Anthony Powell quotes

Self-love seems so often unrequited. (Anthony Powell)
Parents – especially step-parents – are sometimes a bit of a disappointment to their children. They don't fufill the promise of their early years. View quote
Anthony Powell
He fell in love with himself at first sight and it is a passion to which he has always remained faithful. View quote
Anthony Powell
Growing old's like being increasingly penalized for a crime you haven't committed. View quote
Anthony Powell
Books do furnish a room. View quote
Anthony Powell
[T]here is no greater sign of innate misery than a love of teasing. View quote
Anthony Powell
The whole idea of interviews is in itself absurd – one cannot answer deep questions about what one's life was like – one writes novels about it. View quote
Anthony Powell
I get a warm feeling among my books. View quote
Anthony Powell
I was impressed for the ten thousandth time by the fact that literature illuminates life only for those to whom books are a necessity. Books are unconvertible assets, to be passed on only to those who possess them already. View quote
Anthony Powell
It is not what happens to people that is significant, but what they think happens to them. View quote
Anthony Powell
Few persons who have ever sat for a portrait can have felt anything but inferior while the process is going on. (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. Biography and memoirs can never be wholly true, since they can't include every conceivable circumstance of what happened. The novel can do that. The novelist himself lays it down. His decision is binding. View quote
Anthony Powell
People think that because a novel's invented, it isn't true. Exactly the reverse is the case. Biography and memoirs can never be wholly true, since they cannot include every conceivable circumstance of what happened. The novel can do that. View quote
Anthony Powell