John Fowles, The Magus Quotes

The most important questions in life can never be answered by anyone except oneself.

An answer is always a form of death.

To write poetry and to commit suicide, apparently so contradictory, had really been the same, attempts at escape.

He was one of the most supremely stupid men I have ever met. He taught me a great deal.

If a person is intelligent, then of course he is either an agnostic or an atheist. Just as he is a physical coward. They are automatic definitions of high intelligence.

Think. In a minute from now you could be saying, I risked death. I threw for life, and I won life. It is a very wonderful feeling. To have survived.

Liking other people is an illusion we have to cherish in ourselves if we are to live in society.

The world began in hazard and will end in it.

Wolves don't hunt singly, but always in pairs. The lone wolf was a myth.

The craving to risk death is our last great perversion. We come from night, we go into night. Why live in night?

The dead live." "How do they live?" "By love.

So that the smile was not so much an attitude to be taken to life as the nature of the cruelty of life, a cruelty we cannot even choose to avoid, since it is human existence.

...there are times when silence is a poem.

Because they died, we know we still live. Because a star explodes and a thousand worlds like ours die, we know this world is. That is the smile: that what might not be, is.

Sometimes to return is a vulgarity.

Labor is a man crowning glory.""Not this man's.""I quote Marx"I raised my hands. The pickaxe handle had been rough."I quote blisters.

Death starves us of life. So we learn to fabricate our own immortalities.

Now I understand why you grow so many flowers."She shifted her head, not understanding.I said, "To cover the stink of sulphur.

That is how war corrupts us. It plays on our pride in our own free will.

And I envy you. You have the one thing that matters. You have all your discoveries before you.

Why should I struggle through hundreds of pages of fabrication to reach half a dozen very little truths?''For fun?''Fun!' He pounced on the word. 'Words are for truth. For facts. Not fiction.

You're not me. You can't feel like I feel.""I can feel.""No you can't. You just choose not to feel or something and everything's fine.""It's not fine. It's just not so bad.

The height the dupe has fallen is measured by his anger.

Think what it would be like if you got back to your island and there was no old man, no girl any more. No mysterious fun and games. The whole place locked up forever.

I needed a new mystery.

He had the charm of all people who believe implicitly in themselves, that of integration.

But he was absolutely alone. No one ever wrote to him. Visited him. Totally alone. And I believe the happiest man I have ever met.

Liking other people is an illusion we have to cherish if we are to live in society. It is one I have long ago banished from my life. You wish to be liked. I wish simply to be.

I'm only happy when I forget to exist. When just my eyes or my ears or my skin exist.

Poetry had always seemed something I could turn to in need - an emergency exit, a lifebuoy, as well as a justification.

I don't believe in God. And I certainly don't feel chosen.""I think you may be."I smiled dubiously. "Thank you.""It is not meant as a compliment. Hazard makes you elect. You cannot elect yourself.