274 Quotes by Anthony Powell

In any case the friendships of later life, in contrast wih those negotiated before thirty, are apt to be burdened with reservations, constraints, inhibitions.

One’s capacity for hearing about ghastly doings lessens with age.

Entering the front door, you were at once assailed by a nightmare of cheerlessness and squalor, all the sordid melancholy, at its worst, of any nest of bedrooms where only men sleep;

Esteem for the army - never in this country regarded, in the continental manner, as a popular expression of the national will - implies a kind of innocence.

   Susan poured herself out some more wine. She said:   "You're nice. You must come and see me some time. I live miles away from anywhere with my father. You'll like him."   "Tell me about him."   "He's a curious little man with a walrus moustache."   "What does he do?"   "He's a failure."   "Where does he fail?"   "Oh, he doesn't any longer," she said. "He's a retired failure, you see. You must meet him."   "I'd like to.

Barnby always dismissed the idea of intelligence in a woman as no more than a characteristic to be endured.

There is, after all, no pleasure like that given by a woman who really wants to see you.

Well,' said Mrs. Erdleigh, speaking kindly, as if to a child who has proposed a game inevitably associated with the breakage of china, 'I know trouble will come of it if we do.

Like most people in rebellion, he was more than half in love with what he was rebelling against.