whenever possible I avoid talking. Reprieve from talking is my idea of a holiday. At risk of seeming unsociable, which I am, I admit I love to be left in a beatific trance, when I am in one. Friendly Romans recognize that wish.
Elizabeth BowenWariness had driven away poetry; from hesitating to feel came the moment when you no longer could.
Elizabeth BowenWhat's the matter with this country is the matter with the lot of us individually - our sense of personality is a sense of outrage.
Elizabeth BowenMr. [Aldous] Huxley has been the alarming young man for a long time, a sort of perpetual clever nephew who can be relied on to flutter the lunch party. Whatever will he say next? How does he think of those things? He has been deplored once or twice, but feeling is in his favor: he is steadily read. He is at once the truly clever person and the stupid person's idea of the clever person; he is expected to be relentless, to administer intellectual shocks.
Elizabeth Bowen