Quotes by Durrell, Lawrence

"Old age is an insult. It's like being smacked."

Durrell, Lawrence on age and aging   

"Now stiff on a pillar with a phallic air nelson stylites in Trafalgar square reminds the British what once they were."

Durrell, Lawrence on heroes and heroism   

"A woman's best love letters are always written to the man she is betraying."

Durrell, Lawrence on letters
3 fans of this quote   

"It's unthinkable not to love --you'd have a severe nervous breakdown. Or you'd have to be Philip Larkin."

Durrell, Lawrence on love   

"The richest love is that which submits to the arbitration of time."

Durrell, Lawrence on love   

"Music was invented to confirm human loneliness."

Durrell, Lawrence on music
4 fans of this quote   

"Music is only love looking for words."

Durrell, Lawrence on music
14 fans of this quote   

"Everyone loathes his own country and countrymen if he is any sort of artist."

Durrell, Lawrence on patriotism   

"For us artists there waits the joyous compromise through art with all that wounded or defeated us in daily life; in this way, not to evade destiny, as the ordinary people try to do, but to fulfil it in its true potential --the imagination."

Durrell, Lawrence on art   

"No one can go on being a rebel too long without turning into an autocrat."

Durrell, Lawrence on rebellion   

"The appalling thing is the degree of charity women are capable of. You see it all the time... love lavished on absolute fools. Love's a charity ward, you know."

Durrell, Lawrence on charity   

"Journeys, like artists, are born and not made. A thousand differing circumstances contribute to them, few of them willed or determined by the will --whatever we may think."

Durrell, Lawrence on travel
4 fans of this quote   

"Truth disappears with the telling of it."

Durrell, Lawrence on truth   

"It's only with great vulgarity that you can achieve real refinement, only out of bawdy that you can get tenderness."

Durrell, Lawrence on vulgarity   

"There are only three things to be done with a woman. You can love her, suffer for her, or turn her into literature."

Durrell, Lawrence on women
3 fans of this quote   

"I'm trying to die correctly, but it's very difficult, you know."

Durrell, Lawrence on death