Like all young men I set out to be a genius, but mercifully laughter intervened.
Meaning of the quote
When we are young, we often have big dreams of being extraordinary or famous. But as we grow up, we realize that it's not always easy to be a genius or the best at everything. Sometimes, laughing at ourselves and not taking ourselves too seriously can actually help us feel better and enjoy life more.
About Lawrence Durrell
Lawrence Durrell, the renowned British novelist, poet, and travel writer, led a fascinating life. Born in India to colonial parents, he went on to publish acclaimed works like the Alexandria Quartet and the Avignon Quintet. Despite his tumultuous personal life, marked by four marriages, Durrell’s literary achievements cemented his status as one of the most celebrated writers in 20th century England.
More quotes from Lawrence Durrell
Journeys, like artists, are born and not made. A thousand differing circumstances contribute to them, few of them willed or determined by the will-whatever we may think.
British novelist, poet, dramatist, and travel writer
There are only three things to be done with a woman. You can love her, suffer for her, or turn her into literature.
British novelist, poet, dramatist, and travel writer
Music is only love looking for words.
British novelist, poet, dramatist, and travel writer
Old age is an insult. It’s like being smacked.
British novelist, poet, dramatist, and travel writer
It takes a lot of energy and a lot of neurosis to write a novel. If you were really sensible, you’d do something else.
British novelist, poet, dramatist, and travel writer
Travel can be one of the most rewarding forms of introspection.
British novelist, poet, dramatist, and travel writer
History is an endless repetition of the wrong way of living.
British novelist, poet, dramatist, and travel writer
Guilt always hurries towards its complement, punishment; only there does its satisfaction lie.
British novelist, poet, dramatist, and travel writer
Like all young men I set out to be a genius, but mercifully laughter intervened.
British novelist, poet, dramatist, and travel writer
No one can go on being a rebel too long without turning into an autocrat.
British novelist, poet, dramatist, and travel writer
Our inventions mirror our secret wishes.
British novelist, poet, dramatist, and travel writer
I had become, with the approach of night, once more aware of loneliness and time – those two companions without whom no journey can yield us anything.
British novelist, poet, dramatist, and travel writer
Perhaps our only sickness is to desire a truth which we cannot bear rather than to rest content with the fictions we manufacture out of each other.
British novelist, poet, dramatist, and travel writer
I imagine, therefore I belong and am free.
British novelist, poet, dramatist, and travel writer
I’m trying to die correctly, but it’s very difficult, you know.
British novelist, poet, dramatist, and travel writer
A woman’s best love letters are always written to the man she is betraying.
British novelist, poet, dramatist, and travel writer
It is not love that is blind, but jealousy.
British novelist, poet, dramatist, and travel writer
A city becomes a world when one loves one of it’s inhabitants.
British novelist, poet, dramatist, and travel writer
The appalling thing is the degree of charity women are capable of. You see it all the time… love lavished on absolute fools. Love’s a charity ward, you know.
British novelist, poet, dramatist, and travel writer
Everyone loathes his own country and countrymen if he is any sort of artist.
British novelist, poet, dramatist, and travel writer
Truth disappears with the telling of it.
British novelist, poet, dramatist, and travel writer
The richest love is that which submits to the arbitration of time.
British novelist, poet, dramatist, and travel writer
We are the children of our landscape; it dictates behavior and even thought in the measure to which we are responsive to it.
British novelist, poet, dramatist, and travel writer
Music was invented to confirm human loneliness.
British novelist, poet, dramatist, and travel writer
For us artists there waits the joyous compromise through art with all that wounded or defeated us in daily life; in this way, not to evade destiny, as the ordinary people try to do, but to fulfil it in its true potential – the imagination.
British novelist, poet, dramatist, and travel writer