Angus Wilson Quotes

The impulse to write a novel comes from a momentary unified vision of life.

The novelist must be his own most harsh critic and also his own most loving admirer and about both he must say nothing.

Once a Catholic always a Catholic.

Between Margaret's fine edged art and Glady's rough simplicity, where did the greater feminine solace lie? True art, after all, is simple.

I have no concern for the common man except that he should not be so common.

Envy has the ugliness of a trapped rat that has gnawed its own foot in its effort to escape.

All fiction for me is a kind of magic and trickery, a confidence trick, trying to make people believe something is true that isn't.

All the seven deadly sins are self destroying, morbid appetites, but in their early stages at least, lust and gluttony, averice and sloth know some gratification, while anger and pride have power, even though that power eventually destroys itself. Envy is impotent, numbed with fear, never ceasing in its appetite, and it knows no gratification, but endless self torment. It has the ugliness of a trapped rat, which gnaws its own foot in an effort to escape.