"An exceedingly well-informed report,' said the General. 'You have given yourself the trouble to go into matters thoroughly, I see. That is one of the secrets of success in life."
- Anthony Powell
"For some reason, the sight of snow descending on fire always makes me think of the ancient world – legionaries in sheepskin warming themselves at a brazier: mountain altars where offerings glow betwee..."
"Feeling unable to maintain this detachment of attitude towards human- and, in especial, matrimonial- affairs, I asked whether it was not true that she had married Bob Duport. She nodded; not exactly c..."
"Books do furnish a room."
"Literature illuminates life only for those to whom books are a necessity."
"One passes through the world knowing few, if any, of the important things about even the people with whom one has been from time to time in the closest intimacy."
"In any case the friendships of later life, in contrast wih those negotiated before thirty, are apt to be burdened with reservations, constraints, inhibitions."
"She scarcely spoke at all and might have been one of those huge dolls which, when inclined backwards, say "Ma-ma" or "Pa-pa": though impossible to imagine in any position so undignified as that requir..."
"What a shabby lot of highbrows have turned out tonight," he said, when he saw us. "It makes me ashamed to be one."
"Barnby always dismissed the idea of intelligence in a woman as no more than a characteristic to be endured."