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The present has its élan because it is always on the edge of the unknown and one misunderstands the past unless one remembers that this unknown was once part of its nature.
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)
Present
Nature
Past
Misunderstands
Part
Remembers
Remember
Edge
Always
Unknown
Edges
Unless
More quotes by V. S. Pritchett
It is less the business of the novelist to tell us what happened than to show how it happened.
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It's all in the art. You get no credit for living.
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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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Those mausoleums of inactive masculinity are places for men who prefer armchairs to women.
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Detective stories are the art-for-art's sake of yawning Philistinism.
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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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Queen Victoria - a mixture of national landlady and actress.
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A short story is. . .frequently the celebration of character at bursting point.
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The Canadian spirit is cautious, observant and critical where the American is assertive.
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A touch of science, even bogus science, gives an edge to the superstitious tale.
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There is more magic in sin if it is not committed.
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Criticism changes with the fashion of the time. A story is always a story.
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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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Among the masked dandies of Edwardian comedy, Max Beerbohm is the most happily armored by a deep and almost innocent love of himself as a work of art.
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Life — how curious is that habit that makes us think it is not here, but elsewhere.
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One recalls how much the creative impulse of the best-sellers depends upon self-pity. It is an emotion of great dramatic potential.
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We are used to the actions of human beings, not to their stillness.
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I shall never be as old as I was between 20 and 30.
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The detective novel is the art-for-art's-sake of our yawning Philistinism, the classic example of a specialized form of art removed from contact with the life it pretends to build on.
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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.
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