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There is more magic in sin if it is not committed.

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)
Committed
Sin
Magic

More quotes by V. S. Pritchett

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It is exciting and emancipating to believe we are one of nature's latest experiments, but what if the experiment is unsuccessful?
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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.
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[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.
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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 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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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 peculiar foreign superstition that the English do not like love, the evidence being that they do not talk about it.
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We do not wish to be better than we are, but more fully what we are.
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Detective stories are the art-for-art's sake of yawning Philistinism.
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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.
V. S. Pritchett
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How extraordinary it is that one feels most guilt about the sins one is unable to commit.
V. S. Pritchett
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I am under the spell of language, which has ruled me since I was 10.
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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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A touch of science, even bogus science, gives an edge to the superstitious tale.
V. S. Pritchett
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The mark of genius is an incessant activity of mind. Genius is a spiritual greed.
V. S. Pritchett
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Queen Victoria - a mixture of national landlady and actress.
V. S. Pritchett
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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.
V. S. Pritchett
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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.
V. S. Pritchett
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The Canadian spirit is cautious, observant and critical where the American is assertive.
V. S. Pritchett
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Like many popular best-sellers, he was a very sad and solemn man who took himself too seriously and his art not seriously enough.
V. S. Pritchett