The deep joy we take in the company of people with whom we have just recently fallen in love is undisguisable.
John CheeverRead
What I am going to write is the last of what I have to say. I will say that literature is the only consciousness we possess and that its role as consciousness must inform us of our ability to comprehend the hideous danger of nuclear power.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Cheever emphasizes the importance of literature in shaping our understanding of the world and the dangers we face, particularly regarding nuclear power.
In this quote, John Cheever articulates the idea that literature serves as a fundamental aspect of human consciousness, enabling us to grasp complex and frightening realities, such as the threat posed by nuclear power. He suggests that through literature, we can gain insights into our own existence and the moral and ethical dilemmas that arise in contemporary society, urging us to be critically aware of the implications of technological advancement.
Themes
LiteratureConsciousnessNuclear PowerDangerComprehension
In practice
Example use cases
In a lecture on the significance of literature in education, one might cite Cheever's quote to underscore the power of storytelling in shaping societal awareness.
More from John Cheever
All quotes →For me a page of good prose is where one hears the rain. A page of good prose is when one hears the noise of battle.... A page of good prose seems to me the most serious dialogue that well-informed and intelligent men and women carry on today in their endeavor to make sure that the fires of this planet burn peaceably.
John CheeverRead
For me, a page of good prose is where one hears the rain and the noise of battle. It has the power to give grief or universality that lends it a youthful beauty.
John CheeverRead
The world that was not mine yesterday now lies spread out at my feet, a splendor. I seem, in the middle of the night, to have returned to the world of apples, the orchards of Heaven. Perhaps I should take my problems to a shrink, or perhaps I should enjoy the apples that I have, streaked with color like the evening sky.
John CheeverRead
Art is the triumph over chaos.
John CheeverRead
The short story is the literature of the nomad.
John CheeverRead
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In my case, literature is a kind of revenge. It's something that gives me what real life can't give me - all the adventures, all the suffering. All the experiences I can only live in the imagination, literature completes.
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I have this belief that we are so vulnerable when we open ourselves up to literature. We're reminded of these real parts of ourselves.
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...in other words, all I want to be is the Jane Austen of south Alabama Interview - March 1964
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Each book, intuitively sensed and, in the case of fiction, intuitively worked out, stands on what has gone before, and grows out of it. I feel that at any stage of my literary career it could have been said that the last book contained all the others.
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