Quotes from Anthony Powell

I saw that any change that I might have suspected of taking place in the relationship between Templer and Stringham had by now crystallised. It was not that they no longer liked one another, or even that they had ceased to take pleasure in each other's company, so much as the fact that each had grown out of the other's habit of mind: and, in consequence, manner of talking.

It is rather an occasion, darling,' said Moreland, vexed at these objections. 'After all, I am noted among composers for the smallness of my output. I don't turn out a symphony every week like some people. A new work by me ought to be celebrated with a certain flourish—if only to encourage the composer himself.

At the same time, a faint sense of disappointment superimposed on an otherwise absorbing inner experience was in its way suitably Proustian too: a reminder of the eternal failure of human life to respond a hundred per cent; to rise to the greatest heights without allowing at the same time some suggestion, however slight, to take shape in indication that things could have been even better.

For my own part, I always enjoy hearing the details of other people's lives, whether imaginary or not, so that I found this side of Lovell agreeable.

though the matter of getting on well with young men in no circumstances presented serious difficulty to her.

To arrive was to die a little.

He gave me a look of great contempt; as I supposed, for venturing, even by implication, to draw a parallel between a lack of affluence that might, literally, affect my purchase of rare vintages, and a figure of speech intended delicately to convey his own dire want for the bare necessities of life.

I felt little interest in possible danger of their being run over: only a great relief that the bus must in any case come to a standstill, whether they were killed or not.

Reading novels needs almost as much talent as writing them,' he used to say.

not required to stay late in the Whitehall area, I used, as a general routine, to come straight back from duty to a nearby pub, dine there, then retire to bed with a book. At that period the seventeenth century particularly occupied me, so that works like Wood's Athenae Oxonienses or Luttrell's Brief Relation opened up vistas of the past, if not necessarily preferable to one's own time, at least appreciably different. These historical readings could be varied with Proust.

Later in life, I learnt that many things one may require have to be weighed against one's dignity, which can be an insuperable barrier against advancement in almost any direction. However

Zouch was a superman. A fair English equivalent of the Teutonic ideal of the Übermensch . No one knew this yet except himself. That was because he had not been one long enough for people to find out. They would learn all in good time; and to their cost.

This revelation of Duport's musical leanings showed how, as ever, people can always produce something unexpected about themselves.

Torquil Fosdick is a funny boy, isn't he?    He certainly is.    I should think he was—well, at least I mean, you know—at least I should think anyone would think so, wouldn't you?    Oh yes, I should think so. If they took the trouble to think about him, I mean.

He saw that as usual it would be better to be careful as for some years now he had found being good to be almost out of the question.

An important aspect of writing unmentioned by Burton was 'priority'; what to tell first. That always seemed one of the basic problems.

Major Fosdick was cleaning his guns in the drawing-room because it was the most comfortable room in the house. While he did this he brooded. He enjoyed cleaning his guns and he enjoyed brooding so that the afternoon was passing pleasantly enough and its charm was disturbed only by the presence of his wife, who sat opposite him, mending a flannel undergarment and making disjointed conversation about subjects in which he was not interested.

I hate anything superficial. But I will take the book and look at it, and tell you what I think of the writing.

Fischbein stood in front of Zouch with his hands on his hips. He had a grey face, full of folds and swellings of loose flesh, like a piece of bad realistic sculpture.

The Misses Braby were twins who had shapeless faces on which the features seemed to have been placed fortuitously without any attempt at assembling them in such a way as to convey a significance.

On the death of Mr Deacon) The milestones provided by him had now come suddenly to an end. The road stretched forward still.

Mrs. Dadds, who was telling a story about her chilblains, brought her narrative to a more or less satisfactory conclusion and paused to regain her breath.

His own relations with the opposite sex took an exclusively commercial form. 'I've never had a free poke in my life,' he said. 'Subject doesn't seem to arise when you're talking to a respectable woman.

He laughed a lot, and this would have been the moment to leave him, and go on our way. We should probably have escaped without further trouble if Templer—feeling no doubt that Stringham had been occupying too much of the stage—had not begun to shoot out radiations towards Le Bas, long and short, like an ocular Morse code, saying at the same time in his naturally rather harsh voice: 'I am afraid we very nearly jumped on you, sir.