Top 30 Trevanian Quotes (2024 Update)

Trevanian Quote: “Irony is Fate’s most common figure of speech.”

1. “Irony is Fate’s most common figure of speech.”

Trevanian Quote: “No one really likes Switzerland, except those who prefer cleanliness to life.”

2. “No one really likes Switzerland, except those who prefer cleanliness to life.”

Trevanian Quote: “Go is to Western chess what philosophy is to double-entry accounting.”

3. “Go is to Western chess what philosophy is to double-entry accounting.”

Trevanian Quote: “The rope connecting two men on a mountain is more than nylon protection; it is an organic thing that transmits subtle messages of intent and disposition from man to man; it is an extension of the tactile senses, a psychological bond, a wire along which currents of communication flow.”

4. “The rope connecting two men on a mountain is more than nylon protection; it is an organic thing that transmits subtle messages of intent and disposition from man to man; it is an extension of the tactile senses, a psychological bond, a wire along which currents of communication flow.”

Trevanian Quote: “We all desire to be understood, but no one enjoys being obvious.”

5. “We all desire to be understood, but no one enjoys being obvious.”

Trevanian Quote: “Who must do the harsh things? He who can.”

6. “Who must do the harsh things? He who can.”

Trevanian Quote: “Pass through knowledge to arrive at simplicity.”

7. “Pass through knowledge to arrive at simplicity.”

Trevanian Quote: “Do not fall into the error of the artist who boasts of twenty years experience in his craft while in fact he has had only one year of experience – twenty times.”

8. “Do not fall into the error of the artist who boasts of twenty years experience in his craft while in fact he has had only one year of experience – twenty times.”

Trevanian Quote: “Generalization is flawed thinking only when applied to individuals. It is the most accurate way to describe the mass, the Wad. And yours is a democracy, a dictatorship of the Wad.”

9. “Generalization is flawed thinking only when applied to individuals. It is the most accurate way to describe the mass, the Wad. And yours is a democracy, a dictatorship of the Wad.”

Trevanian Quote: “Confession is good for the soul, it empties the spirit making more room for sin.”

10. “Confession is good for the soul, it empties the spirit making more room for sin.”

Trevanian Quote: “Niceness is an overrated quality. Being nice is how a man pays his way into a party if he hasn’t the guts to be tough or the class to be brilliant.”

11. “Niceness is an overrated quality. Being nice is how a man pays his way into a party if he hasn’t the guts to be tough or the class to be brilliant.”

Trevanian Quote: “But we are in the age of the mediocre man. He is dull, colorless, boring – but inevitably victorious.”

12. “But we are in the age of the mediocre man. He is dull, colorless, boring – but inevitably victorious.”

Trevanian Quote: “The Trevanian Buff is a strange and wonderful creature: an outsider, a natural elitist, not so much a cynic as an idealist mugged by reality, not just one of those who march to a different drummer, but the solo drummer in a parade of one.”

13. “The Trevanian Buff is a strange and wonderful creature: an outsider, a natural elitist, not so much a cynic as an idealist mugged by reality, not just one of those who march to a different drummer, but the solo drummer in a parade of one.”

Trevanian Quote: “It is a truism of American politics that no man who can win an election deserves to.”

14. “It is a truism of American politics that no man who can win an election deserves to.”

Trevanian Quote: “Of course these gifts were reckless extravagances for a family that was never more than a couple of dollars and a few days away from hunger, but that’s how poor people cope with being marooned in poverty while all around them flows the frothy stream of the consumer culture.”

15. “Of course these gifts were reckless extravagances for a family that was never more than a couple of dollars and a few days away from hunger, but that’s how poor people cope with being marooned in poverty while all around them flows the frothy stream of the consumer culture.”

Trevanian Quote: “However, little by little, I am coming to the view that what I mistook for humility was, in fact, an accurate evaluation of your worth.”

16. “However, little by little, I am coming to the view that what I mistook for humility was, in fact, an accurate evaluation of your worth.”

