In the Freudian age, parents say to their children, ‘Don’t be defensive,’ meaning, ‘You have no argument,’ but I was born in the age of Rommel, when defense was considered an honorable thing. Mark Helprin Read Quote
I have seen lonely people of advancing age, yet as constant as angels, keeping faith to those they loved who fell in wars that current generations, not having known them, cannot even forget. The sight of them moving hesitantly among the tablets and crosses is enough to break your heart. Mark Helprin Read Quote
I wrote a great deal of a novel, ‘Winter’s Tale,’ on the roof of a Brooklyn Heights tenement on Henry Street. I was a technical climber, and now and then I would put down my manuscript and get up to walk along parapets and climb walls and chimneys. Mark Helprin Read Quote
One of the things I worked very hard on all my life was to be like everyone else. I tried very hard to fit in. Mark Helprin Read Quote
If one accepts Hezbollah’s self-description as a resistance movement, in which case one must, in light of the fact that Hezbollah never ceases to provoke, view Israel’s mere existence as a continuing act of aggression, then Hezbollah has indeed shown that it can initiate conflict, resist, and survive. Mark Helprin Read Quote
I used to write exclusively with one particular Montblanc fountain pen, although lately I have had to use a roller-tip fountain pen, because I find it harder and harder to control the fine muscles of my right hand during prolonged periods of work. I buy boxes of Deluxe Uni-ball pens, use them until they start to drag, and then change. Mark Helprin Read Quote
The best way to meet a woman is in an emergency situation – if you’re in a shipwreck, or you find yourself behind enemy lines, or in a flood. Mark Helprin Read Quote
Marxists are people whose insides are torn up day after day because they want to rule the world and no one will even publish their letter to the editor. Mark Helprin Read Quote
The human race is intoxicated with narrow victories, for life is a string of them like pearls that hit the floor when the rope breaks, and roll away in perfection and anarchy. Mark Helprin Read Quote
