Quotes by Simon Raven

“I loved the Army as an institution and loathed every single thing it required me to do.”

“Nobody minded what you did in bed or what you said about God, a very civilized attitude in 1948.”

“Gentlemen can now only behave as such, or be tolerated as such, in circumstances that are manifestly contrived or unreal.”

“Scholarship was one thing, drudgery another. I very soon concluded that nothing would induce me to read, let alone make notes on, hundreds and hundreds of very, very, very boring books.”

“Whereas the gentleman always seeks to deserve his position, the aristocrat, disdainful and insouciant, is quite happy just to exploit it.”

“Art for arts sake, money for Gods sake.”

“I wanted to look at the upper-middle-class scene since the war, and in particular my generations part in it. We had spent our early years as privileged members of a privileged class. How were we faring in the Age of the Common Man? How ought we to be faring?”

“For in a literary career there was one unfailing advantage: No degree whatever of moral or social disgrace could disqualify one from practice - and indeed a bad character, if suitably tricked out for presentation, might win one helpful publicity.”

“And so, at the age of thirty, I had successively disgraced myself with three fine institutions, each of which had made me free of its full and rich resources, had trained me with skill and patience, and had shown me nothing but forbearance and charity when I failed in trust.”

“How can I go on with this? Please God, let me win a football pool.”

...dusk is the time when men whisper of matters about which they remain silent in the full light of the sun.

Nobody minded what you did in bed or what you said about God, a very civilized attitude in 1948.

And so, at the age of thirty, I had successively disgraced myself with three fine institutions, each of which had made me free of its full and rich resources, had trained me with skill and patience, and had shown me nothing but forbearance and charity when I failed in trust.

Art for arts sake, money for Gods sake.