Dodie Quotes

Well, my paper has asked me to do a series: Lives of the Great Musicians, reading time 2 minutes. ~ Dodie Smith

I go backwards and forwards, recapturing the past, wondering about the future - and, most unreasonably, I find myself longing for the past more than for the future. ~ Dodie Smith

I couldn't make it out - why you ever let me, I mean. I understand now. Things like that happen when you're in love with the wrong person. Worse things. Things you never forgive yourself for. ~ Dodie Smith

My God - it's a green child!" said the American. "What is this place - the House of Usher? ~ Dodie Smith

I suppose the best kind of spring morning is the best weather God has to offer. ~ Dodie Smith

Certain unique books seem to be without forerunners or successors as far as their authors are concerned. Even though they may profoundly influence the work of other writers, for their creator they're complete, not leading anywhere. ~ Dodie Smith

Not in the least," I said. "I understand everything you've said. But - oh, Simon, I feel so resentful! Why should father make things so difficult? Why can't he say what he means plainly?" "Because there's so much that just can't be said plainly. Try describing what beauty is - plainly - and you'll see what I mean." Then he said that art could state very little - that its whole business was to evoke responses. And that without innovations and experiments - such as father's - all art would stagnate. "That's why one ought not to let oneself resent them - though I believe it's a normal instinct, probably due to subconscious fear of what we don't understand. ~ Dodie Smith

She is a famous artists' model who claims to have been christened Topaz - even if this is true there is no law to make a woman stick to a name like that. ~ Dodie Smith

And though I cannot honestly say I would ever turn my back on any luxury that I could come by, I do feel there is something a bit wrong in it. Perhaps that makes it all the more enjoyable. ~ Dodie Smith

I have found that sitting in a place where you have never sat before can be inspiring. ~ Dodie Smith

I could never explain how the image and the reality merge, and how they somehow extend and beautify each other. ~ Dodie Smith

I only want to write. And there's no college for that except life. ~ Dodie Smith

Simon: You always were wise beyond your years.
Cassandra: No I wasn't. I used to be consciously naive. ~ Dodie Smith

Oh, wise young judge. ~ Dodie Smith

Is it wrong for me to feel so happy? Perhaps I ought even to feel guilty? No. I didn't make it happen, and it can't hurt anyone but me. Surely I have a right to my joy. For as long as it lasts ... ~ Dodie Smith

I don't like the sound of all those lists he's making – it's like taking too many notes at school; you feel you've achieved something when you haven't. ~ Dodie Smith

There is something revolting about the way girls' minds so often jump to marriage long before they jump to love. ~ Dodie Smith

Perhaps what you call conventionality, I call decency. ~ Dodie Smith

God - it's merely shorthand for where we come from, where we're going and what it's all about ~ Dodie Smith

Perhaps he finds beauty saddening
I do myself sometimes. Once when I was quite little I asked father why this was and he explained that it was due to our knowledge of beauty's evanescence, which reminds us that we ourselves shall die. ~ Dodie Smith I Capture The Castle

Oh, I have just had an idea - after tea I shall attack myself with sandpaper. ~ Dodie Smith

Cause shame was what we always felt, me and all my girlfriends, for expecting sex to breed complicity. ("Complicity is like a girl's name," writes Dodie Bellamy). ~ Chris Kraus

Doing things for others gives you a lovely glow." "So does port," I said cynically. ~ Dodie Smith

Truthfulness so often goes with ruthlessness. ~ Dodie Smith

Then I told myself that as I never gave the Church a thought when I was feeling happy, I could hardly expect it to do anything for me when I wasn't. You can't get insurance money without paying in premiums. ~ Dodie Smith

It was wonderful, of course
ham with mustard is a meal of glory. ~ Dodie Smith

And no bathroom on earth will make up for marrying a bearded man you hate. ~ Dodie Smith

I am not so sure I should like the facts of life, but I have got over the bitter disappointment I felt when I first heard about them, ... ~ Dodie Smith I Capture The Castle

Feeling like what, Cassandra Mortmain? Flat? Depressed? Empty? If so, why, pray?
I thought if I made myself write I should find out what is wrong with me, but I haven't, so far. Unless - could I possibly be jealous of Rose?
I will pause and search my innermost soul ...
I have searched it for a solid five minutes. And I swear I am not jealous of Rose; [..] ~ Dodie Smith

