John Henrik Clarke Quotes

If you think Independence Day is America's defining holiday, think again. Thanksgiving deserves that title, hands-down.

There is one day that is ours. Thanksgiving Day is the one day that is purely American.

You are going to love some of your characters because they are you or some facet of you, and you are going to hate some of your characters for the same reason.

But to fall in love does not mean to love. One can fall in love and still hate.

The basis of national identity is to say, "This is authentic to me or my forebears," and is there even such a thing? How authentic is it to your life? Just because your grandfather did it, what does that have to do with you? If I say I'm working in the style of Rembrandt, so what? You can say it, but are you really? No, because when you try to literally copy a cultural artifact, you change it. It dissolves, and then who's looking at it? People who appreciate that kind of drawing, or people it means nothing to?

She was very near hating him now; yet the sound of his voice, the way the light fell on his thin, dark hair, the way he sat and moved and wore his clothes—she was conscious that even these trivial things were inwoven with her deepest life.

Frank Sinatra enjoyed my humor, so I could say almost anything to him. I mean, within reason.

I don't hate too many guys. What I may do, I may hate them for a little while, like this guy Stradlater I knew at Pencey, and this other boy, Robert Ackley. I hate them once in a while—I admit it—but it doesn't last too long, is what I mean. After a while, if I didn't see them, if they didn't come in the room, or if I didn't see them in the dining room for a couple of meals, I sort of missed them. I mean I sort of missed them.

What does music mean to you? What would you do without music?

What we're really talking about is a wonderful day set aside on the fourth Thursday of November when no one diets. I mean, why else would they call it Thanksgiving?

I can’t explain what I mean. And even if I could, I’m not sure I’d feel like it.

Thanksgiving was nothing more than a pilgrim-created obstacle in the way of Christmas; a dead bird in the street that forced a brief detour.

If you want respect for your past, it means that you have a problem with your present and even more with your future.

I'm not who you think i am. If you love me, you love me for the wrong reasons.

Sunday was always the best of days for being the self you had intended to be, but were not, for one reason or another.

If you but knew the flames that burn in me which I attempt to beat down with my reason.

Music is everybody's possession.

The worst evil that you can do, psychologically, is to laugh at yourself. That means spitting in your own face.

I know not to trust anyone," i say. "Except..." Holly studies my face. "You do fancy him, don't you? What a strange, wonderful, repressed place this is.

I guess I stayed with the faith. I mean, organized religion is not something that I've maintained a direct connection to in my life, but the spirituality of it has had an indelible impact on my life and remains with me.

How can someone have the power to shatter you to dust--and also to make you feel so whole?

But I like it Because it is bitter, And because it is my heart.

There are lines that just stick with me, like I mean I still can remember it's like every line that I say from Nightcrawler, I mean it's just always there.

Love doesn't need a reason. Hate needs a reason.

You must pray with all your might. That does not mean saying your prayers, or sitting gazing about in church or chapel with eyes wide open while someone else says them for you. It means fervent, effectual, untiring wrestling with God. This kind of prayer be sure the devil and the world and your own indolent, unbelieving nature will oppose. They will pour water on this flame.