Love Quote by Anthony Powell

Powell skewers vanity with the calm elegance of someone who’s watched too many drawing-room egos drift through life mistaking their reflection for a destiny. The first sentence lands like a polished aphorism: “fell in love with himself at first sight” borrows the language of romantic lightning-strike and redirects it inward, turning Narcissus into a modern social type. It’s funny because it’s phrased as an enviable fidelity story: here’s a man who never cheats, never doubts, never gets bored. The joke is that the “relationship” is with the only person guaranteed to cooperate.

Then Powell twists the knife with that final, deadpan clause: “Self-love seems so often unrequited.” Self-love is, by definition, the one affection you’d expect to be returned. Calling it “unrequited” exposes the quiet desperation underneath swagger: the narcissist’s constant need for confirmation. He’s devoted, yes, but he’s also always auditioning for himself, trying to generate a feeling that won’t stick without an audience. Powell is pointing at the paradox of ego: the louder it is, the more it betrays insecurity.

Context matters. Powell’s world (the social circuitry of 20th-century England, so exquisitely mapped in A Dance to the Music of Time) runs on status, performance, and the steady hunger to be seen. The line doesn’t just mock one man; it diagnoses a culture where identity is maintained through approval, and even the most “faithful” self-regard can still feel like rejection.