Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotes by William Wharton (American Novelist, Painter)

William Wharton (1925–2008,) pseudonym of Albert William du Aime, was an American-born novelist and painter. He is best known for his pioneering first novel, Birdy (1979,) a critical and popular success.

Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Wharton was severely wounded during World War II. After the war, he studied painting (B.A.) and psychology (PhD) at the University of California-Los Angeles.

Wharton then spent more than a decade teaching art in the Los Angeles public schools. He moved his family to Europe and settled in Paris after a few years, where he remained for most of his life. There, he lived on profits from his Impressionist-style paintings.

Wharton’s first novel, Birdy (1979; filmed 1984,) was published when he was more than 50 years old. Drawing upon his wartime experiences, it delved into the madness of a character obsessed with birds. Wharton kept 250 canaries when he was 17 and continued to keep them throughout his life.

Wharton’s other novels include Dad (1981; film 1989,) A Midnight Clear (1982; film 1992,) and Scumbler (1984.) Later books-including Pride (1985,) a story of the Depression; Tidings (1987,) a family saga; and Last Lovers (1991,) a tale of sexual exploration-drew less attention than his early work. He also published several popular novels in Polish.

Wharton’s memoirs are Wrongful Deaths (1994; also Ever After: A Father’s True Story, 1995,) about the death of his eldest daughter and her family in a car crash in Oregon, and Houseboat on the Seine (1996,) about his life in Europe.

More: Wikipedia READ: Works by William Wharton

Sometimes looking so hard can make one blind.
William Wharton

What we all tend to complain about most in other people are those things we don’t like about ourselves.
William Wharton

People can’t fly because they don’t believe they can. If nobody ever showed people they could swim, everybody’d drown if they were dropped into the water.
William Wharton

Things come apart much easier than they go together.
William Wharton

He’s convinced most human adults do not know how to play anymore and that playing is one of the best ways to think. Franky finds children, by far, much more pleasant and intelligent than most adults, but they are easily ruined by their families, schools, and society. He says one of the ways they are ruined is by being forced to think of all the tasks that need to be done as work, not as play. It takes the joy out of living.
William Wharton

Love is a combination of admiration, respect, and passion. If you have one of those going, that’s par for the course. If you have two, you aren’t quite world class but you’re close. If you have all three, then you don’t need to die; you’re already in heaven.
William Wharton

Not many people are interested in what somebody else is thinking, or what they have to say. The best you can hope for is they’ll listen to you just so you’ll have to listen to them.
William Wharton

Movement is most of what a bird is. When they’re dead, they’re only feathers and air.
William Wharton

Before you know it, if you’re not careful, you can get to feeling sorry for everybody and there’s nobody left to hate.
William Wharton

When brought to meaning, all importance becomes small, as in death, all life seems nothing. Knowing is destroyed by thinking, not destroyed but sterilized; distilled into knowledge. Thinking, the processing of knowing to knowledge.
William Wharton

There’s no end to the absurd things people will do trying to make life mean something.
William Wharton

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