Trevanian Quote: “You can gain experience, if you are careful to avoid empty redundancy. Do not fall into the error of the artisan who boasts of twenty years experience in craft while in fact he has had only one year of experience–twenty times. And never resent the advantage of experience your elders have. Recall that they have paid for this experience in the coin of life, and have emptied a purse that cannot be refilled.”

17. “You can gain experience, if you are careful to avoid empty redundancy. Do not fall into the error of the artisan who boasts of twenty years experience in craft while in fact he has had only one year of experience–twenty times. And never resent the advantage of experience your elders have. Recall that they have paid for this experience in the coin of life, and have emptied a purse that cannot be refilled.”

Trevanian Quote: “It was not their irritating assumption of equality that annoyed Nicholai so much as their cultural confusions. The Americans seemed to confuse standard of living with quality of life, equal opportunity with institutionalized mediocrity, bravery with courage, machismo with manhood, liberty with freedom, wordiness with articulation, fun with pleasure – in short, all of the misconceptions common to those who assume that justice implies equality for all, rather than equality for equals.”

18. “It was not their irritating assumption of equality that annoyed Nicholai so much as their cultural confusions. The Americans seemed to confuse standard of living with quality of life, equal opportunity with institutionalized mediocrity, bravery with courage, machismo with manhood, liberty with freedom, wordiness with articulation, fun with pleasure – in short, all of the misconceptions common to those who assume that justice implies equality for all, rather than equality for equals.”

Trevanian Quote: “Ripe for romance? Is that not only the self-conscious and sensitive young man’s way of saying he was heavy with passion? Is not, perhaps, romance only the fiction by means of which the tender-minded negotiate their lust?”

19. “Ripe for romance? Is that not only the self-conscious and sensitive young man’s way of saying he was heavy with passion? Is not, perhaps, romance only the fiction by means of which the tender-minded negotiate their lust?”

Trevanian Quote: “The years passed unnoticed and unremembered, and one autumn morning I found myself suddenly forty-five years old. It was a time for weighing youthful hopes against mature accomplishment, for it was quite certain that I had by then done all I was ever going to do. Sitting alone at my desk that evening of my forty-fifth birthday I asked that least original of introspective questions: Where had it all gone? And the somewhat less banal question: What, after all, had it been? My.”

20. “The years passed unnoticed and unremembered, and one autumn morning I found myself suddenly forty-five years old. It was a time for weighing youthful hopes against mature accomplishment, for it was quite certain that I had by then done all I was ever going to do. Sitting alone at my desk that evening of my forty-fifth birthday I asked that least original of introspective questions: Where had it all gone? And the somewhat less banal question: What, after all, had it been? My.”

Trevanian Quote: “It is revealing of the American culture that its prototypic hero is the cowboy: an uneducated, boorish, Victorian migrant agricultural worker.”

21. “It is revealing of the American culture that its prototypic hero is the cowboy: an uneducated, boorish, Victorian migrant agricultural worker.”

Trevanian Quote: “Why did I submit myself to the butchery of the trenches when I might have served in the echelons as a medical officer? Even the most rudimentary knowledge of Doctor Freud would suggest that I was pursuing a death wish.”

22. “Why did I submit myself to the butchery of the trenches when I might have served in the echelons as a medical officer? Even the most rudimentary knowledge of Doctor Freud would suggest that I was pursuing a death wish.”

Trevanian Quote: “She often said, and honestly believed, that she was not prejudiced – well, except in the case of Italian mobsters and drunken Irish loafers and stupid Poles and snooty Yankee Protestants, but then who wasn’t?”

23. “She often said, and honestly believed, that she was not prejudiced – well, except in the case of Italian mobsters and drunken Irish loafers and stupid Poles and snooty Yankee Protestants, but then who wasn’t?”

Trevanian Quote: “The shabby look was not his tailor’s fault; the Arab’s body was not designed for clothes requiring posture and discipline.”

24. “The shabby look was not his tailor’s fault; the Arab’s body was not designed for clothes requiring posture and discipline.”

Trevanian Quote: “Indeed, my first interest in the pioneer work of Doctor Freud sprang, not from a concern for persons wounded in their collisions with reality, but from my personal curiosity about the nature of creativity and the springs of motivation. So.”

