Anthony Powell

People think that because a novel's invented, it isn't true. Exactly the reverse is the case. Biography and memoirs can never be wholly true, since they cannot include every conceivable circumstance of what happened. The novel can do that.

Parents - especially step-parents - are sometimes a bit of a disappointment to their children. They don't fulfill the promise of their early years.

Few persons who have ever sat for a portrait can have felt anything but inferior while the process is going on.

Self-love seems so often unrequited.

He fell in love with himself at first sight, and it is a passion to which he has always remained faithful. Self-love seems so often unrequited.

Books do furnish a room.

Parents are sometimes a bit of a disappointment to their children. They don't fulfill the promise of their early years.

Growing old's like being increasingly penalized for a crime you haven't committed.