Enid Bagnold Quotes

Let this serve as an axiom to every lover: A woman who refuses lunch refuses everything.

He was white in bold seas, ans black in continents...

I shall continue to explore-the astonishment of living.

But I had been in love pretty often and I didn't think it stood the wear and tear.

It was March. The days of March creeping gustily on like something that man couldn't hinder and God wouldn't hurry.

One can lie, but truth is more interesting.

If death becomes cheap it is the watcher, not the dying, who is poisoned.

And now, finished with that puzzling mixture of insane intimacy and isolation which is notoriety, Velvet was able to get on quietly to her next adventures.

There may be wonder in money, but, dear God, there is money in wonder.

If a dog doesn't put you first where are you both? In what relation? A dog needs God. It lives by your glances, your wishes. It even shares your humor. This happens about the fifth year. If it doesn't happen you are only keeping an animal.

She'd ride like a piece of lightning. No more weight'n a piece of lightning.

Dead news like dead love has no phoenix in its ashes.

In a strange way', she thought, 'these absences suit my nature though not my heart. I love him, I miss him, but I have time to put on my humanity again.

One's palate is reborn every morning!

By seven o'clock even the long corridor was as dim as the alley outside. No one thought of shutting the windows - I doubt whether they will shut...and the fog rolled over the sill in banks and round the open glass doors, till even the white cap of a Sister could hardly be seen as she passed.

I don't like people," said Velvet. " ... I only like horses.

Who wants to become a writer? And why? Because it's the answer to everything ... It's the streaming reason for living. To note, to pin down, to build up, to create, to be astonished at nothing, to cherish the oddities, to let nothing go down the drain, to make something, to make a great flower out of life, even if it's a cactus.

The pleasure of one's effect on other people still exists in age - what's called making a hit. But the hit is much rarer and made of different stuff.

You always was a nice chap," said Mrs. Brown. "On'y I'm so buried under me fat I feel half ashamed to tell you so. Love don't seem dainty on a fat woman. Nothin's going to break up this home not even if you lose yer head, but it'll make it easier if you keep it. On'y leave that child to me. She's got more to come. You think the Grand National's the end of all things, but a child that can do that can do more when she's grown. On'y keep her level, keep her going quiet. We'll live this down presently an' you'll see

It's not till sex has died out between a man and a woman that they can really love. And now I mean affection. Now I mean to be fond of (as one is fond of oneself) -to hope, to be disappointed, to live inside the other heart. When I look back on the pain of sex, the love like a wild fox so ready to bite, the antagonism that sits like a twin beside love, and contrast it with affection, so deeply unrepeatable, of two people who have lived a life together (and of whom one must die) it's the affection I find richer. It's that I would have again. Not all those doubtful rainbow colors.

If I had my life over again[, ] I'd have thought more about words. And thought about them earlier.

Before you fall asleep everyday, say something positive to yourself.

From birth to death we are alone ...

But now, at the table, behind the fall of the tablecloth, behind the sheath of skin, hanging head downwards between cliffs of bone, was the baby, its arms all but clasped about its neck, its face aslant upon its arms, hair painted upon its skull, closed, secret eyes, a diver poised in albumen, ancient and epic, shot with delicate spasms, as old as Pharaoh in its tomb.

Who wants to become a writer? And why? ... It's the streaming reason for living. To note, to pin down, to build up, to create, to be astonished at nothing, to cherish the oddities, to let nothing go down the drain, to make something, to make a great flower of life, even if it's a cactus.

One never knows when one is old for certain.

The Press blew, the public stared, hands flew out like a million little fishes after bread.

Why do birds sing in the morning? It's the triumphant shout: 'We got through another night!'

As for death one gets used to it, even if it's only other people's death you get used to.

A father is always making his baby into a little woman. And when she is a woman he turns her back again.

An only child is never twelve.

Pity is exhaustible. What a terrible discovery!

The dangerous thing about hate is that it seems so reasonable.