Valerie Martin > Valerie's Quotes

“The present era is so proud that it has produced a phenomenon which I imagine to be unprecedented: the present's resentment of the past, resentment because the past had the audacity to happen without us being there, without our cautious opinion and our hesitant consent, and even worse, without our gaining any advantage from it.”
― Javier Marias

“. . .the books we don't read are full of warnings; we will either never read them or they will arrive too late.”
― Javier Marías, While the Women Are Sleeping

“If certain individuals fall in love from motives of convenience, they can be contrasted with plenty of others in whom passion seems principally aroused by the intensity of administrative difficulties in procuring its satisfaction.”
― Anthony Powell, A Dance to the Music of Time: 1st Movement