(b. 1945– )
U.S. author and professor
Tobias Wolff
He’s such a generous spirit, you’d be embarrassed to behave in a small way around him.
Describing writer George Saunders, in “George Saunders Has Written the Best Book You’ll Read This Year,” by Joel Lovell, The New York Times Magazine, January 3, 2013.
The school had some good teachers, mostly older women who didn’t care if they were laughed at for reciting poetry, or for letting a tear fall while they described the Battle of Verdun.
This Boy’s Life (New York: Grove Press, 1989), 182.
Like anyone else, she must have wanted different things at the same time. The human heart is a dark forest.
This Boy’s Life (New York: Grove Press, 1989), 143.
Some people are better left unknown.
This Boy’s Life (New York: Grove Press, 1989), 151.
We could see the moon now, a thin silver moon swinging between the black treetops overhead. Chuck kept losing the radio station. Finally he turned off the radio, and we sang Buddy Holly songs for a while. When we got tired of those, we sang hymns. First we sang “I Walk to the Garden Alone” and “The Old Rugged Cross,” and a few other quiet ones, just to find our range and get in the spirit. Then we sang the roofraisers. We sang them with respect and we sang them hard, swaying from side to side and dipping our shoulders in counterpoint. Between hymns we drank from the bottle. Our voices were strong. It was a good night to sing and we sang for all we were worth, as if we’d been saved.
This Boy’s Life (New York: Grove Press, 1989), 288.
When we are green, still half-created, we believe that our dreams are rights, that the world is disposed to act in our best interests, and that falling and dying are for quitters. We live on the innocent and monstrous assurance that we alone, of all the people ever born, have a special arrangement whereby we will be allowed to stay green forever.
This Boy’s Life (New York: Grove Press, 1989), 286.
We could see the moon now, a thin silver moon swinging between the black treetops overhead. Chuck kept losing the radio station. Finally he turned off the radio, and we sang Buddy Holly songs for a while. When we got tired of those, we sang hymns. First we sang ‘I Walk to the Garden Alone’ and ‘The Old Rugged Cross,’ and a few other quiet ones, just to find our range and get in the spirit. Then we sang the roofraisers. We sang them with respect and we sang them hard, swaying from side to side and dipping our shoulders in counterpoint. Between hymns we drank from the bottle. Our voices were strong. It was a good night to sing and we sang for all we were worth, as if we’d been saved.
Tobias Wolff, This Boys Life (New York: Grove Press, 1989), 288.
My first stepfather used to say that what I didn’t know would fill a book. Well, here it is.
This Boy’s Life (New York: Grove Press, 1989), frontmatter.
Knowing that everything comes to an end is a gift of experience, a consolation gift for knowing that we ourselves are coming to an end. Before we get it we live in a continuous present, and imagine the future as more of that present. Happiness is endless happiness, innocent of its own sure passing. Pain is endless pain.
This Boy’s Life (New York: Grove Press, 1989), 230.