Malcolm Bradbury - Stepping westward (1965)

11 Sourced Quotes

View all Malcolm Bradbury Quotes
My experience of ships is that on them one makes an interesting discovery about the world. One finds one can do without it completely.

Malcolm Bradbury
The English are polite by telling lies. The Americans are polite by telling the truth.

Malcolm Bradbury
English history is all about men liking their fathers, and American history is all about men hating their fathers and trying to burn down everything they ever did.

Malcolm Bradbury
[...] You see, you are an optimist and live on hope. I am a pessimist and live on experience.

Malcolm Bradbury
Well, yes, surely I think everybody ought to enjoy life as much as it's humanly possible because that's why we exist. I believe.

Malcolm Bradbury
Jochum had said, "You keep asking the universe 'How ought I to live?' But it can't answer."

Malcolm Bradbury
[...], and the traffic noise that boomed in through the window was another reminder of what his spirit knew, that he was but a grain of sand in someone else's desert.

Malcolm Bradbury
Reading someone else's newspaper is like sleeping with someone else's wife. Nothing seems to be precisely in the right place, and when you find what you are looking for, it is not clear then how to respond to it.

Malcolm Bradbury
"We got a course in picknicking at the university," said Dr. Bourbon. "It's called Geology, but it's really picknicking."

Malcolm Bradbury
"Well," said Dr Jochum, "you are like all reformers. You like to reform the world because it is easier than trying to reform yourself."

Malcolm Bradbury
Only the old are innocent. That is what the Victorians understood, and the Christians. Original sin is a property of the young. The old grow beyond corruption very quickly.

Malcolm Bradbury