Pritchett Quotes & Sayings

Ethical dilemmas have a way of sneaking up on a person. If something smells funny, stay away from it. Or help get rid of it. — Price Pritchett

I shall never be as old as I was between 20 and 30. — V.S. Pritchett

Optimism is a much more enabling mindset than hard-core realism, and it's far superior to pessimism ... [because] Hope helps move us in the direction of our goals and ambitions. — Price Pritchett

[London] is sentimental and tolerant. The attitude to foreigners is like the attitude to dogs: Dogs are neither human nor British, but so long as you keep them under control, give them their exercise, feed them, pat them, you will find their wild emotions are amusing, and their characters interesting. — V.S. Pritchett

The only way we can develop muscle is through regular exercise. As soon as we stop stretching and working toward higher ethics, our standards start to sag. The muscle gets soft, and instead of excellence we have to settle for mediocrity. Maybe something even worse. — Price Pritchett

The profoundly humorous writers are humorous because they are responsive to the hopeless, uncouth, concatenations of life. — V.S. Pritchett

"You, who are on the road, must have a code that you can live by-"* You'll find universal agreement on the value of a behavior code, on the need for some sort of ethical system. Even the crooks count on "honor among thieves," and countries actually wage war according to certain rules. On the job and in the rest of our day-to-day living, we each need a "code for the road." — Price Pritchett

He (Orwell) always made an impression of the passing traveler who meets one on the station, points out that one is waiting for the wrong train, and vanishes — V.S. Pritchett

Pay attention to the voice within ... Sometimes the voice of your conscience gets drowned out by crowd noise or by the pep rally of temptations. And your mind may put some selfish spin on the ball, rationalizing that it's okay to veer away from the ethical route. When we run into conflicts between ethical "shoulds" and our selfish "wants," we all argure out ways to con our conscience. But take pains to listen, because it has your best interests at heart. — Price Pritchett

Who is this vague "they" we blame for so many of our problems? "They" is the obscure party we use as our whipping boy to camouflage the fact that we - you and I and other specific human beings just like us - have to start doing things differently. "They" can't fix anything. We can. — Price Pritchett

Because the difference between a friend and a real friend is that you and the real friend come from the same territory, of the same place deep inside you, and that means you see the world in the same kind of way. You know each other even before you do. — Laura Pritchett

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

Until I test the limits to what I can achieve, I won't really know how well I can do. — Price Pritchett

Live according to the ethics of excellence, and you can always stand proud. Pride - not vanity, but dignity and self-respect - should carry a lot of weight in helping you make decisions. Let pride help you decide. — Price Pritchett

The question is, when so many others cut corners, shave the truth, self-deal, believe in the fast buck, and follow the crowd along the low road of least resistance, can we even afford to travel the high road of ethical behavior? Frankly, we can't afford anything else. Any other competitive angle is a pure crapshoot in today's business world. Companies with shaky ethics and shabby standards will be crippled as they try to compete in our changing world. — Price Pritchett

The legal system doesn't always serve as a good guide for your conscience. You can step way over the ethical line and still be inside the law. The same thing goes for rules, policies and procedures - you know, the organization's "internal laws." You can "go by the book" and still behave unethically. Still not move beyond mediocrity. High standards-the ethics of excellence-come to life through your basic values, your character, integrity and honesty. Obeying the law is the bare minimum. — Price Pritchett

Criticism changes with the fashion of the time. A story is always a story. — V.S. Pritchett

Like many popular best-sellers, he was a very sad and solemn man who took himself too seriously and his art not seriously enough. — V.S. Pritchett

There is more magic in sin if it is not committed. — V.S. Pritchett

Nobody ever stopped reading E. B. White or V. S. Pritchett because the writing was too good. — William Zinsser

Everybody makes honest mistakes, but there's no such thing as an honest cover-up. — Price Pritchett

I think humans are only capable of small moments of honesty. Then they get tired and back away. It's something to foster, this ability to keep it for longer. How to keep being honest and aware. — Laura Pritchett

Excellence calls for character ... integrity ... fairness ... honesty ... a determination to do what's right. High ethical standards, across the board. — Price 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

Excellence is a process, not just an outcome. Sure, we have to hold out for high standards in the products or services we provide. The goods must be more than "good enough." But so must our approach - you know, our methodology, the way we do business and deal with people. How could the ends be considered excellent if we can't be proud of the means? — Price Pritchett

In our family, as far as we are concerned, we were born and what happened before that is myth. — V.S. Pritchett

A natural New Yorker is a native of the present tense. — V.S. Pritchett

Writing enlarges the landscape of the mind. — V.S. Pritchett

Act as if success is certain. — Price Pritchett

Only in a place like this do earth and sky come together in such a way that they bridge into one, and in such a place a person could put up her arms and find herself in heaven. — Laura Pritchett

[London is] like the sight of a heavy sea from a rowing boat in the middle of the Atlantic ... One lives in it, afloat but half submerged in a heavy flood of brick, stone, asphalt, slate, steel, glass, concrete, and tarmac, seeing nothing fixable beyond a few score white spires that splash up like spits of foam above the next glum wave of dirty buildings. — V.S. Pritchett

