"Something has spoken to me in the night...and told me that I shall die, I know not where. Saying: "[Death is] to lose the earth you know for greater knowing; to lose the life you have, for greater life; to leave the friends you loved, for greater loving; to find a land more kind than home, more large than earth."

77 likes

Source: Thomas Wolfe (2011). “You Can't Go Home Again”, p.489, Simon and Schuster

About the author

Thomas Wolfe

Novelist

Thomas Wolfe was an American novelist known for his lyrical prose and exploration of love and identity in works like 'Look Homeward, Angel.'

All quotes by Thomas Wolfe →

Same author

More quotes by Thomas Wolfe

See all →
Thomas Wolfe Novelist

"All things on earth point home in old October; sailors to sea, travellers to walls and fences, hunters to field and hollow and the long voice of the hounds, the lover to the love he has forsaken."

Read quote
Thomas Wolfe Novelist

"All things belonging to the earth will never change-the leaf, the blade, the flower, the wind that cries and sleeps and wakes again, the trees whose stiff arms clash and tremble in the dark, and the dust of lovers long since buried in the earth-all things proceeding from the earth to seasons, all things that lapse and change and come again upon the earth-these things will always be the same, for they come up from the earth that never changes, they go back into the earth that lasts forever. Only the earth endures, but it endures forever."

Read quote
Thomas Wolfe Novelist

"Toil on, son, and do not lose heart or hope. Let nothing you dismay. You are not utterly forsaken. I, too, am here--here in the darkness waiting, here attentive, here approving of your labor and your dream."

Read quote
Thomas Wolfe Novelist

"Man is born to live, to suffer, and to die, and what befalls him is a tragic lot. There is no denying this in the final end. But we must deny it all along the way."

Read quote