top of page
.png){kind=small}
Quotes by Novelist
"The importance to the writer of first writing must be out of all proportion of the actual value of what is written."
36
"The heart may think it knows better: the senses know that absence blots people out. We really have no absent friends."
36
"I used to think it a pity that her mother rather than she had not thought of birth control."
36
"Love hurts. Love is fragile. Love comes like a breath of magic, then departs leaving us feeling empty, alone, a paper cup blowing on the wind."
36
"Television is now so desperately hungry for material that they're scraping the top of the barrel."
36
"Abraham Lincoln because he was a man filled with great compassion who believed that all men are created free and equal, and was not afraid to stand on that platform. The way Lincoln lived his life has served me well in mine."
36
"My true friends have always given me that supreme proof of devotion, a spontaneous aversion for the man I loved."
36
"No thanks, Dodo, was it? I don't know if I can watch you have performance problems twice in ten days."
36
"I was yours once till death if you cared to keep me, but I'm someone else's now--I can't hang about whining for ever--and he's mine in a way that shocks you, but why don't you stop being shocked and attend to your own happiness?"
36
"Strange that grief should now almost choke me, because another human being's eye has failed to greet mine."
36
"He will work off his crudities in time. I rather mistrust young men who slip into life gracefully."
36
"I wonder if anyone but me realizes what goes on in that head back of your deceptively sweet face."
36
"Here was the world-famous novelist with her penchant for detail; yet, in her observations of a prostitute with a customer, she had failed to come away with the most important detail of all. She could never identify the murderer; she could barely describe him. She'd made a point of not looking at him!"
36
"The minutiae of our lives! Telephone calls, errands, appointments. None of these is of the slightest significance to others and but fleetingly to us yet they constitute such a portion of our lives, it might be argued that our lives are a concatenation of minutiae interrupted at unpredictable times by significant events."
36
"The New England conscience doesn't keep you from doing what you shouldn't - it just keeps you from enjoying it."
36
"To be or not to be what exactly?"
36
"I'll get you and your little dog too?' You say your girl can't pay me back? Believe me when I say that that little gift's just gonna keep right on giving."
36
"Children will always be afraid of the dark, and men with minds sensitive to hereditary impulse will always tremble at the thought of the hidden and fathomless worlds of strange life which may pulsate in the gulfs beyond the stars, or press hideously upon our own globe in unholy dimensions which only the dead and the moonstruck can glimpse."
36
"There is no point treating a depressed person as though she were just feeling sad, saying, 'There now, hang on, you'll get over it.' Sadness is more or less like a head cold- with patience, it passes. Depression is like cancer."
36
"Reality can destroy the dream; why shouldn't the dream destroy reality?"
36
"He scarcely knew who was battling whom, who was winning, who was losing, as though he hoped that by doggedly ignoring the war it would return the favor."
36
"Imagination which comes into play in falling in love is different from any other. Certainly in my case, and I've fallen in love all my life, one imagines the person to be as you want them to be. They frequently turn out to be someone different, for better or worse."
36
"God has made us so that we must be mutually dependent. We may ignore our own dependence, or refuse to acknowledge that others depend upon us in more respects than the payment of weekly wages; but the thing must be, nevertheless. Neither you nor any other master can help yourselves. The most proudly independent man depends on those around him for their insensible influence on his character - his life."
36
"That innate love of melody, which she had inherited from her ballad-singing mother, gave the simplest music a power which could well-nigh drag her heart out of her bosom at times."
36
"Until that moment I'd thought I could have it both ways; to be one of them, and also my husband's wife. What conceit! I was his instrument, his animal. Nothing more. How we wives and mothers do perish at the hands of our own righteousness. I was just one more of those women who clamp their mouths shut and wave the flag as their nation rolls off to conquer another in war. Guilty or innocent, they have everything to lose. They are what there is to lose. A wife is the earth itself, changing hands, bearing scars."
36
"So far, I had a solid collection of my honest opinions."
36
"Innocence eroded into nightmare.All because of very bad touch.Love, corrupted."
36
"When I started writing fiction, I knew how good it was immediately."
36
"As for fairy tales, he understood that they were reflections of the people who had spun them, and were flecked with little truths - intrusions of reality into fantasy, like toast crumbs on a wizard's beard."
36
"What happened? she asked, dropping to the damp ground beside Win. "Has Merripen been burned? "Yes, on his back. Win ripped a makeshift bandage from the hem of her own gown. "Beatrix, would you take this, please, and soak it in water? Without a word, Beatrix scampered to the trough at the handpump. Win stroked Merripen's thick black hair as he rested his head on his forearms. His breath hissed unevenly through his teeth. "Does it hurt, or is it numb? Amelia asked. "Hurts like the devil, he choked out. "That's a good sign. A burn is much more serious if it's numb. He turned his head to give her a speaking glance."
36
"Taking something from one man and making it worse is plagiarism."
36
"Of all the Hathaway sisters, Cam said equably, "Beatrix is the one most suited to choose her own husband. I trust her judgment.Beatrix gave him a brilliant smile. "Thank you, Cam."What are you thinking? Leo demanded of his brother-in-law. "You can't trust Beatrix's judgment."Why not?"She's too young, Leo said."I'm twenty-three, Beatrix protested. "In dog years I'd be dead."
36
"After a universal silence, Leo was the first to speak. "Did anyone else notice-"Yes, Catherine said. "What do you make of it?"I haven't decided yet. Leo frowned and took a sip of port. "He's not someone I would pair Bea with."Whom would you pair her with?"Hanged if I know, Leo said. "Someone with similar interests. The local veterinarian, perhaps?"He's eighty-three years old and deaf, Catherine said."They would never argue, Leo pointed out."
36
"A book, too, can be a star, a living fire to lighten the darkness, leading out into the expanding universe."
36
"This was the first time I thought of S- that day. Her music was beautiful, her voice was beautiful, her body was beautiful. Even the dirty little pads of her feet were beautiful. I cursed myself then. For once, heaven had sent me Beauty in its most perfected form and I abandoned it. She might not have been a girl after all but an angel: a force to guide me on this hazardous path of life I hurry down. How can life be hazardous if it can only end in death?"
36
"I've won his heart, but it's like owning a house in which most of the doors are permanently locked. He wants to shield me from all unpleasantness. And it's not really marriage-not like the marriage you have with Cam-until he's willing to share the worst of himself as well as the best of himself."
36
bottom of page