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We are used to the actions of human beings, not to their stillness.

V. S. Pritchett

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V. S. Pritchett
Age: 96 †
Born: 1900
Born: December 16
Died: 1997
Died: March 20
Biographer
Critic
Journalist
Literary Critic
Novelist
University Teacher
Writer
Ipswich (parish)
Stillness
Actions
Beings
Action
Used
Human
Humans
Tranquility

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Writing enlarges the landscape of the mind.
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How extraordinary it is that one feels most guilt about the sins one is unable to commit.
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Criticism changes with the fashion of the time. A story is always a story.
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The wrongs of childhood and upbringing have made a large and obsessional contribution to autobiography and the novel.
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I felt the beginning of a passion, hopeless in the long run, but very nourishing, for identifying myself with people who were not my own, and whose lives were governed by ideas alien to mine.
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Now, practically all reviewers have academic aspirations. The people from the universities are used to a captive audience, but the literary journalist has to please his audience.
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There is more magic in sin if it is not committed.
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A touch of science, even bogus science, gives an edge to the superstitious tale.
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It's very important to feel foreign. I was born in England, but when I'm being a writer, everyone in England is foreign to me.
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On one plane, the very great writers and the popular romancers of the lower order always meet. They use all of themselves, helplessly, unselectively. They are above the primness and good taste of declining to give themselves away.
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A short story is. . .frequently the celebration of character at bursting point.
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The difference between farce and humour in literature is, I suppose, that farce strums louder and louder on one string, while humour varies its note, changes its key, grows and spreads and deepens until it may indeed reach tragic depths.
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Because of the influence of the cinema, most reports or stories of violence are so pictorial that they lack content or meaning. The camera brings them to our eyes, but does not settle them in our minds, nor in time.
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The mark of genius is an incessant activity of mind. Genius is a spiritual greed.
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The Canadian spirit is cautious, observant and critical where the American is assertive.
V. S. Pritchett
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The novel...creates a bemusing effect. The short story, on the other hand wakes the reader up. Not only that, it answers the primitive craving for art, the wit, paradox and beauty of shape, the longing to see a dramatic pattern and significance in our experience.
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It is often said that in Ireland there is an excess of genius unsustained by talent but there is talent in the tongues.
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A natural New Yorker is a native of the present tense.
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I shall never be as old as I was between 20 and 30.
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Well, youth is the period of assumed personalities and disguises. It is the time of the sincerely insincere.
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