Dodie Smith

“Everything in the least connected with him has value for me; if someone even mentions his name it is like a little present to me-and I long to mention it myself”

“Is that branch worrying you?” Simon asked her. “Would you like to change places? I hope you wouldn’t because your hair looks so nice against the leaves”

“Simon: You always were wise beyond your years. Cassandra: No I wasn't. I used to be consciously naive.”

“My hand is very tired but I want to go on writing. I keep resting and thinking. All day I have been two people - the me imprisoned in yesterday and the me out here on the mound; and now there is a third me trying to get in - the me in what is going to happen next.”

“My God - it's a green child!" said the American. "What is this place - the House of Usher?”

“...surely I could give him--a sort of contentment...That isn't enough to give. Not for the giver.”

“I could look at stationers' shops forever and ever.”

“Rose doesn’t like the flat country, but I always did – flat country seems to give the sky such a chance.”

“Just to be in love seemed the most blissful luxury I had ever known. The thought came to me that perhaps it is the loving that counts, not the being loved in return—that perhaps true loving can never know anything but happiness. For a moment I felt that I had discovered a great truth.”

“When I read a book, I put in all the imagination I can, so that it is almost like writing the book as well as reading it - or rather, it is like living it. It makes reading so much more exciting, but I don't suppose many people try to do it.”

“Am I really admitting that my sister is determined to marry a man she has only seen once and doesn't much like the look of? It is half real and half pretense - and I have an idea that it is a game most girls play when they meet an eligible young men. They just...wonder.”

“Father says hot water can be as stimulating as an alcoholic drink and though I never come by one...I can well believe it.”

“I think it [religion] is an art, the greatest one; an extension of the communion all the other arts attempt.”

“There is only one page left to write on. I will fill it with words of only one syllable. I love. I have loved. I will love.”

“He stood staring into the wood for a minute, then said: "What is it about the English countryside — why is the beauty so much more than visual? Why does it touch one so?"He sounded faintly sad. Perhaps he finds beauty saddening — I do myself sometimes. Once when I was quite little I asked father why this was and he explained that it was due to our knowledge of beauty's evanescence, which reminds us that we ourselves shall die. Then he said I was probably too young to understand him; but I understood perfectly.”

“I suddenly knew that religion, God - something beyond everyday life - was there to be found, provided one is really willing. And I saw that though what I felt in the church was only imagination, it was a step on the way; because imagination itself can be a kind of willingness - a pretense that things are real, due to one's longing for them. It struck me that this was somehow tied up with what the Vicar said about religion being an extension of art - and then I had a glimpse of how religion can really cure you of sorrow; somehow make use of it, turn it to beauty, just as art can make sad things beautiful. I found myself saying: 'Sacrifice is the secret - you have to sacrifice things for art and it's the same with religion; and then the sacrifice turns out to be a gain.' Then I got confused and I couldn't hold on to what I meant - until Miss Blossom remarked: 'Nonsense, duckie - it's prefectly simple. You lose yourself in something beyond yourself and it's a lovely rest.'I saw that, all right. Then I thought: 'But that's how Miss Marcy cured her sorrow, too - only she lost herself in other people instead of in religion.' Which way of life was best - hers or the Vicar's? I decided that he loves God and merely likes the villagers, whereas she loves the villagers and merely likes God - and then I suddenly wondered if I could combine both ways, love God and my neighbor equally. Was I really willing to?”

“Perhaps watching someone you love suffer can teach you even more than suffering yourself can.”

“...I have noticed that when things happen in one's imaginings, they never happen in one's life, so I am curbing myself.”

“I should rather like to tear these last pages out of the book. Shall I? No-a journal ought not to cheat.”

“I have really sinned. I am going to pause now, and sit here on the mound repenting in deepest shame...”

“Only half a page left now. Shall I fill it with 'I love you, I love you'-- like father's page of cats on the mat? No. Even a broken heart doesn't warrant a waste of good paper.”

“I only want to write. And there's no college for that except life.”

“Stew's so comforting on a rainy day.”

“Prayer's a very tricky business.”

“Truthfulness so often goes with ruthlessness. ”

“I wonder if there isn't a catch about having plenty of money? Does it eventually take the pleasure out of things?”

“And no bathroom on earth will make up for marrying a bearded man you hate.”

“Ah, but you're the insidious type--Jane Eyre with of touch of Becky Sharp. A thoroughly dangerous girl.”

“People's clothes ought to be buried with them.”

“Thinking of death--strange, beautiful, terrible and a long way off--made me feel happier than ever.”

“I suppose the best kind of spring morning is the best weather God has to offer.”

“Cruel blows of fate call for extreme kindness in the family circle.”

“Oh, comfortable cocoa!”

“How can a young man like to wear a beard?”

“I like seeing people when they can't see me.”

“I could marry the Devil himself if he had some money.”

“Certain unique books seem to be without forerunners or successors as far as their authors are concerned. Even though they may profoundly influence the work of other writers, for their creator they're complete, not leading anywhere.”

“But some characters in books are really real--Jane Austen's are; and I know those five Bennets at the opening of Pride and Prejudice, simply waiting to raven the young men at Netherfield Park, are not giving one thought to the real facts of marriage.”

“The Devil's out of fashion.”

“I shouldn't think even millionaires could eat anything nicer than new bread and real butter and honey for tea.”

“Noble deeds and hot baths are the best cures for depression.”

“Contemplation seems to be about the only luxury that costs nothing.”

“It is rather exciting to write by moonlight.”

“How I wish I lived in a Jane Austen novel!”

“Even a broken heart doesn't warrant a waste of good paper.”

“I love you, I love you, I love you. ~Cassandra”

“I was wandering around as usual, in my unpleasantly populated sub-conscious...”

“Was I the only woman in the world who, at my age - and after a lifetime of quite rampant independence - still did not quite feel grown up?”

“Oh, wise young judge.”

“I write this sitting in the kitchen sink.”