Winifred Holtby Quotes

Sorrow and frustration have their power. The world is moved by people with great discontents. Happiness is a drug. It can make men blind and deaf and insensible to reality. There are times when only sorrow can give to sorrow.

The only difficulty is to know what bits to choose and what to leave out. Novel-writing is not creation, it is selection.

Life flows on over death as water closes over a stone dropped into a pool. ... Fate is certain; death is certain; but the courage and nobility of men and women matter more than these.

Oh, time betrays us. Time is the great enemy.

But questioning does not mean the end of loving, and loving does not mean the abnegation of intelligence

public work brings a vicarious but assured sense of immortality. We may be poor, weak, timid, in debt to our landlady, bullied by our nieces, stiff in the joints, shortsighted and distressed; we shall perish, but the cause endures; the cause is great.