Dodie Smith Quotes

Cruel blows of fate call for extreme kindness in the family circle.

There is something revolting about the way girls' minds so often jump to marriage long before they jump to love.

I like seeing people when they can't see me.

Perhaps it would really be rather dull to be married and settled for life. Liar! It would be heaven.

Even a broken heart doesn't warrant a waste of good paper.

It is rather exciting to write by moonlight.

Perhaps what you call conventionality, I call decency.

Time takes the ugliness and horror out of death and turns it into beauty.

The Devil's out of fashion.

a loss of sensibility follows a loss of innocence, at once a penalty and a compensation.

Death is too much to ask of the living.

Only half a page left now. Shall I fill it with 'I love you, I love you'-- like father's page of cats on the mat? No. Even a broken heart doesn't warrant a waste of good paper.

Certain unique books seem to be without forerunners or successors as far as their authors are concerned. Even though they may profoundly influence the work of other writers, for their creator they're complete, not leading anywhere.

Perhaps if I make myself write I shall find out what is wrong with me.

Why is summer mist romantic and autumn mist just sad?

They call them the haunted shores, these stretches of Devonshire and Cornwall and Ireland which rear up against the westward ocean. Mists gather here, and sea fog, and eerie stories. That's not because there are more ghosts here than in other places, mind you. It's just that people who live hereabouts are strangely aware of them.

Like many other much-loved humans, they believed that they owned their dogs, instead of realizing that their dogs owned them.

I am a restlessness inside a stillness inside a restlessness.

And who says you always have to understand things? You can like them without understanding them -- like 'em better sometimes.

Just to be in love seemed the most blissful luxury I had ever known. The thought came to me that perhaps it is the loving that counts, not the being loved in return -- that perhaps true loving can never know anything but happiness. For a moment I felt that I had discovered a great truth.

He laughed a little, in an odd, nervous kind of way. "Because if I don't get going soon, the whole impetus may die--and if that happens, well, I really shall consider a long, restful plunge into insanity. Sometimes the abyss yawns very attractively.

Though he had very little Latin beyond "Cave canem," he had, as a young dog, devoured Shakespeare (in a tasty leather binding).

Sometimes [the expression] old age has a kind of harrowing beauty. But elderly - ugh!

extreme happiness invites religion almost as much as extreme misery.

I have really sinned. I am going to pause now, and sit here on the mound repenting in deepest shame.

Contemplation seems to be about the only luxury that costs nothing.

We were restless for ages...After a while I heard an owl hooting and calmed myself by thinking of it flying over the dark fields – and then I remembered it would be pouncing on mice. I love owls, but I wish God had made them vegetarian.

Many dogs can understand almost every word humans say, while humans seldom learn to recognize more than half a dozen barks, if that. And barks are only a small part of the dog language. A wagging tail can mean so many things. Humans know that it means a dog is pleased, but not what a dog is saying about his pleasedness.

My God - it's a green child!" said the American. "What is this place - the House of Usher?

It's odd how different a house feels when one is alone in it. It makes it easier to think rather private thoughts.

My hand is very tired but I want to go on writing. I keep resting and thinking. All day I have been two people - the me imprisoned in yesterday and the me out here on the mound; and now there is a third me trying to get in - the me in what is going to happen next.

Oh, wise young judge.

So many of the loveliest things in England are melancholy.

What is it about the English countryside — why is the beauty so much more than visual? Why does it touch one so?

I have found that sitting in a place where you have never sat before can be inspiring.

Walking down Belmotte was the oddest sensation-- every step took us deeper into the mist until at last it closed over our heads. It was like being drowned in the ghost of water.

The tea was a comfort - and by that time I more than needed comfort.

Still, looking through the old volumes was soothing, because thinking of the past made the present seem a little less real.

Ah, but you're the insidious type--Jane Eyre with of touch of Becky Sharp. A thoroughly dangerous girl.

Only the margin left to write on now. I love you, I love you, I love you.

Truthfulness so often goes with ruthlessness.

I wanted to know more about the young ... strange that though they laughed so loud, they so seldom smiled. Perhaps laughter was involuntary whereas smiling was part of an attitude to life.

The family - that dear octopus from whose tentacles we never quite escape, nor, in our inmost hearts, ever quite wish to.

...surely I could give him--a sort of contentment... That isn't enough to give. Not for the giver.

Noble deeds and hot baths are the best cures for depression.

Americans do seem to say things which make the English notice England.

I found it quite easy to carry on a casual conversation it was as if my real feelings were down fathoms deep in my mind and what we said was just a feathery surface spray.

Well, my paper has asked me to do a series: Lives of the Great Musicians, reading time 2 minutes.