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Top 30 William Maxwell Quotes (2025 Update)

William Maxwell Quote: “I am the cat that walks alone.”

1. “I am the cat that walks alone.”

— William Maxwell

William Maxwell Quote: “If you turn the imagination loose like a hunting dog, it will often return with the bird in its mouth.”

2. “If you turn the imagination loose like a hunting dog, it will often return with the bird in its mouth.”

— William Maxwell

William Maxwell Quote: “In talking about the past, we lie with every breath we draw.”

3. “In talking about the past, we lie with every breath we draw.”

— William Maxwell

William Maxwell Quote: “It’s deprivation that makes people writers, if they have it in them to be a writer.”

4. “It’s deprivation that makes people writers, if they have it in them to be a writer.”

— William Maxwell

William Maxwell Quote: “That’s what I try to do – write sentences that won’t be like sand castles.”

5. “That’s what I try to do – write sentences that won’t be like sand castles.”

— William Maxwell

William Maxwell Quote: “Who knows what oversensitive is, considering all there is to be sensitive to.”

6. “Who knows what oversensitive is, considering all there is to be sensitive to.”

— William Maxwell

William Maxwell Quote: “Happiness is the light on the water. The water is cold and dark and deep.”

7. “Happiness is the light on the water. The water is cold and dark and deep.”

— William Maxwell

William Maxwell Quote: “I had inadvertently walked through a door that I shouldn’t have gone through and couldn’t get back to the place I hadn’t meant to leave.”

8. “I had inadvertently walked through a door that I shouldn’t have gone through and couldn’t get back to the place I hadn’t meant to leave.”

— William Maxwell

William Maxwell Quote: “A writer is a reader who is moved to emulation.”

9. “A writer is a reader who is moved to emulation.”

— William Maxwell

William Maxwell Quote: “His sadness was of the kind that is patient and without hope.”

10. “His sadness was of the kind that is patient and without hope.”

— William Maxwell

William Maxwell Quote: “Love, even of the most ardent and soul-destroying kind, is never caught by the lens of the camera.”

11. “Love, even of the most ardent and soul-destroying kind, is never caught by the lens of the camera.”

— William Maxwell

William Maxwell Quote: “A gentleman doesn’t have one set of manners for the house of a poor man and another for the house of someone with an income incomparable to his own.”

12. “A gentleman doesn’t have one set of manners for the house of a poor man and another for the house of someone with an income incomparable to his own.”

— William Maxwell

William Maxwell Quote: “I have liked remembering almost as much as I have liked living.”

13. “I have liked remembering almost as much as I have liked living.”

— William Maxwell

William Maxwell Quote: “Satin and lace and brown velvet and the faint odor of violets. That was all which was left to him of his love.”

14. “Satin and lace and brown velvet and the faint odor of violets. That was all which was left to him of his love.”

— William Maxwell

William Maxwell Quote: “Between the way things used to be and the way they were now was a void that couldn’t be crossed.”

15. “Between the way things used to be and the way they were now was a void that couldn’t be crossed.”

— William Maxwell

William Maxwell Quote: “My younger daughter told me recently that when she was a child she thought the typewriter was a toy that I went into my room and closed the door and played with.”

16. “My younger daughter told me recently that when she was a child she thought the typewriter was a toy that I went into my room and closed the door and played with.”

— William Maxwell

William Maxwell Quote: “They had stopped shouting at each other and put their faith in legal counsel. With the result that how things could be made to look was what counted, not how they actually were.”

17. “They had stopped shouting at each other and put their faith in legal counsel. With the result that how things could be made to look was what counted, not how they actually were.”

— William Maxwell

William Maxwell Quote: “Your reader is at least as bright as you are.”

18. “Your reader is at least as bright as you are.”

— William Maxwell

William Maxwell Quote: “If I had had to write only about imaginary people, I would have had to close up my typewriter. I wrote about my life in less and less disguise as I grew older, and finally with no disguise – except the disguise we create for ourselves, which is self-deception.”

19. “If I had had to write only about imaginary people, I would have had to close up my typewriter. I wrote about my life in less and less disguise as I grew older, and finally with no disguise – except the disguise we create for ourselves, which is self-deception.”

— William Maxwell

William Maxwell Quote: “My father represented authority, which meant – to me – that he could not also represent understanding.”

