Penelope Mortimer Quotes

But it is arrogance that keeps one alive: the belief that one can choose, that one' choice is important, that one is responsible only to oneself. Without arrogance what would we be?

I want to fly from a window and pour through the air like a wind of love to raise his hair and slide into the palms of his hands.

I began drinking because the thought that I was drinking gave me a kind of identity: each time I poured myself a brandy in the deserted afternoon I could say to myself 'I am a woman who drinks.

I was worrying about the milk, about my children falling in love, about the creatures who crawled through the dark towards us, their ancestors, their loving assassins, breathing 'Why?' like a cold wind.

When I was fourteen I had the world at my feet but somebody didn't do their job properly and allowed me to sin.

I have tried to be honest with you, although I suppose that you would really have been more interested in my not being honest. Some of these things happened, and some were dreams. They were all true, as I understood truth. They are all real, as I understood reality.

When we were young, we said the hell with it and used our breasts as shields. But the tears fall so easy when they take away love.

I don't know who I am, I don't know what I'm like, how can I know what I want? I only know that whether I'm good or bad, whether I'm a bitch or not, whether I'm strong or weak or contemptible or a bloody martyr - I mean whether I'm fat or thin, tall or short, because I don't know - I want to be happy.

Can't you see? Before you knew the truth, we were happy. What's the god in ferreting out the truth all that time? It's always unpleasant."
"Is it only lies that are Pleasant?"
"Usually. That's why people tell them. To make life bearable.