John Spurling > Quotes

“I used to be rather like you,' the doctor said vaguely, looking somewhat bored, ' All misery is invented.' After a moment he turned back to Boris and smiled. "Happiness, too, I daresay.”
― John Spurling, The Hill Station

“It's an illusion to think that a choice is open to us, unless we are open to that choice.”
― John Spurling, The Ten Thousand Things

“Of all the complexities of the ten thousand things, the self-consciousness of man is ten thousand times the most complex.”
― John Spurling, The Ten Thousand Things

“Shit-buckets are everywhere, but if you are afraid of being chained to them, then you are already chained to them.”
― John Spurling, The Ten Thousand Things

“What could I say? One doesn't tear up a large lenght of expensive silk into quite small pieces and drop them on the ground by mistake.”
― John Spurling, The Ten Thousand Things

“It was a great pity, he thought, that women of her class, unless they were artists or matriarchs like his grandmother - who was both - had so little scope for their own powerful energies that they were reduced to terrorising their servants, playing backgammon with each other and savaging their husbands.”
― John Spurling, The Ten Thousand Things

“We educated people make a great display of humility when we meet, trying to get the better of each other in unimportance. It is usually only a formality, of course, a polite mask for our feelings of superiority.”
― John Spurling