And I bet it's harder than people think, isn't it? Everything looks so simple from a distance. Then, the more you look, the more you see. And that's when you have to rise to the challenge. — Laura Pritchett

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

I have been an elated reader of all the great Russian novelists and short-story writers since my early twenties and I have often written about them, though I know no Russian and have never been to Russia. The lure for me (I realize now) lay in John Bayley's wonderful phrase - I believe in his learned introduction to Pushkin's Letters - that the "doors of the Russian house are wide open": we see people who speak out in the lost hours of the day as it passes through them. — V.S. Pritchett

The Canadian spirit is cautious, observant and critical where the American is assertive. — V.S. Pritchett

Prep school, public school, university: these now tedious influences standardize English autobiography, giving the educated Englishman the sad if fascinating appearance of a stuffed bird of sly and beady eye in some old seaside museum. The fixation on school has become a class trait. It manifests itself as a mixture of incurious piety and parlour game. — V.S. Pritchett

Optimism inspires, energizes, and brings out our best. It points the mind toward possibilities and helps us think creatively past problems. — Price Pritchett

We need timeless principles to steer by in running our organizations and building our personal careers. We need high standards
the ethics of excellence. — Price Pritchett

If you must doubt something, doubt your limits. — Price Pritchett

As consumers we get more demanding all the time. We want better quality. We want it faster. And cheaper. Plus, we want more choices. Whoever comes along that can satisfy all these 'wants' gets our business. — Price Pritchett

The difference between farce and humour in literature is, I suppose, that farce strums louder and louder on one string, while humour varies its note, changes its key, grows and spreads and deepens until it may indeed reach tragic depths. — V.S. Pritchett

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

Well, youth is the period of assumed personalities and disguises. It is the time of the sincerely insincere. — V.S. Pritchett

But when we get enough people who don't care, and who don't accept personal responsibility for high ethical standards, our organization gets the "M" disease. Mediocrity. Anybody in the place can be a carrier. By the same token, every individual can carry the cure: the ethics of excellence. — Price Pritchett

If you're unwilling to defer pleasure or endure some "pain" for now, are you likely to end up later deep in the hole? — Price Pritchett

The ethics of excellence are grounded in action - what you actually do, rather than what you say you believe. Talk, as the saying goes, is cheap. — Price Pritchett

We've got to start thinking of school as a lifelong process. That's the only way we'll keep abreast and be able to share in the wealth of the new "knowledge society." — Price Pritchett

If you become a giver, you'll make them feel like they want to reciprocate. — Price Pritchett

As tough as it sometimes looks on the front end, it's easier to do right than undo wrong. — Price Pritchett

We can't achieve excellence through talent alone. Or merely by making technological improvements. We can't even buy our way to excellence, no matter how much money we have available to spend. More dollars will never do it. We have to develop a strong corporate conscience. Ethical muscle. And that doesn't happen by accident either. — Price Pritchett

Your doubts are not the product of accurate thinking, but habitual thinking. Years ago you excepted flawed conclusions as correct, begin to live your life as if those warped ideas about your potential were true, and ceased the bold experiment in living that brought you many breakthrough behaviors as a child. — Price Pritchett

In these times of self-directed teams, empowered employees, and "boundaryless" organizations, your worth as an individual employee will also get measured by your work group's collective results. — Price Pritchett

Eventually we have to "settle up" and pay the price for our ethical violations. Just remember the old line that says, "You can pay me now ... or you can pay me later." Often you can buy some time, but when you "pay later" you'll probably have to pay more. — Price Pritchett

V. S. Pritchett was one of the most admired, fun, talked-about writers of the 20th century: he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth for his work with prose. He was born in 1900, wrote till he died in 1997, and has been tidily forgotten ever since. This is a real shame. — Darin Strauss

Now, practically all reviewers have academic aspirations. The people from the universities are used to a captive audience, but the literary journalist has to please his audience. — V.S. Pritchett

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

The secret of happiness is to find a congenial monotony. — V.S. Pritchett

It is exciting and emancipating to believe we are one of nature's latest experiments, but what if the experiment is unsuccessful? — 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

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

You have to get beyond blaming others ... give up your excuses ... stand responsible for what you do ... ultimately, ethics ends up an individual exercise. — Price Pritchett

If you're experiencing no anxiety or discomfort, the risk you're taking probably isn't worthy of you. The only risks that aren't a little scary are the ones you've outgrown. — Price Pritchett

The makers of the short story have rarely been good novelists. — 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 lives were governed by ideas alien to mine. — V.S. Pritchett

Queen Victoria - a mixture of national landlady and actress. — V.S. Pritchett

And isn't it funny how if one person speaks for real, then the other person can too? We just did that. We just became friends. It's just a matter of finding the right person and crossing that barrier together, almost like you're holding hands, but really you're holding the most tender place inside you. — Laura Pritchett

