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Walker Percy Biography

Walker Percy, Obl.S.B. (May 28, 1916 – May 10, 1990) was an American author from Covington, Louisiana, whose interests included philosophy and semiotics. Percy is known for his philosophical novels set in and around New Orleans, the first of which, The Moviegoer, won the U.S. National Book Award for Fiction. He devoted his literary life to the exploration of "the dislocation of man in the modern age." His work displays a combination of existential questioning, Southern sensibility, and deep Catholic faith.

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Walker Percy Quotes

You can get all A's and still flunk life.

Education, Flunk, Life, Life Learning, School

We love those who know the worst of us and don't turn their face away.

Friendship, Know, Love, Real, Worst

One of the peculiar ironies of being a human self in the Cosmos: A stranger approaching you in the street will in a second's glance see you whole, size you up, place you in a way in which you cannot and never will, even though you have spent a lifetime with yourself, live in the Century of the Self, and therefore ought to know yourself best of all.

Ought, Peculiar, Self, Size, Whole

For some time now the impression has been growing upon me that everyone is dead. It happens when I speak to people. In the middle of a sentence it will come over me: yes, beyond a doubt this is death. There is little to do but groan and make an excuse and slip away as quickly as one can.

Away, Doubt, Growing, Make, People

The conviction: I will not tolerate this age. The freedom: the freedom to act on my conviction. And I will act. No one else has both the conviction and the freedom. Many agree with me, have the conviction, but will not act. Some act, assassinate, bomb, burn, etc. , but they are the crazies. Crazy acts by crazy people. But what if one, sober, reasonable, and honorable man should act, and act with perfect sobriety, reason, and honor? Then you have the beginning of a new age. We shall start a new order of things.

Crazy, Etc, Honorable, Honorable Man, Men, Start

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

Alcohol, Bourbon, Cake, Doe, Piece

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

Grief, Grieve, Heartbreak, Loss

Lucky is the man who does not secretly believe that every possibility is open to him.

Believe, Doe, Men, Open, Possibility, Secretly

They all think any minute I'm going to commit suicide. What a joke. The truth of course is the exact opposite: suicide is the only thing that keeps me alive. Whenever everything else fails, all I have to do is consider suicide and in two seconds I'm as cheerful as a nitwit. But if I could not kill myself -- ah then, I would. I can do without nembutal or murder mysteries but not without suicide.

Alive, Commit, Joke, Murder Mysteries, Suicide, Thinking

Other people, so I have read, treasure memorable moments in their lives: the time one climbed the Parthenon at sunrise, the summer night one met a lonely girl in Central Park and achieved with her a sweet and natural relationship, as they say in books. I too once met a girl in Central Park, but it is not much to remember. What I remember is the time John Wayne killed three men with a carbine as he was falling to the dusty street in Stagecoach, and the time the kitten found Orson Welles in the doorway in The Third Man.

Central, Girl, Lonely, Street, Summer, Sweet

Peace is only better than war when it's not hell too. War being hell makes sense.

Hell, Peace, Politics, Sense, War

Bad books always lie. They lie most of all about the human condition.

Book, Condition, Human, Human Condition, Lie, Lying

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.

Bored, Dog, Gets, Man, Men, Sleep

Boredom is the self being stuffed with itself.

Blessing, Boredom, Self, Stuffed

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

Catholic, Eat, Hymns, Mass, Waiting

Nowadays when a person lives somewhere, in a neighborhood, the place is not certified for him. More than likely he will live there sadly and the emptiness which is inside him will expand until it evacuates the entire neighborhood. But if he sees a movie which shows his very neighborhood, it becomes possible for him to live, for a time at least, as a person who is Somewhere and not Anywhere.

Anywhere, Emptiness, Old Neighborhood, Possible, Sees, Shows

It is possible, however, that the artist is both thin-skinned and prophetic and, like the canary lowered into the mine shaft to test the air, has caught a whiff of something lethal.

Air, Artist, Lethal, Prophetic, Test, Tests

It is not a bad thing to settle for the Little Way, not the big search for the big happiness but the sad little happiness of drinks and kisses, a good little car and a warm deep thigh.

Car, Kisses, Kissing, Littles, Settle, Way

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

Discovered, Doe, Free, Fun, Person, Persons

I couldn't stand it. I still can't stand it. I can't stand the way things are. I cannot tolerate this age.

Age, Tolerate, Way

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