Lawrence Durrell Quotes - Page 3

Quotes about:

• Everything really desirable has come about because of, or in spite of, wine!

  Lawrence Durrell

  Wine, Spite, Desirable

  Lawrence Durrell (2011). “Caesar's Vast Ghost”, p.12, Faber & Faber

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• Odd, isn't it? He really was the right man for her in a sort of way; but then as you know, it is a law of love that the so-called 'right' person always comes to soon or too late.

  Lawrence Durrell

  Men, Law, Too Late

  Lawrence Durrell (2012). “The Alexandria Quartet: Justine, Balthazar, Mountolive, Clea”, p.269, Faber & Faber

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• 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.

  Lawrence Durrell

  Travel, Artist, Journey

  Lawrence Durrell (2011). “Bitter Lemons of Cyprus”, p.6, Faber & Faber

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• What are stars but points in the body of God where we insert the healing needles of our terror and longing?

  Lawrence Durrell

  Stars, Healing, Body

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

  Lawrence Durrell

  Love, Men, Letters

  Lawrence Durrell (1991). “Clea”, Penguin Group USA

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• The artist's work constitutes the only satisfactory relationship he can have with his fellow men since he seeks his real friends among the dead and the unborn.

  Lawrence Durrell

  Real, Artist, Men

  Lawrence Durrell (2012). “The Alexandria Quartet: Justine, Balthazar, Mountolive, Clea”, p.411, Faber & Faber

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• Shyness has laws you can only give yourself; tragically to those who least understand.

  Lawrence Durrell

  Law, Giving, Dating

  Lawrence Durrell (2012). “The Alexandria Quartet: Justine, Balthazar, Mountolive, Clea”, p.87, Faber & Faber

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• I have decided to leave Clea’s last letter un-answered. I no longer wish to coerce anyone, to make promises, to think of life in terms of compacts, resolutions, covenants. It will be up to Clea to interpret my silence according to her own needs and desires, to come to me if she has need or not, as the case may be. Does not everything depend on our interpretation of the silence around us?

  Lawrence Durrell

  Thinking, Silence, Promise

  Lawrence Durrell (2012). “The Alexandria Quartet: Justine, Balthazar, Mountolive, Clea”, p.180, Faber & Faber

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

  Lawrence Durrell

  Country, Patriotic, Artist

  Letter to Henry Miller, 1948.

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• Guilt always hurries towards its complement, punishment: only there does its satisfaction lie.

  Lawrence Durrell

  Lying, Punishment, Guilt

  Lawrence Durrell (2012). “The Alexandria Quartet: Justine, Balthazar, Mountolive, Clea”, p.110, Faber & Faber

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• Poetry is what happens when an anxiety meets a technique.

  Lawrence Durrell

  Anxiety, Technique, Poetry Is

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• The heaviest impact of the work of art is in the guts. Art does not reason. It manhandles you and changes you.

  Lawrence Durrell

  Art, Impact, Doe

  Lawrence Durrell (1952). “Key to modern poetry”

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

  Lawrence Durrell

  Love, Nervous, Breakdown

  The Observer Interview, 1990.

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• 'We live' writes Pursewarden somewhere 'lives based upon selected fictions. Our view of reality is conditioned by our position in space and time — not by our personalities as we like to think. Thus every interpretation oа reality is based upon a unique position. Two paces east or west and the whole picture is changed.

  Lawrence Durrell

  Writing, Unique, Reality

  "The Alexandria Quartet: Justine, Balthazar, Mountolive, Clea".

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• The cocktail party - as the name itself indicates - was originally invented by dogs. They are simply bottom-sniffings raised to the rank of formal ceremonies.

  Lawrence Durrell

  Dog, Party, Names

  Lawrence Durrell (2012). “The Alexandria Quartet: Justine, Balthazar, Mountolive, Clea”, p.128, Faber & Faber

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• Truth is a matter of direct apprehension-you can't climb a ladder of mental concepts to it.

  Lawrence Durrell

  Truth, Ladders, Matter

  Lawrence Durrell (2012). “The Alexandria Quartet: Justine, Balthazar, Mountolive, Clea”, p.285, Faber & Faber

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• We should tackle reality in a slightly jokey way, otherwise we miss its point.

  Lawrence Durrell

  Reality, Missing, Way

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• I see artists as a great battalion moving through paint, words, music towards cosmological interpretation.

  Lawrence Durrell

  Moving, Artist, Paint

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• Comedians are the nearest to suicide.

  Lawrence Durrell

  Suicide, Comedian

  Lawrence Durrell (2015). “The Avignon Quintet: Monsieur, Livia, Constance, Sebastian and Quinx”, p.199, Faber & Faber

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• Life, the raw material, is only lived in potentia until the artist deploys it in his work.

  Lawrence Durrell

  Artist, Raw Materials, Materials

  Lawrence Durrell (2012). “The Alexandria Quartet: Justine, Balthazar, Mountolive, Clea”, p.58, Faber & Faber

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• All culture corrupts, but French culture corrupts absolutely.

  Lawrence Durrell

  French Culture, Culture

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• To be the equal of reality you must learn how to ignore it without danger.

  Lawrence Durrell

  Reality, Danger, Equal

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

  Lawrence Durrell

  Secret, Approach, Idleness

  Lawrence Durrell (2012). “The Alexandria Quartet: Justine, Balthazar, Mountolive, Clea”, p.17, Faber & Faber

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

  Lawrence Durrell

  Opposites, Matter, Pleasure

  Lawrence Durrell (2012). “The Alexandria Quartet: Justine, Balthazar, Mountolive, Clea”, p.222, Faber & Faber

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• No history much? Perhaps. Only this ominous Dark beauty flowering under veils, Trapped in the spectrum of a dying style: A village like an instinct left to rust, Composed around the echo of a pistol-shot.

  Lawrence Durrell

  Dark, Echoes, Cities

  Lawrence Durrell (2012). “Collected Poems 1931-74”, p.169, Faber & Faber

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