Thomas H. Cook Quotes & Sayings

A man with no one to revere, Julian said, is a man alone.' At that moment, he seemed to consider such loneliness the worst of fates, a sentence he would not have imposed upon the vilest man on earth. And yet, at times, I thought now, he had seemed to impose that very loneliness upon himself. — Thomas H. Cook

When he died, I felt like a dark, devouring force had been stilled at last. I wore his death like wings. — Thomas H. Cook

The world has plenty of noise, Julian, but not many voices. And because there are so few, each one matters ... That's my argument. The simple fact that we need people who remind us of the darkness. — Thomas H. Cook

She was a woman of extended silences, I noticed, and she said very little as we walked the streets of La Boca, looking at its brightly colored houses. It was as if she understood that quiet observation was the key to knowing a place, perhaps even the key to life. — Thomas H. Cook

I like characters who are changed, often for the better, by the dark nature of their experiences. I also can become engaged by a character for whom I wish to see justice done, one way or the other. In general, I require a book to have some sort of moral center. — Thomas H. Cook

The last best hope of life is that at some point during living it, all that you did wrong will suddenly teach you to do right. — Thomas H. Cook

Risk will always be a part of life. It's how we recognize this and deal with it that matters. — Thomas H. Cook

It is important to keep old things, he insisted, because it was through them alone that new things could be judged. — Thomas H. Cook

All Nature is but Art, unknown to thee; All Chance, Direction, which thou canst not see; All Discord, Harmony not understood All partial Evil, universal Good. - ALEXANDER POPE, An Essay on Man — Thomas H. Cook

Babes crying in the wilderness know that the world already has plenty of terrifying noise, but there aren't enough clear voices to smooth our troubled journey through the darkness ... only a few can speak truth to power. — Thomas H. Cook

A horribly protracted death that would stretch into the indefinite future, a death not in one month or two or even three but one that might go on and on, with the whole process of dying getting worse every single day for years and years and years. — Thomas H. Cook

It's not that we grow old, I thought, but that we grow old in decline and discomfort, and these hardships are made worse by the awareness that nothing will improve. No coming days will dawn brighter than the last that dawned, and this sorrow is further deepened by a fear of death ... — Thomas H. Cook

Some truths hit harder than others. — Thomas H. Cook

A traveler enters the world into which he travels, but a tourist brings his own world with him and never sees the one he's in. — Thomas H. Cook

At a certain point memory becomes a beach strewn with landmines, all life's many losses buried in those sands. — Thomas H. Cook

Loretta's eyes flashed. "Is that what gets you through the night, Philip?" she asked. "Choosing to believe something, whether it's true or not?"
"In one way or another, Loretta, isn't that what gets everyone through the night?" I asked. — Thomas H. Cook

He looked at me intently, from what seemed behind the veil of a grave experience. Then slowly and prophetically, he said the scariest thing I'd ever heard: Because the answer to a heartfelt question, Jack, will always break your heart. — Thomas H. Cook

I went to the Alabama public schools at a time when my English teachers, all but one of whom was a woman, taught nothing but the classics. They revered the great British and American writers. — Thomas H. Cook

Perspective gets lost in moral certainties. Which only means that no one was ever burned at the stake by a doubter. — Thomas H. Cook

Life to me is defined by uncertainty. Uncertainty is the state in which we live, and there is no way to outfox it. — Thomas H. Cook

I decided that there was perhaps no ash quite so cold as the one left by an unrealized ambition ... — Thomas H. Cook