Life — how curious is that habit that makes us think it is not here, but elsewhere.

- V. S. Pritchett

It is the role of the poet to look at what is happening in the world and to know that quite other things are happening.

- V. S. Pritchett

It's very important to feel foreign. I was born in England, but when I'm being a writer, everyone in England is foreign to me.

- V. S. Pritchett

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

- V. S. Pritchett

It is well known that, when two authors meet, they at once start talking about money-like everyone else.

- V. S. Pritchett

I felt the beginning of a passion, hopeless in the long run, but very nourishing, for identifying myself with people who were not my own, and whose l…

- V. S. Pritchett

Sooner or later, the great men turn out to be all alike. They never stop working. They never lose a minute. It is very depressing.

- V. S. Pritchett

I am under the spell of language, which has ruled me since I was 10.

- V. S. Pritchett

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

- V. S. Pritchett