207 Quotes by Lawrence Durrell

It is hard to fight with one's heart's desires; whatever it wishes to get, it purchases at the cost of the soul.

Poverty is a great cutter-off and riches a great shutter-off.

You see, nothing matters except pleasure - which is the opposite of happiness, its tragic part, I expect.

Art like life is an open secret.

Art—the meaning of the pattern of our common actions in reality. The cloth-of-gold that hides behind the sackcloth of reality, forced out by the pain of human memory.

I don’t believe one reads to escape reality. A person reads to confirm a reality he knows is there, but which he has not experienced.

Our common actions in reality are simply the sackcloth covering which hides the cloth-of-gold—the meaning of the pattern.

First you have to know and understand intellectually what you want to do - then you have to sleepwalk a little to reach it.

I suppose the secret of his success is in his tremendous idleness which almost approaches the supernatural.