Quotes from A Dance to the Music of Time: 2nd Movement

“Women may show some discrimination about whom they sleep with, but they'll marry anybody.”
― Anthony Powell, quote from A Dance to the Music of Time: 2nd Movement

“Well,' said Mrs. Erdleigh, speaking kindly, as if to a child who has proposed a game inevitably associated with the breakage of china, 'I know trouble will come of it if we do.”
― Anthony Powell, quote from A Dance to the Music of Time: 2nd Movement

“We took a bus to Victoria, then passed on foot into a vast, desolate region of stucco streets and squares upon which a doom seemed to have fallen. The gloom was cosmic.”
― Anthony Powell, quote from A Dance to the Music of Time: 2nd Movement

“Daydreams of wealth or women must have given Carolo that faraway look which never left him; sad and silent, he contemplated huge bank balances and voluptuous revels.”
― Anthony Powell, quote from A Dance to the Music of Time: 2nd Movement

“Barnby always dismissed the idea of intelligence in a woman as no more than a characteristic to be endured.”
― Anthony Powell, quote from A Dance to the Music of Time: 2nd Movement

“In fact the original memory of Miss Blaides returned to me one morning when I was sitting in my cream distempered, strip-lighted, bare, sanitary, glaring, forlorn little cell at the Studio. In that place it was possible to know deep despondency.”
― Anthony Powell, quote from A Dance to the Music of Time: 2nd Movement

“Only an atmosphere of quiet hard work and dull, serious conversation were appropriate to him.”
― Anthony Powell, quote from A Dance to the Music of Time: 2nd Movement

“She [Lady Budd] was dressed in a manner to be described as impregnable, like a long, neat, up-to-date battle-cruiser.”
― Anthony Powell, quote from A Dance to the Music of Time: 2nd Movement

“When Quiggin ingratiated himself with people—during his days as secretary to St. John Clarke, for example—he was far too shrewd to confine himself to mere flattery. A modicum of bullying was a pleasure both to himself and his patrons.”
― Anthony Powell, quote from A Dance to the Music of Time: 2nd Movement

“Champagne, m'lord?'
'Have we got any? One bottle would do. Even a half-bottle.'
Smith's face puckered, as if manfully attempting to force his mind to grapple with a mathematical or philosophical problem of extraordinary complexity. His bearing suggested that he had certainly before heard the word 'champagne' used, if only in some distant, outlandish context; that devotion to his master alone gave him some apprehension of what this question—these ravings, almost—might mean. Nothing good could come of it. This was a disastrous way to talk. That was his unspoken message so far as champagne was concerned. After a long pause, he at last shook his head.
'I doubt if there is any champagne left, m'lord.”
― Anthony Powell, quote from A Dance to the Music of Time: 2nd Movement

“For reasons not always at the time explicable, there are specific occasions when events begin suddenly to take on a significance previously unsuspected, so that, before we really know where we are, life seems to have begun in earnest at last, and we ourselves, scarcely aware that any change has taken place, are careering uncontrollably down the slippery avenues of eternity.”
― Anthony Powell, quote from A Dance to the Music of Time: 2nd Movement

“However much one hears about individuals, the picture formed in the mind rarely approximates to the reality. So it was with Mrs Maclintick. I was not prepared for her in the flesh. When she opened the door to us, her formidable discontent with life swept across the threshold in scorching, blasting waves.”
― Anthony Powell, quote from A Dance to the Music of Time: 2nd Movement

“Mrs Maclintick's dissatisfaction with life had probably reached so advanced a stage that she was unable to approach any new event amiably, even when proffered temporary alleviation of her own chronic spleen.”
― Anthony Powell, quote from A Dance to the Music of Time: 2nd Movement

“What a shabby lot of highbrows have turned out tonight," he said, when he saw us. "It makes me ashamed to be one.”
― Anthony Powell, quote from A Dance to the Music of Time: 2nd Movement

“Maclintick's calculatedly humdrum appearance, although shabby, seemed aimed at concealing bohemian affiliations.”
― Anthony Powell, quote from A Dance to the Music of Time: 2nd Movement

“So often one thinks that individuals and situations cannot be so extraordinary as they seem from outside: only to find that the truth is a thousand times odder.”
― Anthony Powell, quote from A Dance to the Music of Time: 2nd Movement

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Popular quotes

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BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.