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Every war is ironic because every war is worse than expected. Every war constitutes an irony of situation because its means are so melodramatically disproportionate to its presumed ends.
Paul Fussell
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Paul Fussell
Age: 88 †
Born: 1924
Born: March 22
Died: 2012
Died: May 23
Historian
Journalist
Literary Critic
Literary Historian
Military Historian
University Teacher
Writer
Pasadena
California
Expected
Worse
Situation
War
Disproportionate
Means
Presumed
Ends
Constitutes
Mean
Ironic
Every
Irony
More quotes by Paul Fussell
Most people who seek attention and regard by announcing that they're writing a novel are actually so devoid of narrative talent that they can't hold the attention of a dinner table for thirty seconds, even with a dirty joke.
Paul Fussell
And the ideal travel writer is consumed not just with a will to know. He is also moved by a powerful will to teach.
Paul Fussell
To get home you had to end the war. To end the war was the reason you fought it. The only reason.
Paul Fussell
The balls used in top class games are generally smaller than those used in others.
Paul Fussell
Americans are the only people in the world known to me whose status anxiety prompts them to advertise their college and university affiliations in the rear window of their automobiles.
Paul Fussell
Chickenshit refers to behavior that makes military life worse than it need be: petty harassment of the weak by the strong open scrimmage for power and authority and prestige sadism thinly disguised as necessary discipline a constant 'paying off of old scores' and insistence on the letter rather than the spirit of ordinances.
Paul Fussell
If I didn't have writing, I'd be running down the street hurling grenades in people's faces.
Paul Fussell
Travel sharpens the senses. Abroad one feels, sees and hears things in an abnormal way.
Paul Fussell
What someone doesn't want you to publish is journalism all else is publicity.
Paul Fussell
Anybody who notices unpleasant facts in the have-a-nice-day world we live in is going to be designated a curmudgeon.
Paul Fussell
A more or less accurate measure of class in America is TV size: the bigger your TV, the lower your class.
Paul Fussell
The past is not the present: pretending it is corrupts art and thus both rots the mind and shrivels the imagination and conscience.
Paul Fussell
So many bright futures consigned to the ashes of the past.So many dreams lost in the madness that had engulfed us.Except for a few widely scattered shouts of joy,the survivors of the abyss sat hollow-eyed and silent, trying to comprehend a world without war.
Paul Fussell
Before the development of tourism, travel was conceived to be like study, and it's fruits were considered to be the adornment of the mind and the formation of the judgment.
Paul Fussell
Wars damage the civilian society as much as they damage the enemy. Soldiers never get over it.
Paul Fussell
Those who fought know a secret about themselves, and it is not very nice. ... They have experienced secretly and privately their natural human impulse toward sadism and brutality... Not merely did I learn to kill with a noose of piano wire put around somebody's neck from behind, but I learned to enjoy the prospect of killing that way.
Paul Fussell
Understanding the past requires pretending that you don't know the present.
Paul Fussell
If we do not redefine manhood, war is inevitable.
Paul Fussell
The more violent the body contact of the sports you watch, the lower the class.
Paul Fussell
The simple is carefully shunned by those who labour to seem what they would be.
Paul Fussell
