Whit Stillman > Quotes

“We bring these delightful creatures into the world—eagerly, happily—and then before long they are spying upon and judging us, rarely favourably. Having children is our fondest wish but, in doing so, we breed our acutest critics. It is a preposterous situation—but entirely of our own making.”
― Whit Stillman, Love & Friendship: In Which Jane Austen's Lady Susan Vernon Is Entirely Vindicated

“Even at a young age one sometimes recognizes that there are behavior patterns that would simply be a waste of time for everyone concerned, which leads you to put them out of your mind or avoid them until you reach a certain stage of inebriation, whereupon everything is reconsidered again.”
― Whit Stillman, The Last Days of Disco, With Cocktails at Petrossian Afterwards

“Disco will... never be over. Disco will always live in our minds and hearts. Something like this, that was this big and this important and this great, will never die.”
― Whit Stillman, The Last Days of Disco, With Cocktails at Petrossian Afterwards

“Charlie Black: Fourierism was tried in the late nineteenth century… and it failed. Wasn’t Brook Farm Fourierist? It failed.
Tom Townsend: That’s debatable.
Charlie Black: Whether Brook Farm failed?
Tom Townsend: That it ceased to exist, I’ll grant you, but whether or not it failed cannot be definitively said.
Charlie Black: Well, for me, ceasing to exist is — is failure. I mean, that’s pretty definitive.
Tom Townsend: Well, everyone ceases to exist. Doesn’t mean everyone’s a failure.”
― Whit Stillman, Barcelona and Metropolitan: Tales of Two Cities

“A man so easily influenced is to be treasured.” “As”
― Whit Stillman, Love & Friendship: In Which Jane Austen's Lady Susan Vernon Is Entirely Vindicated

“a favourite master, Mr. Grove, liked to say that if we learned to master the semi-colon we could expect to be successful in whatever path we chose in life. One”
― Whit Stillman, Love & Friendship: In Which Jane Austen's Lady Susan Vernon Is Entirely Vindicated

“Characteristic of the overall difference between Boston and New York, the population at the Acropolis was far less forlorn. Its customers were just those who, for whatever reason, wanted to eat coffee-shop food at very strange hours.”
― Whit Stillman, The Last Days of Disco, With Cocktails at Petrossian Afterwards

“If he held me in true regard he would not believe such insinuations in my disfavour. A worthy lover should assume one has unanswerable motives for all one does!” “Certainly—”
― Whit Stillman, Love & Friendship: In Which Jane Austen's Lady Susan Vernon Is Entirely Vindicated

“has sadly deprived our language of many of the fertile and resonant words which the Englishman of prior centuries had at his disposal. “Argufy” is one such; the dictionary defines it as “to argue or quarrel, typically about something trivial.” Certainly we have all seen occasions where innocuous subjects are “argufied”; an”
― Whit Stillman, Love & Friendship: In Which Jane Austen's Lady Susan Vernon Is Entirely Vindicated

“Life is melodramatic, if you look at the whole sweep of it.”
― Whit Stillman, Metropolitan: A Novella and Three Stories

“their spinster amanuensis, the”
― Whit Stillman, Love & Friendship: In Which Jane Austen's Lady Susan Vernon Is Entirely Vindicated

“That’s the parent’s lot! We bring these delightful creatures into the world—eagerly, happily—and then before long they are spying upon and judging us, rarely favourably. Having children is our fondest wish but, in doing so, we breed our acutest critics. It is a preposterous situation—but entirely of our own making.” Susan”
― Whit Stillman, Love & Friendship: In Which Jane Austen's Lady Susan Vernon Is Entirely Vindicated

“A goblet filled to its edge might well spill, causing harm, staining clothing or furnishings, as well as waste; at the minimum it would require careful sipping and could not be easily handed to a friend for sharing. A so-called “half-filled” goblet can, on the other hand, be moved about freely without spilling; it can be taken on a walk or journey. In fact, even the half that is seen as “empty” is not truly so; it is filled to the brim with healthful, life-giving “air.” If”
― Whit Stillman, Love & Friendship: In Which Jane Austen's Lady Susan Vernon Is Entirely Vindicated

“Here you seem to have won your aunt’s affection; I think I served you well there, for I believe she would do anything to spite me.”
― Whit Stillman, Love & Friendship: In Which Jane Austen's Lady Susan Vernon Is Entirely Vindicated

“Downward social mobility.
We hear a lot about the great social mobility in America with the focus usually on the comparative ease of moving upwards.

What's less discussed is how easy it is to go down. I think that's the direction that we're all heading in. And I think that the downward fall is gonna be very fast.

Not just for us as individuals, but the whole preppy class.

Just look around. Take those of our fathers who grew up very well off.

Maybe their careers started out well enough but just as their contemporaries really began to accomplish things, they started to quit, or rising above office politics, or refusing to compete and risk open failure.

Or not doing the humdrum part of the job. Or only doing the humdrum part.

Or gradually spending more and more time on something more interesting — conservation, or the arts — where even if they were total failures no one would know it.”
― Whit Stillman, Metropolitan: A Novella and Three Stories