I have always felt a special affinity with V. S. Pritchett. He worked from the ear, primarily, as I do, and he was an all-rounder, writing short stories, novels, memoir, travelogue, critical biography. He lived to be almost 100, and he never stopped, and his work is unified by a great generosity of spirit. — Kevin Barry

The businessman who is a novelist is able to drop in on literature and feel no suicidal loss of esteem if the lady is not at home, and he can spend his life preparing without fuss for the awful interview. — V.S. Pritchett

Give people, including yourself, clear permission to make mistakes ... and to fix the problems. Since nobody's perfect, mistakes should be allowed. Cover-ups shouldn't. Cover-ups create twice the trouble. — Price Pritchett

Among the masked dandies of Edwardian comedy, Max Beerbohm is the most happily armored by a deep and almost innocent love of himself as a work of art. — V.S. Pritchett

When you can make it this simple, though, just do the right thing. Even if you could get away with less. Even when other people are doing the wrong thing. Even though the wrong thing seems like no big deal. — Price Pritchett

Art is what gets us beyond what is real. It makes reality more real. It also shortens the distance we gotta travel to see how connected we are. — Laura 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

Your ethical muscle grows stronger every time you choose right over wrong. — Price Pritchett

The peculiar foreign superstition that the English do not like love, the evidence being that they do not talk about it. — V.S. Pritchett

No sense being pessimistic. Wouldn't work anyway. — Price Pritchett

A short story is ... frequently the celebration of character at bursting point. — V.S. Pritchett

When you see people with "the right stuff," those who choose the right over the wrong or the "iffy," let them know you're proud of them. Encourage the courageous, so they'll have the will to carry on. — Price Pritchett

A touch of science, even bogus science, gives an edge to the superstitious tale. — V.S. Pritchett

Some people argue against both optimism and pessimism in favor of so-called realistic thinking. They distrust optimism on the grounds that it causes us to sugercoat problems, discount risks, and exaggerate the upside. Pessimism, on the other hand, is criticized as too downbeat, de-energizing, and generally damaging in its impact. This crown prefers realism as the neutral and objective middle ground. — Price Pritchett

The mark of genius is an incessant activity of mind. Genius is a spiritual greed. — V.S. Pritchett

You can't put someone else in charge of your morals. Ethics is a personal discipline. — Price Pritchett

The State, that cawing rookery of committees and subcommittees. — V.S. Pritchett

People said it because other people said it. They did not know why it was being said and heard everywhere. They did not give or ask for reasons. 'Reason,' Dr. Pritchett had told them, 'is the most naive of all superstitions.'
'The source of public opinion?' said Claude Slagenhop in a public radio speech. 'There is no source of public opinion. It is spontaneously general. It is a reflex of the collective instinct of the collective mind. — Ayn Rand

The world behaves differently when I take action to go after what I want. — Price Pritchett

For some reason I believed that if you fell in love it was a guaranteed thing that your path would cross with his, and I never wondered how if would feel to fall in love with a man whose future just couldn't include you. — Laura Pritchett

Because of the influence of the cinema, most reports or stories of violence are so pictorial that they lack content or meaning. The camera brings them to our eyes, but does not settle them in our minds, nor in time. — V.S. Pritchett

Short stories can be rather stark and bare unless you put in the right details. Details make stories human, and the more human a story can be, the better. — V.S. Pritchett

Notice that "I" is at the center of the word "ethical." There is no "they." Achieving the ethics of excellence is our individual assignment. — Price Pritchett

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

The novel ... creates a bemusing effect. The short story, on the other hand wakes the reader up. Not only that, it answers the primitive craving for art, the wit, paradox and beauty of shape, the longing to see a dramatic pattern and significance in our experience. — V.S. Pritchett

High personal standards aren't enough for organizational excellence. You've got to be intolerant of low standards in others ... If you accommodate questionable practices in others who touch your organization, you risk soiling its reputation. Anybody whose hands aren't clean can get the place dirty. — Price Pritchett

The ethics of excellence requires a sense of perspective. Look at the big picture. If you live for the moment you might mortgage the future? What happens if you put your reputation at risk and lose the bet? — Price Pritchett

We can't win the struggle for high standards if we just talk a good game ... we've got to play a good game. — Price Pritchett

Those mausoleums of inactive masculinity are places for men who prefer armchairs to women. — V.S. Pritchett

Narrow life down to what's precious and necessary. In a world of complexity the best weapon is simplicity. — Price Pritchett

We are used to the actions of human beings, not to their stillness. — V.S. Pritchett

It's all in the art. You get no credit for living. — V.S. Pritchett

Absolute Evil is not the kingdom of hell. The inhabitants of hell are ourselves, i.e., those who pay our painful, embarrassing, humanistic duties to society and who are compromised by our intellectually dubious commitment to virtue, which can be defined by the perpetual smear-word of French polemic: the bourgeois. (Bourgeois equals humanist.) This word has long been anathema in France where categories are part of the ruling notion of logique. The word cannot be readily matched in England or America. — V.S. Pritchett