Children seldom have a proper sense of their own tragedy, discounting and keeping hidden the true horrors of their short lives, humbly imagining real calamity to be some prestigious drama of the grown-up world.
Shirley HazzardPerhaps if we lived with less physical beauty we would develop our true natures more.
Shirley HazzardMarriage is like democracy - it doesn't really work, but it's all we've been able to come up with.
Shirley HazzardI think that one is constantly startled by the things that appear before you on the page when you're writing.
Shirley HazzardItalians are never punctual; the café, the convenient place to wait, absolves them from that. There is no question of hanging about, no looking lost and unwanted or even disreputable, as there is in hotel lobbies or the foyers of restaurants. One just sits and enjoys the scene, and waits.
Shirley Hazzard