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Strange and predatory and truly dangerous, car thieves and muggers—they seem to jeopardize all our cherished concepts, even our self-esteem, our property rights, our powers of love, our laws and pleasures. The only relationship we seem to have with them is scorn or bewilderment, but they belong somewhere on the dark prairies of a country that is in the throes of self-discovery.

— John Cheever The Journals of John Cheever (1991)

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More quotes by John Cheever

Wisdom we know is the knowledge of good and evil not the strength to choose between the two.

The Journals of John Cheever (1991)

I do not understand the capricious lewdness of the sleeping mind.

The Journals of John Cheever (1991)

All literary men are Red Sox fans—to be a Yankee fan in a literate society is to endanger your life.

When the beginnings of self-destruction enter the heart it seems no bigger than a grain of sand.

The Journals of John Cheever (1991)

The need to write comes from the need to make sense of one’s life and discover one’s usefulness.

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Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: John Cheever (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.