274 Quotes by Anthony Powell

In fact the original memory of Miss Blaides returned to me one morning when I was sitting in my cream distempered, strip-lighted, bare, sanitary, glaring, forlorn little cell at the Studio. In that place it was possible to know deep despondency.

My brother is a strange fellow," said Bernard, speaking with terrible bonhomie.

Jeavon's thick dark hair, with its ridges of corkscrew curls, had now turned quite white, the Charlie Chaplin moustache remaining black. This combination of tones for some reason gave him an oddly Italian appearance, enhanced by blue overalls, obscurely suggesting a railway porter at a station in Italy.

Senile decay seemed already to have laid its hand on him while he was still in the grip of arrested development.

Oh, good,” said Hugh, but without enthusiasm. “By the way, here is that American novel I told you about. Let me know what you think of it.” “Anything special?” “I don’t feel happy about the chapter where Irving and Wayne listen to the whip-poor-will.” “I’ll study it.” I took Lot’s Hometown and went back to my room to ring up Hudson.

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

His mastery of the hard-luck story was of a kind never achieved by persons not wholly concentrated on themselves.

Growing old's like being increasingly penalized for a crime you haven't committed.

He fell in love with himself at first sight, and it is a passion to which he has always remained faithful. Self-love seems so often unrequited.