How grudging memory is, and how bitterly she clutches the raw material of her daily work.

— Lawrence Durrell

I don’t believe one reads to escape reality. A person reads to confirm a reality he knows is there, but which he has not experienced.

— Lawrence Durrell

I have done so many things in my life," she said to the mirror. "Evil things, perhaps. But never inattentively, never wastefully...was I wrong?

— Lawrence Durrell

I imagine, therefore I belong and am free.

— Lawrence Durrell

I suppose the secret of his success is in his tremendous idleness which almost approaches the supernatural.

— Lawrence Durrell

It is a pity indeed to travel and not get this essential sense of landscape values. You do not need a sixth sense for it. It is there if you just close your eyes and breathe softly through your nose; you will hear the whispered message, for all landscapes ask the same question in the same whisper. 'I am watching you -- are you watching yourself in me?' Most travelers hurry too much...the great thing is to try and travel with the eyes of the spirit wide open, and not too much factual information. To tune in, without reverence, idly -- but with real inward attention. It is to be had for the feeling...you can extract the essence of a place once you know how. If you just get as still as a needle, you'll be there.

— Lawrence Durrell

It is hard to fight with one's heart's desires; whatever it wishes to get, it purchases at the cost of the soul.

— Lawrence Durrell

It is not love that is blind, but jealousy.

— 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. They flower spontaneously out of the demands of our natures - and the best of them lead us not only outwards in space, but inwards as well. Travel can be one of the most rewarding forms of introspection....

— Lawrence Durrell

Like all young men I set out to be a genius, but mercifully laughter intervened.

— Lawrence Durrell