James Jones famous quotes

Last updated: Sep 5, 2024

That was one of the virtues of being a pessimist: nothing was ever as bad as you thought it would be.
-- James Jones

#Would Be #Virtue #Pessimist
The quality which makes man want to write and be read is essentially a desire for self-exposure and masochism. Like one of those guys who has a compulsion to take his thing out and show it on the street.
-- James Jones

#Writing #Men #Self
If I never meet you In this life Let me feel the lack A glance from your eyes Then my life Will be yours
-- James Jones

#Eye #This Life #Glances
War don't ennoble men, it turns 'em into dogs. It poisons the soul.
-- James Jones

#Dog #War #Men
Up until then it had only been himself. Up to then it had been a private wrestle between him and himself. Nobody else much entered into it. After the people came into it he was, of course, a different man. Everything had changed then and he was no longer the virgin, with the virgin's right to insist upon platonic love. Life, in time, takes every maidenhead, even if it has to dry it up; it does not matter how the owner wants to keep it. Up to then he had been the young idealist. But he could not stay there. Not after the other people entered into it.
-- James Jones

#Love Life #Men #People
The main trouble with being an honest man was that it lost you all your illusions.
-- James Jones

#Men #Honest #Trouble
He knew how to handle pain. You had to lie down with pain, not draw back away from it. You let yourself sort of move around the outside edge of pain like with cold water until you finally got up your nerve to take yourself in hand. Then you took a deep breath and dove in and let yourself sink down it clear to the bottom. And after you had been down inside pain a while you found that like with cold water it was not nearly as cold as you had thought it was when your muscles were cringing themselves away from the outside edge of it as you moved around it trying to get up your nerve. He knew pain.
-- James Jones

#Pain #Lying #Moving
The little bit you and me might change the world," Malloy smiled, "it wouldnt show up until a hundred years after we were dead. We'd never see it." "But it'd be there.
-- James Jones

#Years #World #Littles

To stop the flow of music would be like the stopping of time itself, incredible and inconceivable.
The whole problem can be stated quite simply by asking "Is there a meaning to music?" My answer would be, "Yes", And "Can you state in so many words what the meaning is?" My answer to that would be "No."
There is virtue in work and there is virtue in rest. Use both and overlook neither.
Modesty is not one of my virtues.
Relegating conservation to government is like relegating virtue to the Sabbath. Turns over to professionals what should be daily work of amateurs .
People don't like to follow pessimists.
A pessimist is a man who has been compelled to live with an optimist.
A pessimist is just an optimist with experience.
Sometimes a pessimist is only an optimist with extra information.
Nothing of any importance has ever been accomplished by a pessimist.

James Jones famous quotes

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