Penelope Fitzgerald

“... human beings interested her so much that it must always be an advantage to meet another one.”

“Duty is what no-one else will do at the moment.”

“Would you consider what I call the “inner eye” which opens for some of us, though not always when we want it or expect it – would you consider the inner eye as one of the sensory nerves?”

“The body, then, has a mind of its own. It must follow, then, that the Mind has a body of its own, even if it’s like nothing that we can see around us, or have ever seen.”

“To every separate person a thing is what he thinks it is – in other words, not a thing, but a think.”

“More than that, I believe that the grass is green because green is restful to the human eye, that the sky is blue to give us an idea of the infinite. And that blood is red so that murder will be more easily detected and criminals will be brought to justice. Yes, and I believe that I shall live forever, but I shall live without reason.”

“Morality is seldom a safe guide for human conduct.”

“Helping other people is a drug so dangerous that there is no cure short of total abstention.”

“But we weren't meant to live alone,' said Frank.'Life makes its own corrections.”

“On the whole, I think you should write biographies of those you admire and respect, and novels about human beings who you think are sadly mistaken.”

“Behind their dark glass, the mad own nothing.”

“Opening the shop gave her, every morning, the same feeling of promise and opportunity. The books stood as neatly ranged as Gipping's vegetables, ready for all comers.”

“A good book is the precious life-blood of a master-spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life, and as such it must surely be a necessary commodity.”

“How could the wind be so strong, so far inland, that cyclistscoming into the town in the late afternoon looked more likesailors in peril? This was on the way into Cambridge, up MillRoad past the cemetery and the workhouse. On the openground to the left the willow-trees had been blown, drivenand cracked until their branches gave way and lay about thedrenched grass, jerking convulsively and trailing cataracts oftwigs. The cows had gone mad, tossing up the silvery weepingleaves which were suddenly, quite contrary to all their exper-ience, everywhere within reach. Their horns were festoonedwith willow boughs. Not being able to see properly, theytripped and fell. Two or three of them were wallowing ontheir backs, idiotically, exhibiting vast pale bellies intended bynature to be always hidden. They were still munching. A sceneof disorder, tree-tops on the earth, legs in the air, in a universitycity devoted to logic and reason.”