John Cheever Quotes

Divorce is a time of change. It really rocks a foundation of most people's lives. When we have our heart broken or our dreams taken away from us, it is a time of growth and change.

The winter of 1991 found me stunned and shivering in the aftermath of an imploded love affair. Being 26, I flung myself actorishly on London and, without any intimations of my own ludicrousness, spent two years showing God what I thought of Him by letting myself go.

Divorce was the darkest, saddest place I had ever been. It was a struggle - there were a good four or five months of not being able to get out of bed. It was the worst time in my life. You get through it. It's a process that's not easy, but I get less and less sad about it every day.

I’m a screwed-up person who no longer knows how to communicate with the people I love. But I meant everything I told you in my letter. If I were your Nikki, I would have come back to you on Christmas Day, but I’m not Nikki. I know. And I’m sorry.

I held his gaze. I could see the storm in his eyes. I knew he was confused. I could see the fear. Then there was the love. I saw it. The fierceness in his eyes. I believed it. I could see it clearly. But it was too late now. The love wasn't enough. Everyone always said that love was enough. It wasn't. Not when your soul was shattered.

Four be the things I'd have been better without: love, curiosity, freckles and doubt.

Into love and out again, Thus I went and thus I go. Spare your voice, and hold your pen: Well and bitterly I know All the songs were ever sung, All the words were ever said; Could it be, when I was young, Someone dropped me on my head?

As the smoke clears, I awaken, And untangle you from me. Would it make you feel better To watch me, while I bleed? All my windows still are broken, But I'm standing on my feet.

Love can really screw you up before you learn to live with it.

Woman! Do you ever look inside? Do you ever look inside and see what you are not? God!

It can take years of tears to melt the hardness that develops in this world, covering our tender, gentler inner selves. Tears for every devastating loss, tears for every humiliating failure, tears for every repeated mistake. Those who honor those tears, and even honor them, are not failures at love but rather its true initiates. First the pain and then the power. First the heart breaks and then it soars.

I have been heart broken. You can't breathe, your eyes are pouring a thousand tears a second and you can't foresee going on with love because you never want to feel this way again. But then you have to look in the mirror and say 'Shut up, eat some ice cream, be by yourself for a while and think about who you are and who you want to be - then, go out and find someone compatible.' A broken heart feels like the worst thing in the whole world, but it really helps you decide what you want and don't want. You learn a lot from a broken heart.

I have two lovely sons and some good memories, but I've had a rather tumultuous personal life. It hasn't been dull; I've been the Hiroshima of love.

It's hard listening to myself.

All of my close friends are emotional train wrecks. This is what makes our lives interesting - constantly doubting ourselves, worrying, wondering if we've made a mistake. Could we have done better? Are we good people? Are we bad people?

Sometimes you have to lie to yourself to get through the criticism, and then you're in your closet crying. It's been like that for me a couple of times, but I only want to learn from those things.

I enjoy playing characters who are struggling, particularly with themselves.

When you go through heartbreak, you just do the things that get you by. Eventually, you realise it's about making the most of life.

Everyone has monsters and demons within themselves. They're metaphors for the human condition.

A lot of the time, I write in the third person, but I'm mostly describing my own ordeals. When those unsettled struggles prey on your mind, you become haunted. To get free, you must defeat your ghosts.

Identity has been such an explosive territory for me... so hard, so painful at times.

I'm a victim of my own insides. There was a time when I wanted to know everything. It used to make me very unhappy, all that feeling. I just didn't know what to do with it. But now I've learned to make that feeling work for me.

I regret so much. I've made mistakes. I've hurt people. I've done things I'm not proud of. But on the other hand, that way lies madness, you know?

I look in the mirror, and what I see is someone who has never grown up - a crashing sentimentalist who alternates between great heights and black depths.