And what I thought most about was luxury. I had never realised before that it is more than just having things; it makes the very air feel different. And I felt different, breathing the air: relaxed, lazy, still sad but with the edge taken off the sadness. Perhaps the effect wears off in time, or perhaps you don't notice it if you are born to it, but it does seem to me that the climate of richness must always be a little dulling to the senses. Perhaps it takes the edge off joy as well as off sorrow. ~ Dodie Smith

They said this flat was converted but I think its still heathen ~ Dodie Smith

I should rather like to tear these last pages out of the book. Shall I? No-a journal ought not to cheat. ~ Dodie Smith

Perhaps if I make myself write I shall find out what is wrong with me. ~ Dodie Smith

I wonder if I'm being disloyal, if being with Didier means I'm forgetting about Jones. But every time I go in a drain, or past a church, I think of him. Every time I see a can of Coke, I think of Jones. And don't even start me on how I feel when I see department-store Santas.
A girl doesn't forget a guy like Jones in a big hurry. Even ow, when none of us are front-page news any longer, he's always in my head.
My name is Dodie.
Doe - as in don't change a thing (well, a couple of things I'd change).
Dee - as in delighted to have known you, Sebastian Worthington Jones.
Dodie Farnshaw. ~ Gabrielle Williams

It was a rather dreadful thought but somehow comforting. ~ Dodie Smith

A loss of sensibility follows a loss of innocence, at once a penalty and a compensation. ~ Dodie Smith

But I can't see how anyone could believe that you killed the bear with a pitchfork,' I said.
'I didn't. I only wounded it - badly, I think, but not enough to put it out of action. It came blundering towards me, I stepped aside and it crashed head-first into the river - I could hear it threshing about in the darkness. I picked up a big stone - poor brute, I hated to do it but I had to finish it off. It gave just one groan as the stone hit it and then went down. I held the lantern high; I could see the bubbles coming up. And then I saw the dark bulk of it under the water, being carried along by the current.'
'But you didn't have a lantern,' I said.
'He didn't have a bear,' said Topaz. ~ Dodie Smith

What a tiny list of friends I have! All my fault. I less and less want to see people. ~ Dodie Smith

Never have I felt so separate from her. And I regret to say that there were moments when my deep and loving pity for her merged into a desire to kick her fairly hard. ~ Dodie Smith

Sometimes [the expression] old age has a kind of harrowing beauty. But elderly - ugh! ~ Dodie Smith

I found it quite easy to carry on a casual conversation it was as if my real feelings were down fathoms deep in my mind and what we said was just a feathery surface spray. ~ Dodie Smith

All of this occurs in the past, except this sentence. ~ Dodie Bellamy

I was so anxious to make him believe me that I leaned towards him, across the table. He looked at me, right into my eyes. That queer, veiled expression in his
that I fear I used to call his daft look
was suddenly not there; there seemed to be a light in them and yet I have never seen them look so dark. And they were do direct that it was more like being touched than being looked at. It only lasted a second, but for that second he was quite a different person
much more interesting, even a little bit exciting. ~ Dodie Smith

Dodie: "Mama, Jamie's up on the hill and he's f***g a goat!"
Mama: "Well, it's Jamie's goat, ain't it?"
-Peter Manso illustrates the brash wit pervasive in the Brando family with this exchange between Dodie Brando, Marlon's mother, and her mother in-law. ~ Peter Manso

How indescribable the scent of autumn flowers was– barely a scent at all, really; just a faint, strange smell, pleasant but sad. Could a smell be sad or was it just the association with the dying summer? ~ Dodie Smith

Just to be in love seemed the most blissful luxury I had ever known. The thought came to me that perhaps it is the loving that counts, not the being loved in return
that perhaps true loving can never know anything but happiness. For a moment I felt that I had discovered a great truth. ~ Dodie Smith

If you love people, you take them on trust. ~ Dodie Smith

Was he again
I had never forgotten that overheard phrase of Eve's
being kind to be cruel? I only knew I had been given back enough to live on. And dimly, dimly, I began to see a new Last Act to crown my play. ~ Dodie Smith

My hand is very tired but I want to go on writing. I keep resting and thinking. All day I have been two people - the me imprisoned in yesterday and the me out here on the mound; and now there is a third me trying to get in - the me in what is going to happen next. ~ Dodie Smith

