Elspeth Huxley Quotes

[ ... vastly different peoples live and work side by side but rarely come together, like the arms of an egg beater that] whirled independently and never touched, so that perhaps one arm never knew the other was there; yet they were together, turned by the same handle, and the cake was mixed by both.

Tilly was downcast; as with all perfectionists, it was the detail others might not notice that destroyed for her the pleasure of achievement.

The pioneer kills what he loves.

Older Explorers went to seek the source of rivers and to map their tributaries. Today one seeks the source of human conduct and tries to map the course of history....There are no problems in AFrica. For Problems have solutions, and the enigmas of human behaviour can never be solved.

They [zebras] looked like highly varnished animated toys.

One of the stock Sydney jokes is of the census-taker who enquires: 'How many children have you, ma'am?' 'Two living and three in Melbourne.'

The Beatties were always arguing, it gave them an interest in life ...

English tradition debars from dinner-table conversation almost all topics that might interest the conversers and insists upon strict adherence to banalities.

The great point about money was to convert it as quickly as possible into something you could use or enjoy.

Only man is not content to leave things as they are but must always be changing them, and when he has done so, is seldom satisfied with the result.

Africa is cruel ... it takes your heart and grinds it into powdered stone - and no-one minds

To deceive gracefully is the very essence of social life. One must start by deceiving oneself, and make a lifelong practice of deceiving others; if one does it well enough, in time one might even become an artist, the greatest illusionists of all.

When the present stung her, she sought her antidote in the future, which was as sure to hold achievement as the dying flower to hold the fruit when its petals wither.

How much does one imagine, how much observe? One can no more separate those functions than divide light from air, or wetness from water.