Quotes About Anthony Powell

The latter's boast that he had never read a book for pleasure in his life did not predispose me in his favour.

There is no greater sign of innate misery than a love of teasing.

Only an atmosphere of quiet hard work and dull, serious conversation were appropriate to him.

Women can be immensely obtuse about all kinds of things,' Barnby was fond of saying, 'but where the emotions are concerned their opinion is always worthy of consideration.

Widmerpool's face assumed a dramatic expression that made him look rather like a large fish moving swiftly through opaque water to devour a smaller one.

He [Widmerpool] moistened his lips, though scarcely perceptibly. I thought his mixture of secretiveness and curiosity quite intolerable.

Maclintick's calculatedly humdrum appearance, although shabby, seemed aimed at concealing bohemian affiliations.

My father will be filled with frank astonishment that I should be proving myself capable of earning a living in any capacity whatsoever.

The barman came to the other side of the counter.    Time please, he said.    Harriet said: You mustn't hurry a lady drinking a pint of beer. The effects might be fatal.

I always enjoy this title—Cambises, King of Percia: a Lamentable Tragedy mixed full of Pleasant Mirth.' 'What's it like?' 'Not particularly exciting, but does summarize life.

What you say, Nick, strengthens my contention that only a novel can imply certain truths impossible to state by exact definition. Biography and autobiography are forced to attempt exact definition. In doing so truth goes astray. The novelist is more serious—if that is the word.

Short's power to define feminine beauty abandoned him at this point. He simply made a gesture with his hand.

The huge liquid eyes seemed to look deep down into my soul, and far, far beyond towards nameless, unexplored vistas of the infinite.

His shaggy homespun overcoat was swinging open, stuffed with long envelopes and periodicals which protruded from the pockets. He looked no older; perhaps a shade less sane.

He was wearing a grey flannel suit on which faint mauve squares were visible at close range. His face was bewildered. It was not uncommon for Shirley to register bewilderment.

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.

Anthony Powell was the most European of 20th-century British novelists.

Dinner at the Huntercombes possessed only two dramatic features: the wine was a farce and the food a tragedy