Paul Fussell > Quotes

“i find nothing more depressing than optimism.”
― Paul Fussell

“Americans are the only people in the world known to me whose status anxiety prompts them to advertise their college and university affiliations in the rear window of their automobiles.”
― Paul Fussell, Class: A Guide Through the American Status System

“Every war is ironic because every war is worse than expected. Every war constitutes an irony of situation because its means are so melodramatically disproportionate to its presumed ends.”
― Paul Fussell, The Great War and Modern Memory

“If I didn't have writing, I'd be running down the street hurling grenades in people's faces.”
― Paul Fussell

“If truth is the main casualty in war, ambiguity is another.”
― Paul Fussell, The Great War and Modern Memory

“Another reason is that the letters are almost always funny, offering readers the spectacle of some pompous self-celebrator given ample ironic room in which to parade his self-solicited hurt.”
― Paul Fussell

“The more violent the body contact of the sports you watch, the lower your class.
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― Paul Fussell

“So many bright futures consigned to the ashes of the past.So many dreams lost in the madness that had engulfed us.Except for a few widely scattered shouts of joy,the survivors of the abyss sat hollow-eyed and silent, trying to comprehend a world without war.”
― Paul Fussell, Thank God for the Atom Bomb & Other Essays

“Today the Somme is a peaceful but sullen place, unforgetting and unforgiving. ... To wander now over the fields destined to extrude their rusty metal fragments for centuries is to appreciate in the most intimate way the permanent reverberations of July, 1916. When the air is damp you can smell rusted iron everywhere, even though you see only wheat and barley.”
― Paul Fussell, The Great War and Modern Memory