Paul Fussell Quotes - Page 2

Quotes about:

• The past is not the present: pretending it is corrupts art and thus both rots the mind and shrivels the imagination and conscience.

  Paul Fussell

  Art, Past, Imagination

  Paul Fussell (1982). “The Boy Scout Handbook and Other Observations”, Oxford University Press, USA

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• Chickenshit refers to behavior that makes military life worse than it need be: petty harassment of the weak by the strong; open scrimmage for power and authority and prestige; sadism thinly disguised as necessary discipline; a constant 'paying off of old scores'; and insistence on the letter rather than the spirit of ordinances.

  Paul Fussell

  Strong, Military, Discipline

  "Private Ryan was a hero, but there were bums, too" by Stephen Ambrose, www.cnn.com. August 5, 1998.

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• Today the Somme is a peaceful but sullen place, unforgetting and unforgiving. ... To wander now over the fields destined to extrude their rusty metal fragments for centuries is to appreciate in the most intimate way the permanent reverberations of July, 1916. When the air is damp you can smell rusted iron everywhere, even though you see only wheat and barley.

  Paul Fussell

  July, Air, Iron

  Paul Fussell (2013). “The Great War and Modern Memory”, p.68, Oxford University Press

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• Understanding the past requires pretending that you don't know the present.

  Paul Fussell

  Past, History, Understanding

  Paul Fussell (1990). “Thank God for the Atom Bomb, and Other Essays”

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• The simple is carefully shunned by those who labour to seem what they would be.

  Paul Fussell

  Simple, Would Be, Seems

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• There is no Apocalypse.

  Paul Fussell

  Religion, Apocalypse

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• Irony is the attendant of hope and the fuel of hope is innocence.

  Paul Fussell

  Fuel, Innocence, Irony

  Paul Fussell (2013). “The Great War and Modern Memory”, p.34, Oxford University Press

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• To get home you had to end the war. To end the war was the reason you fought it. The only reason.

  Paul Fussell

  War, Home, Reason

  Paul Fussell (1990). “Wartime: Understanding and Behavior in the Second World War”, p.141, Oxford University Press, USA

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• Most people who seek attention and regard by announcing that they're writing a novel are actually so devoid of narrative talent that they can't hold the attention of a dinner table for thirty seconds, even with a dirty joke.

  Paul Fussell

  Dirty, Writing, People

  Paul Fussell (1991). “Bad Or, the Dumbing of America”, Pocket Books

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• Travel sharpens the senses. Abroad one feels, sees and hears things in an abnormal way.

  Paul Fussell

  Abnormal, Way, Feels

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• So many bright futures consigned to the ashes of the past.So many dreams lost in the madness that had engulfed us.Except for a few widely scattered shouts of joy,the survivors of the abyss sat hollow-eyed and silent, trying to comprehend a world without war.

  Paul Fussell

  Dream, War, Past

  Paul Fussell (1990). “Thank God for the Atom Bomb, and Other Essays”

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• All the pathos and irony of leaving one’s youth behind is thus implicit in every joyous moment of travel

  Paul Fussell

  Travel, Leaving, Around The World

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• Every war is ironic because every war is worse than expected. Every war constitutes an irony of situation because its means are so melodramatically disproportionate to its presumed ends.

  Paul Fussell

  War, Mean, Ironic

  Paul Fussell (2013). “The Great War and Modern Memory”, p.23, Oxford University Press

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• And the ideal travel writer is consumed not just with a will to know. He is also moved by a powerful will to teach.

  Paul Fussell

  Travel, Powerful, Teach

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• The wise traveler learns not to repeat successes but tries new places all the time.

  Paul Fussell

  Wise, Travel, Trying

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• Travel at its truest is thus an ironic experience.

  Paul Fussell

  Travel, Ironic, Truest

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• If the guidebook used to be critical, today it seems largely a celebratory adjunct to the publicity operations of hotels, resorts, and even countries.

  Paul Fussell

  Country, Today, Publicity

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• Things without defense: insects, kittens, small boys.

  Paul Fussell

  Boys, Defense, Youth

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• If the term discussion has always seemed to me to imply mild warnings of wasted time, workshop sets off a clangorous alarm.

  Paul Fussell

  Time, Alarms, Warning

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• A guide book is addressed to those who plan to follow the traveler, doing what he has done, but more selectively. A travel book, in its purest, is addressed to those who do not plan to follow the traveler at all, but who require the exotic or comic anomalies, wonders and scandals of the literary form romance which their own place or time cannot entirely supply.

  Paul Fussell

  Travel, Book, Romance

  Paul Fussell (1982). “Abroad: British Literary Traveling between the Wars”, p.203, Oxford University Press

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• If truth is the main casualty in war, ambiguity is another.

  Paul Fussell

  War, Truth Is, Casualties

  Paul Fussell (2013). “The Great War and Modern Memory”, p.76, Oxford University Press

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