Paul Fussell

“The tourist is a great leveler. From the point of view of a tourist, there are no classes.”

“The past is not the present. It is not a guide to the future.”

“Satire is a lesson, parody is a game.”

“Advertising is the incredibly crude and simple-minded force that has added enormously to the gaiety of life and the beauty of the world.”

“Experience is a poor guide to man, and is seldom followed.”

“The opposite of war isn't peace, it's civilization.”

“We are all proletarian now.”

“For the past seventy-five years I've been inquiring into the nature of insubordination.”

“The great secret of social success is a strict adherence to the trivial.”

“Irony is the attendant of hope.”

“Every war is ironic because every war is worse than expected.”

“The appeal of the past is deceptive. It is a past that has been so tidied up and presented in such a way that it is a pleasure to contemplate.”

“One of the immutable laws of class is that an upper-class accent is a powerful tool for intimidating the lower classes.”

“Understanding the past is a prerequisite for understanding the present.”