V.S. Pritchett: Greatness

V.S. Pritchett was British writer and critic. Explore interesting quotes on greatness.

V.S. Pritchett: 46 quotes 0 likes

“All great things, in our time, can only be seen in fragments, by fragmentary people.”

V.S. Pritchett

Source: London Perceived (1962), Ch. 5, p. 162
Context: Mass society destroys the things it is told are its inheritance. It is rarely possible to see the Abbey without being surrounded by thousands of tourists from all over the world. Like St. Peter's at Rome, it has been turned into a sinister sort of railway terminal. The aisles are as crowded as the pavements of Oxford Street or the alleys of a large shop, imagination is jostled, awe dispersed, and the mind never at rest. All great things, in our time, can only be seen in fragments, by fragmentary people.

People , Time

“On one plane, the very great writers and the popular romancers of the lower order always meet. They use all of themselves, helplessly, unselectively. They are above the primness and good taste of declining to give themselves away.”

V.S. Pritchett

"Rider Haggard: Still Riding", p. 29
The Tale Bearers: English and American Writers (1980)

“One recalls how much the creative impulse of the best-sellers depends upon self-pity. It is an emotion of great dramatic potential.”

V.S. Pritchett

"Rider Haggard: Still Riding", p. 28
The Tale Bearers: English and American Writers (1980)

Dependency

“Great artists are always far-seeing. They easily avoid the big stumbling blocks of fact. They rely on their own simplicity and vision. It is fact-fetichism that has given us those scores and scores of American books on America, the works of sociologists, anthropologists, topical "problem" hunters, working-parties and statisticians, which in the end leave us empty. Henry James succeeds because he rejects information. He was himself the only information he required.”

V.S. Pritchett

"Henry James: Birth of a Hermaphrodite", p. 131
The Tale Bearers: English and American Writers (1980)

Books , Problem