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Quote by V. S. Pritchett

“The peculiar foreign superstition that the English do not like love, the evidence being that they do not talk about it.”

Quote by V. S. Pritchett

Author

V. S. Pritchett

V. S. Pritchett was a British writer renowned for his short stories, novels, and literary criticism. Born on December 16, 1900, in London, he spent much of his life in the United States before returning to England in his later years. Pritchett's work frequently delved into the intricacies of human relationships and the social and political shifts of the 20th century. more

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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.”

Past Remember Edges

Author:V. S. Pritchett

“Absolute Evil is not the kingdom of hell. The inhabitants of hell are ourselves, i.e., those who pay our painful, embarrassing, humanistic duties to society and who are compromised by our intellectually dubious commitment to virtue, which can be defined by the perpetual smear-word of French polemic: the bourgeois. (Bourgeois equals humanist.) This word has long been anathema in France where categories are part of the ruling notion of logique. The word cannot be readily matched in England or America.”

“Because of the influence of the cinema, most reports or stories of violence are so pictorial that they lack content or meaning. The camera brings them to our eyes, but does not settle them in our minds, nor in time.”

Mind Doe Stories Eye Violence Influence Cameras Settling Cinema Reports Pictorial

Author:V. S. Pritchett

“Like many popular best-sellers, he was a very sad and solemn man who took himself too seriously and his art not seriously enough.”

Men Art Enough Solemn Sellers Very Sad Best Sellers

Author:V. S. Pritchett

“One recalls how much the creative impulse of the best-sellers depends upon self-pity. It is an emotion of great dramatic potential.”

Self Emotion Creative Depends Pity Impulse Dramatic Recalls Self Pity Sellers Best Sellers

Author:V. S. Pritchett

“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.”

Giving Use Order Taste Planes Great Writers Good Taste

Author:V. S. Pritchett

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

Ifs Sin Magic Committed

Author:V. S. Pritchett

“Prep school, public school, university: these now tedious influences standardize English autobiography, giving the educated Englishman the sad if fascinating appearance of a stuffed bird of sly and beady eye in some old seaside museum. The fixation on school has become a class trait. It manifests itself as a mixture of incurious piety and parlour game.”

Ifs Giving Eye School Games Class Influence Bird University Appearance Educated Fascinating Museums Traits Autobiography Mixtures Public School Englishmen Piety Tedious Sly Preps Fixation

Author:V. S. Pritchett

“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.”

People Used Audience Please University Journalist Aspiration Academic Captives Reviewers

Author:V. S. Pritchett

“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.”

Feels Important Born England

Author:V. S. Pritchett