufresne

#Anxiety #Narrative #Causes
We read novels because we need stories; we crave them; we canâ€™t live without telling them and hearing them. Stories are how we make sense of our lives and of the world. When weâ€™re distressed and go to therapy, our therapistâ€™s job is to help us tell our story. Life doesnâ€™t come with plots; itâ€™s messy and chaotic; life is one damn, inexplicable thing after another. And we canâ€™t have that. We insist on meaning. And so we tell stories so that our lives make sense.
-- John Dufresne

#Jobs #Plot #Needs
Every act of loving affirms the goodness of the lover just because he is capable of loving and being loved.
-- John Dufresne

#Lovers #Goodness #Capable
Pleasure is, after all, a luxury. It's love that's essential.
-- John Dufresne

#Luxury #Essentials #Pleasure
A pure love is a selfless love, but can desire ever be selfless?
-- John Dufresne

#Love Is #Desire #Selfless
Every person in therapy has a love disorder.
-- John Dufresne

#Disorder #Therapy #Persons
I used to believe that love and happiness were synonymous. I was a fool. Love intensifies all emotions. Nothing is so painful o so sweet, so thrilling or so desperate... Pleasure is, after all, a luxury. It's love thats essential. You are never so alive as when you love, never so alert, intuitive, attentive, never so smart or so compassionate.
-- John Dufresne

#Sweet #Smart #Believe
You lose a wallet or keys or something and you notice in a second, but your life can go missing and you don't even know it.
-- John Dufresne

#Keys #Missing #Wallets
You can't possibly conduct a proper affair without a lot of deliberating, scheming, speculating, and conniving. It's a delicate balance where the excitement must equal the guilt and sex must be as bright as the future you gamble.
-- John Dufresne

#Sex #Balance #Guilt
Love is anticipation and memory, uncertainty and longing. Itâ€™s unreasonable, of course. Nothing begins with so much excitement and hope and pleasure as love, except maybe writing a story. And nothing fails as often, except writing stories. And like a story, love must be troubled to be interesting.
-- John Dufresne

#Memories #Writing #Love Is
Novels are written, not wished into existence. You have to sit your ***** in the chair or nothing gets done.
-- John Dufresne

#Writing #Done #Ass

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