"The Stories of John Cheever" Quotes

The main emotion of the adult Northeastern heartland is exhaustion.

I cannot say how first the idea entered my brain; but once conceived, it haunted me day and night.

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

I was drawn to all the wrong things: I liked to drink, I was lazy, I didn't have a god, politics, ideas, ideals.

The place looked like a painting by Salvador Dali, if Dali had been into neglected tennis courts and swimming pools.

A story is like something you wind out of yourself. Like a spider, it is a web you weave, and you love your story like a child.

Habit is necessary; it is the habit of having habits, of turning a trail into a rut, that must be incessantly fought against if one is to remain alive.

I'm a writer, and I expect to be allowed to write.

America is a vast conspiracy to make you happy.

The evening was as I had expected it to be—lonely, isolated, and melancholy.