80+ John Williams Quotes

John Edward Williams was an American professor, editor, and author.

He was born on August 29, 1922. The novels 'Stoner', 'Butcher's Crossing', and 'Augustus', which earned a US National Book Award, are the ones for which he is most remembered.

Williams grew up in the Texan town of Clarksville. His stepfather worked as a janitor at a post office; his grandparents were peasants. Williams spent a year studying at a nearby junior college, followed by a period of media work, before deciding to enlist in the US Army Air Force in early 1942 and contributing to the war effort. He served as a sergeant in India and Burma for two and a half years.

Spanish, Italian, French, German, Croatian, and Portuguese are just a few languages into which 'Stoner' has been translated. The French literary establishment has embraced Williams' novel with enthusiasm partly because of the renowned novelist Anna Gavalda's translation into French.

These John Williams quotes from his writing will make you want to read his work.

“His mother regarded her life patiently as if it were a long moment that she had to endure.”

― 'Stoner'.

“But William Stoner knew of the world in a way that few of his younger colleagues could understand. Deep in him, beneath his memory, was the knowledge of hardship and hunger and endurance and pain.”

―'Stoner'.

“Sometimes, immersed in his books, there would come to him the awareness of all that he did not know, of all that he had not read; and the serenity for which he labored was shattered as he realized the little time he had in life to read so much, to learn what he had to know.”

“In his forty-third year William Stoner learned what others, much younger, had learned before him: that the person one loves at first is not the person one loves at last, and that love is not an end but a process through which one person attempts to know another.”

“But there is much that cannot go into books, and that is the loss with which I become increasingly concerned.”

― 'Augustus'.

“A man may live like a fool for a year, and become wise in a day.”

―'Augustus'.

“He felt himself at last beginning to be a teacher, which is 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.”

― 'Stoner'.

“You must remember what you are and what you have chosen to become, and the significance of what you are doing. There are wars and defeats and victories of the human race that are not military and that are not recorded in the annals of history. Remember that while you're trying to decide what to do.”

“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.”

“Within a month he knew that his marriage was a failure; within a year he stopped hoping that it would improve.”

― 'Stoner'.

“... dat de liefde geen eindpunt is, maar een proces, waarin de een probeert de ander te leren kennen ...” (“...that love is not an end point, but a process in which one tries to get to know the other...”)

― 'Stoner'.

“Like all lovers, they spoke much of themselves, as if they might thereby understand the world which made them possible.”

“... un etica che gli imponeva di offrire al mondo tiranno visi sempre inespressivi, rigidi e spenti.”("... an ethic that required him to offer the tyrant world faces that were always inexpressive, rigid and lifeless.")

“The dying are selfish, he thought; they want their moments to themselves, like children.”

“While they talked they remembered the years of their youth, and each thought of the other as he had been at another time.”

“But the required survey of English literature troubled and disquieted him in a way nothing had ever done before.”

― 'Stoner'.

“There was a softness around him, and a languor crept upon his limbs. A sense of his own identity came upon him with sudden force, and he felt the power of it. He was himself, and he knew what he had been.”

― 'Stoner'.

“No, sir,” Stoner said, and the decisiveness of his voice surprised him. He thought with some wonder of the decision he had suddenly made.”

― 'Stoner'.

“For a few moments in the evening, then, they talked quietly and casually, as if they were old friends or exhausted enemies.”

“she spoke as if the future were a hypothetical problem to be solved.”

“He listened to his words fall as if from the mouth of another, and watched his father’s face, which received those words as a stone receives the repeated blows of a fist.”

“Every victory enlarges the magnitude of our possible defeat.”

―'Augustus'.

“'But don't you know, Mr Stoner?' Sloane asked. 'Don't you understand about yourself yet? You're going to be a teacher.'”

―'Stoner'.

“It was himself that he was attempting to define as he worked on his study. It was himself that he was slowing shaping, it was himself that he was putting into a kind of order, it was himself that he was making possible.”

― 'Stoner'.

“A war doesn’t merely kill off a few thousand or a few hundred thousand young men. It kills off something in a people that can never be brought back. And if a people goes through enough wars, pretty soon all that’s left is the brute, the creature that we—you and I and others like us—have brought up from the slime.”

“a quotation from the Spanish philosopher Ortega y Gasset as an epigraph for Stoner: “A hero is one who wants to be himself.”

― 'Stoner'.

“but his long thin fingers moved with grace and persuasion, as if giving to the words a shape that his voice could not.”

―'Stoner'.

“When at last he came to his decision, it seemed to him that he had known all along what it would be.”

― 'Stoner'.

“He was forty-two years old, and he could see nothing before him that he wished to enjoy and little behind him that he cared to remember.”

“When he had thought of death before, he had thought of it either as a literary event or as the slow, quiet attrition of time against imperfect flesh.”

― 'Stoner'.

“What did you expect? he asked himself.”

―'Stoner'.

“He was gripped by what he could think of only as numbness, though he knew it was a feeling compounded of emotions so deep and intense that they could not be acknowledged because they could not be lived with.”

― 'Stoner'.

“That is the very best time of life, he thought again: when you are very young when living is a simple, perfect succession of golden days.”

―'Nothing But the Night'.

