Quote

I shall never be as old as I was between 20 and 30.

V. S. Pritchett

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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)
Never
Shall

More quotes by V. S. Pritchett

Image
Those mausoleums of inactive masculinity are places for men who prefer armchairs to women.
V. S. Pritchett
Image
The makers of the short story have rarely been good novelists.
V. S. Pritchett
Image
It is well known that, when two authors meet, they at once start talking about money-like everyone else.
V. S. Pritchett
Image
[London] is sentimental and tolerant. The attitude to foreigners is like the attitude to dogs: Dogs are neither human nor British, but so long as you keep them under control, give them their exercise, feed them, pat them, you will find their wild emotions are amusing, and their characters interesting.
V. S. Pritchett
Image
Queen Victoria - a mixture of national landlady and actress.
V. S. Pritchett
Image
Detective stories are the art-for-art's sake of yawning Philistinism.
V. S. Pritchett
Image
There is more magic in sin if it is not committed.
V. S. Pritchett
Image
Some writers thrive on the contact with the commerce of success others are corrupted by it. Perhaps, like losing one's virginity,it is not as bad (or as good) as one feared it was going to be.
V. S. Pritchett
Image
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.
V. S. Pritchett
Image
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.
V. S. Pritchett
Image
One recalls how much the creative impulse of the best-sellers depends upon self-pity. It is an emotion of great dramatic potential.
V. S. Pritchett
Image
How extraordinary it is that one feels most guilt about the sins one is unable to commit.
V. S. Pritchett
Image
The wrongs of childhood and upbringing have made a large and obsessional contribution to autobiography and the novel.
V. S. Pritchett
Image
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.
V. S. Pritchett
Image
The businessman who is a novelist is able to drop in on literature and feel no suicidal loss of esteem if the lady is not at home, and he can spend his life preparing without fuss for the awful interview.
V. S. Pritchett
Image
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.
V. S. Pritchett
Image
The mark of genius is an incessant activity of mind. Genius is a spiritual greed.
V. S. Pritchett
Image
Writing enlarges the landscape of the mind.
V. S. Pritchett
Image
It is often said that in Ireland there is an excess of genius unsustained by talent but there is talent in the tongues.
V. S. Pritchett
Image
The State, that cawing rookery of committees and subcommittees.
V. S. Pritchett