To many women marriage is only this. It is merely a physical change impinging on their ordinary nature, leaving their mentality untouched, their self-possession intact. They are not burnt by even the red fire of physical passion - far less by the white fire of love.
Mary WebbFor the world is founded and built up on death, and the reality of death is neither to be questioned nor feared. Death is a dark dream, but it is not a nightmare. It is mankind's lack of pity, mankind's fatal propensity for torture, that is the nightmare.
Mary WebbThere is surely no more unselfish person than the anthologist. For while all we others are striving to ensure our own immortality with eagerness, beguilements, buffooneries, loud voices, 'the sound of battle and garments rolled in blood,' the anthologist is quietly ensuring the immortality of somebody else.
Mary Webb