“Like many men who consider their success incomplete, he was extraordinarily vain and consumed with a sense of his own importance.”

―'Stoner'.

"you are the dreamer, the madman in a madder world,"

“She turned to him and pulled her lips in what he knew must be a smile. “Not at all. I’m having a lovely time. Really.”

― 'Stoner'.

“So we are of the world, after all; we should have known that. We did know it, I believe; but we had to withdraw a little, pretend a little, so that we could—”

― 'Stoner'.

“One does not deceive oneself about the consequences of one's acts; one deceives oneself about the ease with which one can live with those consequences.”

“In the University library he wandered through the stacks, among the thousands of books, inhaling the musty odor of leather, cloth, and drying page as if it were an exotic incense.”

“He looked at them curiously, as if he had not seen them before, and felt very distant from them and very close to them.”

―'Stoner'.

“he felt the logic of grammar, and he thought he perceived how it spread out from itself, permeating the language and supporting human thought.”

― 'Stoner'.

“They do the work, and he gets all the money. They think he’s a crook, and he thinks they’re fools. You can’t blame either side; they’re both right.”

― 'Butcher's Crossing'.

“He was our enemy, but as it is strange, after so many years the death of an old enemy is like the death of an old friend.”

― 'Augustus'.

“Mrs. Bostwick’s face was heavy and lethargic, without any strength or delicacy, and it bore the deep marks of what must have been a habitual dissatisfaction.”

―'Stoner'.

“That the one could intensify the other had never occurred to them; and since the embodiment came before the recognition of the truth, it seemed a discovery that belonged to them alone.”

―'Stoner'.

“He did his work at the University as he did his work on the farm—thoroughly, conscientiously, with neither pleasure nor distress.”

―'Stoner'.

“Stoner saw them through a haze, as if he were an audience.”

―'Stoner'.

“Finch turned to the other men and without raising his voice managed to call out to them.”

―'Stoner'.

“And we have come out of this, at least, with ourselves. We know that we are — what we are.”

― 'Stoner'.

“To care not for one’s self is of little moment, but to care not for those whom one has loved is another matter.”

―'Augustus'.

Inspirations can be taken from any unexpected thing. Similarly, writers take inspiration from the least expected place and create a beautiful piece of work.

"She has always seemed to me the epitome of womankind: coldly suspicious, politely ill-tempered, and narrowly selfish."

"Beneath his awe, he had a sudden sense of security and serenity he had never felt before."

"The iconoclasm need not be loud and messy, I can almost hear him saying,"

"Rather awkwardly shy and therefore at times defensive and rather too assertive"

"And so, like many others, their honeymoon was a failure; yet they would not admit this to themselves, and they did not realize the significance of the failure until long afterward."

"John Williams is best known for his novels, Nothing But the Night, Stoner, Butcher's Crossing, and Augustus, for which he won the National Book Award in 1973."

"That the one could intensify the other had never occurred to them; and since the embodiment came before the recognition of the truth, it seemed a discovery that belonged to them alone."

"Stoner saw them through a haze, as if he were an audience."

"From the marriage had come only one child; he had wanted a son and had got a girl, and that was another disappointment he hardly bothered to conceal."

"No, sir, Stoner said, and the decisiveness of his voice surprised him. He thought with some wonder of the decision he had suddenly made."

"For my friends do not desert me, and life stays; for those two things I must be grateful."

"Mrs. Bostwick's face was heavy and lethargic, without any strength or delicacy, and it bore the deep marks of what must have been a habitual dissatisfaction."

"Finch turned to the other men and without raising his voice managed to call out to them."

"But we were never really - together. Even when we made love."

"He thought of the years before, the distant years with his parents on the farm, and of the deadness from which he had been miraculously revived."

"She turned to him and pulled her lips in what he knew must be a smile. Not at all. I'm having a lovely time. Really."

"To care not for one's self is of little moment, but to care not for those whom one has loved is another matter."

"William Stoner felt a kinship that he had not suspected; he knew that Lomax had gone through a kind of conversion, an epiphany of knowing something through words that could not be put in words."

"Looking at her, Stoner was assailed by a consciousness of his own heavy clumsiness."

"They walked with some purpose, yet without particular hurry,"

"A WEEK BEFORE commencement, at which Stoner was to receive his doctorate, Archer Sloane offered him a full-time instructorship at the University."

(These John Williams quotes will bring a smile to your face)

Writers tend to develop fresh perspectives every now and then, and that can help many people learn from their experiences.

"He did his work at the University as he did his work on the farm - thoroughly, conscientiously, with neither pleasure nor distress."

"Sloane looked at him for a moment, his eyes bright and intent as they had been before the war. Then the film of indifference settled over them, and he turned away from Stoner and shuffled some papers on his desk."

"Innocent of fashion or custom, they came to their studies as Stoner had dreamed that a student might as if those studies were life itself and not specific means to specific ends."

"Deliberately, as if committing himself to something, he stepped forward and walked down the path to the porch and knocked on the front door."

"Busying herself with inconsequential tasks."

"He was our enemy, but as it is strange, after so many years the death of an old enemy is like the death of an old friend."

"And it occurred to him at last, with the finality of knowledge, that he had never known another human being with any intimacy or trust or with the human warmth of commitment."