25. “Indeed, my first interest in the pioneer work of Doctor Freud sprang, not from a concern for persons wounded in their collisions with reality, but from my personal curiosity about the nature of creativity and the springs of motivation. So.”

Trevanian Quote: “But he could feel nothing but disdain for the artificial class of the merchant, who sucks up his living through buying and selling things he does not create, who collects power and wealth out of proportion to his discrimination, and who is responsible for all that is kitsch, for all that is change without progress, for all that is consumption without use.”

26. “But he could feel nothing but disdain for the artificial class of the merchant, who sucks up his living through buying and selling things he does not create, who collects power and wealth out of proportion to his discrimination, and who is responsible for all that is kitsch, for all that is change without progress, for all that is consumption without use.”

Trevanian Quote: “Obtuseness was its own defense.”

27. “Obtuseness was its own defense.”

Trevanian Quote: “When I hear middle-class people complain about the poor buying luxuries for their kids when they don’t even have enough for groceries, I remember the lavish Christmases my mother gave us, even at the risk of breaking up the family. Prudence is a bourgeois virtue, because the rich have something worth saving. The poor splurge because they need desperately to make a colorful splash across the drab fabric of their lives. The hungry don’t dream of brown rice and vegetables; they dream of cake.”

28. “When I hear middle-class people complain about the poor buying luxuries for their kids when they don’t even have enough for groceries, I remember the lavish Christmases my mother gave us, even at the risk of breaking up the family. Prudence is a bourgeois virtue, because the rich have something worth saving. The poor splurge because they need desperately to make a colorful splash across the drab fabric of their lives. The hungry don’t dream of brown rice and vegetables; they dream of cake.”

Trevanian Quote: “Diamond could not repress a sigh when he read that phrase. Miss Stern obviously suffered from the democratic delusion that all people are created interesting.”

29. “Diamond could not repress a sigh when he read that phrase. Miss Stern obviously suffered from the democratic delusion that all people are created interesting.”

Trevanian Quote: “But I was a polite kid, so I went. Even the wildest and toughest of us kids, several of whom ended up in prison and one on death row, would be accounted polite by today’s standards.”

30. “But I was a polite kid, so I went. Even the wildest and toughest of us kids, several of whom ended up in prison and one on death row, would be accounted polite by today’s standards.”

Trevanian Quote: “Prudence is a bourgeois virtue, because the rich have something worth saving. The poor splurge because they need desperately to make a colorful splash across the drab fabric of their lives. The hungry don’t dream of brown rice and vegetables; they dream of cake.”

31. “Prudence is a bourgeois virtue, because the rich have something worth saving. The poor splurge because they need desperately to make a colorful splash across the drab fabric of their lives. The hungry don’t dream of brown rice and vegetables; they dream of cake.”

Trevanian Quote: “Mother used to shape and score the Spam, arrange the rings of pineapple, then pour a little maple syrup over it and bake it so that it came out looking almost exactly like a miniature glazed ham, and we used to have it with yams on which we melted margarine.”

32. “Mother used to shape and score the Spam, arrange the rings of pineapple, then pour a little maple syrup over it and bake it so that it came out looking almost exactly like a miniature glazed ham, and we used to have it with yams on which we melted margarine.”

Trevanian Quote: “The poet in Le Cagot had confected for himself the role of the miles gloriosus, the Falstaffian clown – but with a unique difference: his braggadocio was founded on a record of reckless, laughing courage in numberless guerrilla actions against the fascist who oppressed his people in Spain.”

33. “The poet in Le Cagot had confected for himself the role of the miles gloriosus, the Falstaffian clown – but with a unique difference: his braggadocio was founded on a record of reckless, laughing courage in numberless guerrilla actions against the fascist who oppressed his people in Spain.”

Trevanian Quote: “Don’t overlook the truth; properly handled, it can be an effective weapon. But bear in mind that weapons get blunted with overuse.”

34. “Don’t overlook the truth; properly handled, it can be an effective weapon. But bear in mind that weapons get blunted with overuse.”

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