Dialogue must appear realistic without being so. Actual realism-the lifting, as it were, of passages from a stenographer's take-down of a 'real life' conversation-would be disruptive. Of what? Of the illusion of the novel. In 'real life' everything is diluted; in the novel everything is condensed.
Elizabeth BowenThe best that an individual can do is to concentrate on what he or she can do, in the course of a burning effort to do it better.
Elizabeth BowenLove of privacy - perhaps because of the increasing exactions of society - has become in many people almost pathological.
Elizabeth BowenAll my life I have said, "Whatever happens there will always be tables and chairs"--and what a mistake.
Elizabeth Bowen