72 Quotes by V. S. Pritchett

I'm extremely proud of this group. With 4 of our 5 starters returning next season we feel very good about the next couple of seasons.

[London] is sentimental and tolerant. The attitude to foreigners is like the attitude to dogs: Dogs are neither human nor British, but so long as you keep them under control, give them their exercise, feed them, pat them, you will find their wild emotions are amusing, and their characters interesting.

It is often said that in Ireland there is an excess of genius unsustained by talent; but there is talent in the tongues.

The wrongs of childhood and upbringing have made a large and obsessional contribution to autobiography and the novel.

I shall never be as old as I was between 20 and 30.

It is less the business of the novelist to tell us what happened than to show how it happened.

The novel...creates a bemusing effect. The short story, on the other hand wakes the reader up. Not only that, it answers the primitive craving for art, the wit, paradox and beauty of shape, the longing to see a dramatic pattern and significance in our experience.

The State, that cawing rookery of committees and subcommittees.

The mark of genius is an incessant activity of mind. Genius is a spiritual greed.