20. “My father represented authority, which meant – to me – that he could not also represent understanding.”

— William Maxwell

William Maxwell Quote: “But to live in the world at all is to be committed to some kind of a journey... On a turning earth, in a mechanically revolving universe, there is no place to stand still. Neither the destination nor the point of departure are important. People often find themselves midway on a journey they had no intention of taking and that began they are not exactly sure where.”

21. “But to live in the world at all is to be committed to some kind of a journey... On a turning earth, in a mechanically revolving universe, there is no place to stand still. Neither the destination nor the point of departure are important. People often find themselves midway on a journey they had no intention of taking and that began they are not exactly sure where.”

— William Maxwell

William Maxwell Quote: “But to live in the world at all is to be committed to some kind of a journey.”

22. “But to live in the world at all is to be committed to some kind of a journey.”

— William Maxwell

William Maxwell Quote: “The music of Beethoven’s Fidelio always rises up in my mind when I think of that meeting in the forest, and my throat constricts with an emotion that is, I’m afraid, purely factitious – unless feelings are more a part of our physical inheritance than is commonly believed, in which case it is Mary Edie’s joy, unquenchable, passed on, and then passed on again, generation after generation, along with the color of eyes and the shape of hands and characteristic habits of mind and temperament.”

23. “The music of Beethoven’s Fidelio always rises up in my mind when I think of that meeting in the forest, and my throat constricts with an emotion that is, I’m afraid, purely factitious – unless feelings are more a part of our physical inheritance than is commonly believed, in which case it is Mary Edie’s joy, unquenchable, passed on, and then passed on again, generation after generation, along with the color of eyes and the shape of hands and characteristic habits of mind and temperament.”

— William Maxwell

William Maxwell Quote: “It was lovely when you found students who responded to things you were enthusiastic about.”

24. “It was lovely when you found students who responded to things you were enthusiastic about.”

— William Maxwell

William Maxwell Quote: “The nail doesn’t choose the time or the circumstances in which it is drawn to the magnet.”

25. “The nail doesn’t choose the time or the circumstances in which it is drawn to the magnet.”

— William Maxwell

William Maxwell Quote: “It is impossible to say why people put so little value on complete happiness.”

26. “It is impossible to say why people put so little value on complete happiness.”

— William Maxwell

William Maxwell Quote: “What we refer to confidently as memory is really a form of storytelling that goes on continually in the mind and often changes with the telling.”

27. “What we refer to confidently as memory is really a form of storytelling that goes on continually in the mind and often changes with the telling.”

— William Maxwell

William Maxwell Quote: “When she gets into bed and the springs creak under her weight, she groans with the pleasure of lying stretched out on an object that understands her so well.”

28. “When she gets into bed and the springs creak under her weight, she groans with the pleasure of lying stretched out on an object that understands her so well.”

— William Maxwell

William Maxwell Quote: “If the Lowland farmer spoke with an uncouth accent, dressed in rags, lived in a miserable hovel, and fed on the same grain he fed his animals, it was not because he was a savage but because the relentless marauding of the English left him with very little choice. As for why he didn’t simply cut his throat, the answer is that he was a Presbyterian and did not expect much in the way of earthly happiness.”

29. “If the Lowland farmer spoke with an uncouth accent, dressed in rags, lived in a miserable hovel, and fed on the same grain he fed his animals, it was not because he was a savage but because the relentless marauding of the English left him with very little choice. As for why he didn’t simply cut his throat, the answer is that he was a Presbyterian and did not expect much in the way of earthly happiness.”

— William Maxwell

William Maxwell Quote: “She has a charming voice. Something of the French intonation carries over into the English, of course. But it’s more than that, I think. It’s an amused voice. It has a slight suggestion of humor, at no one’s expense. As if she had learned to see things with a clarity that – that was often in excess of whatever need there was for seeing things clearly. And the residue had turned into something like amusement.”

30. “She has a charming voice. Something of the French intonation carries over into the English, of course. But it’s more than that, I think. It’s an amused voice. It has a slight suggestion of humor, at no one’s expense. As if she had learned to see things with a clarity that – that was often in excess of whatever need there was for seeing things clearly. And the residue had turned into something like amusement.”

— William Maxwell

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