The Best Walker Percy quotes

But what physician has not had patients who don’t make any sense at all? To tell the truth, they’re our stock–in–trade. We talk and write about the ones we can make sense of. — Walker Percy

Peace is only better than war when it’s not hell too. War being hell makes sense. — Walker Percy

The present age is demented. It is possessed by a sense of dislocation, a loss of personal identity, an alternating sentimentality and rage which, in an individual patient, could be characterized as dementia. — Walker Percy

I have discovered that most people have no one to talk to, no one, that is, who really wants to listen. — Walker Percy

Children notice things first, people later. — Walker Percy

I had discovered that a person does not have to be this or be that or be anything, not even oneself. One is free. — Walker Percy

Have you noticed that only in time of illness or disaster or death are people real? — Walker Percy

Lost in the mystery of finding myself alive. — Walker Percy

Have you noticed that the narrower the view the more you can see? For the first time I understand how old ladies can sit on their porches for years. — Walker Percy

During my last year in college I discovered that I was picking up the mannerisms of Akim Tamiroff, the only useful thing, in fact, that I learned in the entire four years. — Walker Percy

Life is fits and starts, mostly fits. — Walker Percy

A good title should be like a good metaphor. It should intrigue without being too baffling or too obvious. — Walker Percy

What nuns don’t realize is that they look better in nun clothes than J.C. Penney pantsuits. — Walker Percy

Why did God make woman so beautiful and man with such a loving heart? — Walker Percy

School–you can get all A’s and still flunk life. — Walker Percy

Why is it that no other species but man gets bored? Under the circumstances in which a man gets bored, a dog goes to sleep. — Walker Percy

Jews wait for the Lord, Protestants sing hymns to him, Catholics say mass and eat him. — Walker Percy

Why is there such a gap between nonspeaking animals and speaking man, when there is no other such gap in nature? — Walker Percy

Americans are the nicest, most generous, and sentimental people on earth. Yet Americans have killed more unborn children than any nation in history. — Walker Percy

I couldn’t stand it. I still can’t stand it. I can’t stand the way things are. I cannot tolerate this age. — Walker Percy

Nothing remains but desire, and desire comes howling down Elysian Fields like a mistral. — Walker Percy

Bourbon does for me what the piece of cake did for Proust. — Walker Percy

Classes? Categories? Was that what we had come to? — Walker Percy

Maybe there are times when an honest hatred serves us better than love corrupted by sentimentality, meretriciousness, sententiousness, cuteness. — Walker Percy

Since grief only aggravates your loss, grieve not for what is past. — Walker Percy

Not to be onto something is to be in despair. — Walker Percy

In this world, goodness is destined to be defeated. — Walker Percy

A novel is what you call something that won’t sell if you call it poems or short stories. — Walker Percy

Joy and sadness come by turns. — Walker Percy

At that time the only treatment of angelism, that is, excessive abstraction of the self from itself, was recovery of the self through ordeal. — Walker Percy

Boredom is the self being stuffed with itself. — Walker Percy

Suppose you ask God for a miracle and God says yes, very well. How do you live the rest of your life? — Walker Percy

Genius consists not in making great discoveries, but in seeing the connection between small discoveries. — Walker Percy

Nobody but a Southerner knows the wrenching rinsing sadness of the cities of the North. — Walker Percy

The enduring is something which must be accounted for. One cannot simply shrug it off. — Walker Percy

But there is much to be said for giving up … grand ambitions and living the most ordinary life imaginable. — Walker Percy

Being uneducated is no guarantee against being obnoxious. — Walker Percy

To become aware of the possibility of the search is to be onto something. — Walker Percy