Quotes by John Knowles

Once again I had the desolating sense of having all along ignored what was finest in him. Perhaps it was just the incongruity of seeing him aloft and stricken, since he was by nature someone who carried others. I didnt think he knew how to act or even how to feel as the object of help.

I was beginning to see that Phineas could get away with anything. I couldnt help envying him that a little, which was perfectly normal. There was no harm in envying even your best friend a little

My misery was too deep to speak any more. I scanned the page; I was having trouble breathing, as though the oxygen were leaving the room. Amid its devastation my mind flashed from thought to thought, despairingly in search of something left which it could rely on. Not rely on absolutely, that was obliterated as a possibility, just rely on a little,some solace, something surviving in the ruin.

Phineas didnt really dislike West Point in particular or authority in general, but just considered authority the necessary evil against which happiness was achieved by reaction, the backboard which returned all the insults he threw at it.

Teenagers today are more free to be themselves and to accept themselves.