Peter De Vries
Peter De Vries
Peter De Vrieswas an American editor and novelist known for his satiric wit. He has been described by the philosopher Daniel Dennett as "probably the funniest writer on religion ever"...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth27 February 1910
CountryUnited States of America
eye vanity giving
He resented such questions as people do who have thought a great deal about them. The superficial and slipshod have ready answers, but those looking this complex life straight in the eye acquire a wealth of perception so composed of delicately balanced contradictions that they dread, or resent, the call to couch any part of it in a bland generalization. The vanity (if not outrage) of trying to cage this dance of atoms in a single definition may give the weariness of age with the cry of youth for answers the appearance of boredom.
believe people suffering
What people believe is a measure of what they suffer.
heart mind together
Before the mind snaps, or the heart breaks, it gather itself like a clock about to strike. It might even be said one pulls himself together to disintegrate.
stars joy may
I made a tentative conclusion. It seemed from all of this that uppermost among human joys is the negative one of restoration: not going to the stars, but learning that one may stay where one is.
men politics politician
A politician is a man who can be verbose in fewer words than anyone else.
home thinking broken
When I can no longer bear to think of the victims of broken homes, I begin to think of the victims of intact ones.
brain ears devices
We know the human brain is a device to keep the ears from grating on one another.
years expanding-universe billions
Anyone informed that the universe is expanding and contracting in pulsations of eighty billion years has a right to ask. What's in it for me?
art food museums
Murals in restaurants are on a par with the food in museums.
adventure boredom pay
We pay for security with boredom, for adventure with bother.
splinters pieces sticks
We are nothing but a string of gut on a stick of bone riding this piece of astral soot for one piteous splinter of eternity.
men
I wondered whether any woman could be happy with a man who says 'folderol'.
writing lasts discouraged
I tried to write worse but it was no good; my generalizations came out as before, each more exquisite than the last. I grew discouraged.
tubas instruments
The tuba is certainly the most intestinal of instruments, the very lower bowel of music.