Jane Bowles Quotes

But do you know," said Andy, "how beautiful and delicate a man's heart is when he is happy for the first time? It is like the thin ice that has imprisoned those beautiful young plants that are released when the ice thaws.

I wanted to be a religious leader when I was young and now I just reside in my house and try not to be too unhappy. I have a friend living with me, which makes it easier.

Voting is one of the few things where boycotting in protest clearly makes the problem worse rather than better.

You see, I have a different nature than he has. What makes me happy I seem to catch out of the sky with both hands; I only hold whatever it is that I love because that is all I can really see.

Once upon a time I had a dog and a future, and a girl," he said, "but that is no longer so.

I fear nomads. I am afraid of them and afraid for them too.

Then I'll do my best. . . . You see, in the morning I always practice imagination for an hour or two. It does me lots of good, but tomorrow I'll cut it short.

It may be true that the government that governs best governs least Unfortunately, the same is also true of the government that governs worst.

Victory fades so quickly that it is scarcely apparent and it is always the face of defeat that we are able to see.

I always thought I should meet you. My cousin used to tell me how queer you were. I think, though, that you can make friends more quickly with queer people. Or else you don't make friends with them at all - one way or the other.

Like most people, you are not able to face more than one fear during your lifetime. You also spend your life fleeing from your first fear towards your first hope. Be careful that you do not, through your own wiliness, end up always in the same position in which you began. I do not advise you to spend your life surrounding yourself with those things which you term necessary to your existence, regardless of whether or not they are objectively interesting in themselves or even to your own particular intellect. I believe sincerely that only those men who reach the stage where it is possible for them to combat a second tragedy within themselves, and not the first over and over again, are worthy of being called mature. When you think someone is going ahead, make sure that he is not really standing still. In order to go ahead, you must leave things behind which most people are unwilling to do. Your first pain, you carry it with you like a lodestone in your breast because all tenderness will come from there. You must carry it with you through your whole life but you must not circle around it. You must give up the search for those symbols which only serve to hide its face from you. You will have the illusion that they are disparate and manifold but they are always the same. if you are only interested in a bearable life, perhaps this letter does not concern you. For god's sake, a ship leaving port is still a wonderful thing to see.

The farther a man follows the rainbow, the harder it is for him to get back to the life which he left starving like an old dog.

The world and all the people in it had suddenly slipped beyond her comprehension and she felt in great danger of losing the whole world once and for all--a feeling that is difficult to explain.

A guardian angel comes when you are very young, and gives you special dispensation. From what? From the world. Yours might be luck. Mine is money.

Mrs. Copperfield started to tremble after the girl had closed the door behind her. She trembled so violently that she shook the bed. She was suffering as much as she had ever suffered before, because she was going to do what she wanted to do. But it would not make her happy. She did not have the courage to stop from doing what she wanted to do. She knew that it would not make her happy, because only the dreams of crazy people come true. She thought that she was only interested in duplicating a dream, but in doing so she necessarily became the complete victim of a nightmare.

I am a writer and I want to write.

..it is against my entire code, but then, I have never even begun to use my code, although I judge everything by it.

True enough," said Mrs. Copperfield, bringing her fist down on the table and looking very mean. "I have gone to pieces, which is a thing I've wanted to do for years. I know I am as guilty as I can be, but I have my happiness, which I guard like a wolf, and I have authority now and a certain amount of daring, which, if you remember correctly, I never had before.

One must allow that a certain amount of carelessness in one's nature often accomplishes what the will is incapable of doing

I didn't tell her because I wanted the buildings to stay in place for her and i wanted the stars to be over her head and not cockeyed--I wanted her to be able to walk in the park and feed the birdies in years to come with some other fine human being hanging onto her arm. I didn't want her to have to lock something up inside of her and look out at the world through a nailed window.

The touch of her hand underneath the head of Mrs. Copperfield was very light - in fact, so light that Mrs. Copperfield feared that she would be left alone from one minute to the next. She looked up. The sky was packed with gray clouds. She wanted to say something to Pacifica, but she did not dare to turn her head.
Pacifica swam a little farther inland. Suddenly she stood up and placed both her hand firmly in the small of Mrs. Copperfield's back. Mrs. Copperfield felt happy and sick at once. She turned her face and in so doing she brushed Pacifica's heavy stomach with her cheek. She held on hard to Pacifica's thigh with the strength of years of sorrow and frustration in her hand.
'Don't leave me,' she called out.
At this moment Mrs. Copperfield was strongly reminded of a dream that had recurred often during her life. She was being chased up a short hill by a dog. At the top of the hill here stood a few pine trees and a mannequin about eight feet high. She approached the mannequin and discovered her to be fashioned out of flesh, but without life. Her dress was of black velvet, and tapered to a very narrow width at the hem. Mrs. Copperfield wrapped one of the mannequin's arms tightly around her own waist. She was startled by the thickness of the arm and very pleased. The mannequin's other arm she ben upward from the elbow with her free hand. Then the mannequin began to sway backwards and forwards. Mrs. Copperfield clung all the more tightly to the mannequin and t

Sometimes when a man gets older he has a revelation and wants awfully bad to get back to the place where he left his life, but he can't get to that place- not often.

I think that anything you feel strange or nervous about, you weren't cut out to do.

Sisterly love is one of the few boons in this life.

I feel that I have done everything, absolutely everything wrong, but perhaps something nice will happen anyway.

The face of victory often resembles the face of defeat.

Houses! I hate houses. I like public places. Houses break your heart.