Anthony Powell

Self-love seems so often unrequited.

— Anthony Powell

“the sombre demands of the past becoming at times almost suffocating in their insistence.”

— Anthony Powell

“Contemplation of this banal maxim increased the depression that had suddenly descended on me.”

— Anthony Powell

“Later that night mutual approval took physical expression.”

— Anthony Powell

Writing is a combination of intangible creative fantasy and appallingly hard work.

— Anthony Powell

Literature illuminates life only for those to whom books are a necessity.

— Anthony Powell

“You know growing old's like being increasingly penalized for a crime you haven't committed.”

— Anthony Powell

“I could not remember the story with sufficient clarity.”

— Anthony Powell

“She could easily make matters more bizarre than embarrassing.”

— Anthony Powell

“As the dark fumes floated above the houses, snow began to fall gently from a dull sky, each flake giving a small…

— Anthony Powell

“   The barman came to the other side of the counter. "Time please," he said. Harriet said: "You mustn't hurry a lady drinking…

— Anthony Powell

“In place of those sounds some cats were quarrelling, or making love, in the gardens running the length of the square. I”

— Anthony Powell

“BEING in love is a complicated matter; although anyone who is prepared to pretend that love is a simple, straightforward business is…

— Anthony Powell

“Enormous simplifications were possibly necessary to carry a deeper truth than lay on the surface of a mass of unsorted detail.”

— Anthony Powell

“An exceedingly well-informed report,' said the General. 'You have given yourself the trouble to go into matters thoroughly, I see. That is…

— Anthony Powell

“Choosing the type of girl one likes is about the last thing left that one is allowed to approach subjectively. I shall…

— Anthony Powell

“An important aspect of writing unmentioned by Burton was ‘priority'; what to tell first. That always seemed one of the basic problems.”

— Anthony Powell

“I addressed a remark to him which he acknowledged simply by closing and opening his eyes, making me feel that, the next…

— Anthony Powell

“The lively, gleaming little Jewess in a scarlet frock, who came into the room on the heels of Lady Anne, was announced…

— Anthony Powell

“I saw that any change that I might have suspected of taking place in the relationship between Templer and Stringham had by…

— Anthony Powell

“She scarcely spoke at all and might have been one of those huge dolls which, when inclined backwards, say "Ma-ma" or "Pa-pa":…

— Anthony Powell

“I had not expected him to be in the least senile, but the sharpness of his manner may have been amplified by…

— Anthony Powell

“This was a glimpse through that mysterious door, once shut, that now seemed to stand ajar. It was as if sounds of…

— Anthony Powell

“This is something of a paradox in that the transgression—crime perhaps—of America has been to reject Classicism for Romanticism. The national distaste…

— Anthony Powell

“The wine had the effect of making him discourse on racing, a subject regarding which I was myself unfortunately too ignorant to…

— Anthony Powell

“He suddenly began to look wretched, much as I had seen him look as a schoolboy: lonely: awkward: unpopular: odd; no longer…

— Anthony Powell

“I had never previously met him, but I had seen him and knew his name well, because he was one of those…

— Anthony Powell

“For some reason, the sight of snow descending on fire always makes me think of the ancient world—legionaries in sheepskin warming themselves…

— Anthony Powell

“He stood pondering this flat, forthright declaration of anti-simianism on Miss Weedon’s part. The notion that some people might not like monkeys…

— Anthony Powell

“Sir Magnus himself did not talk much, save intermittently to express some general opinion, which, when during a comparative silence his words…

— Anthony Powell

“It was clear he had remained unflustered by recent public events, at the age he had reached perhaps disillusioned with the commonplaces…

— Anthony Powell

“People think because a novel's invented, it isn't true. Exactly the reverse is the case. Because a novel's invented, it is true.…

— Anthony Powell

“For some reason, the sight of snow descending on fire always makes me think of the ancient world – legionaries in sheepskin…

— Anthony Powell

“A complicated situation appeared merely to be accumulating additional complicated factors.”

— Anthony Powell

“Women may show some discrimination about whom they sleep with, but they’ll marry anybody.”

— Anthony Powell

“In the end most things in life—perhaps all things—turn out to be appropriate.”

— Anthony Powell

“One always finds the answer to everything in one’s own egotism.”

— Anthony Powell

“A fidelity extremely rare among one’s friends.”

— Anthony Powell

“I was thinking the other day that hypochondria's a stepbrother to masochism,' said Hugo.”

— Anthony Powell

Growing old's like being increasingly penalized for a crime you haven't committed.

— Anthony Powell