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Paul Fussell

literary historian, military historian, literary critic, university teacher, writer, journalist

1924 – 2012

Paul Fussell Jr. was an American cultural and literary historian, author and university professor. His writings cover a variety of topics, from scholarly works on eighteenth-century English literature to commentary on America's class system. Fussell served in the 103rd Infantry Division during World War II and was wounded in fighting in France. Returning to the US, Fussell wrote extensively and held several faculty positions, most prominently at Rutgers University (1955–1983) and at the University of Pennsylvania (1983–1994). He is best known for his writings about World War I and II, which explore what he felt was the gap between the romantic myth and the reality of war; he made a "career out of refusing to disguise it or elevate it".

All Quotes by Paul Fussell

“Most Americans, in their sweet innocence, think that class has to do with money. But a glance at Donald Trump and Leona Helmsley will indicate that it has very little to do with money. It has to do with taste and style, and it has to do with the development of those features by acts of character. That was one of my points: to try to separate class from mercantilism or commercialism.”

— Paul Fussell

“To those on both sides who suffered.”

— Paul Fussell

“Every war is ironic because every war is worse than expected. Every war constitutes an irony of situation because its means are so melodramatically disproportionate to its presumed ends.”

— Paul Fussell

“Americans are the only people in the world known to me whose status anxiety prompts them to advertise their college and university affiliations in the rear window of their automobiles.”

— Paul Fussell