Topaz was wonderfully patient - but sometimes I wonder if it is not only patience, but also a faint resemblance to cows. ~ Dodie Smith

The thought was horrible, yet fascinating. ~ Dodie Smith

Incidentally, I never felt less brisk in my life, because being looked at like that makes a person feel dizzy. ~ Dodie Smith

Is that branch worrying you?" Simon asked her. "Would you like to change places? I hope you wouldn't because your hair looks so nice against the leaves ~ Dodie Smith

When you can't find your purpose in a day, make it to look after yourself. ~ Dodie Clark

Thinking of death
strange, beautiful, terrible and a long way off
made me feel happier than ever. ~ Dodie Smith

He laughed a little, in an odd, nervous kind of way. Because if I don't get going soon, the whole impetus may die
and if that happens, well, I really shall consider a long, restful plunge into insanity. Sometimes the abyss yawns very attractively. ~ Dodie Smith

I leaned against the carved banisters and listened to the music and felt quite different from any way I have ever felt before
softer, very beautiful and as if a great many men were in love with me and I might very easily be in love with them. ~ Dodie Smith

I write this sitting in the kitchen sink. ~ Dodie Smith

So many of the loveliest things in England are melancholy. ~ Dodie Smith

Of course, he sees creation as discovery. I mean, everything is already created, by the first cause
call it God if you like; everything is already there to be found. ~ Dodie Smith

Everything in the least connected with him has value for me; if someone even mentions his name it is like a little present to me
and I long to mention it myself, I start subjects leading up to it, and then feel myself going red. I keep swearing to myself not to speak of him again- and then an opportunity occurs and I jump at it. ~ Dodie Smith

[P]erhaps it is the loving that counts, not the being loved in return
that perhaps true loving can never know anything but happiness. ~ Dodie Smith I Capture The Castle

I know all about the facts of life, and I don't think much of them. ~ Dodie Smith

Once I really looked at the sky, I wanted to go on looking; it seemed to draw me towards it and make me listen hard, though there was nothing to listen to, not so much as a twig was stirring. ~ Dodie Smith

I still didn't believe him. And for the moment, I didn't much care one way or the other. My whole mind had swung back to Simon. ~ Dodie Smith

I suddenly knew that religion, God - something beyond everyday life - was there to be found, provided one is really willing. And I saw that though what I felt in the church was only imagination, it was a step on the way; because imagination itself can be a kind of willingness - a pretense that things are real, due to one's longing for them. It struck me that this was somehow tied up with what the Vicar said about religion being an extension of art - and then I had a glimpse of how religion can really cure you of sorrow; somehow make use of it, turn it to beauty, just as art can make sad things beautiful.

I found myself saying: 'Sacrifice is the secret - you have to sacrifice things for art and it's the same
with religion; and then the sacrifice turns out to be a gain.' Then I got confused and I couldn't hold on to what I meant - until Miss Blossom remarked: 'Nonsense, duckie - it's prefectly simple. You lose yourself in something beyond yourself and it's a lovely rest.'

I saw that, all right. Then I thought: 'But that's how Miss Marcy cured her sorrow, too - only she lost herself in other people instead of in religion.' Which way of life was best - hers or the Vicar's? I decided that he loves God and merely likes the villagers, whereas she loves the villagers and merely likes God - and then I suddenly wondered if I could combine both ways, love God and my neighbor equally. Was I really willing to? ~ Dodie Smith

And yet as my eyes turned to Stephen facing the sunrise from Simon in the darkness of my mind, it was as if Simon had been the living face and Stephen's the one I was imagining - or a photograph, a painting, something beautiful but not really alive for me. My whole heart was so full of Simon that even my pity for Stephen wasn't quite real - it was only something I felt I ought to feel, more from my head than from my heart. And I knew I ought to pity him all the more because I could pity him so little. ~ Dodie Smith

Wakings are the worst times
almost before my eyes are open a great weight seems to roll on my heart. ~ Dodie Smith I Capture The Castle

There's nothing more, except that I usually sit down until the flames die down and try to think myself back into the past. ~ Dodie Smith

The tea was a comfort - and by that time I more than needed comfort. ~ Dodie Smith

I felt as I did once when Rose had very bad toothache - that it was callous of me to be so separate from the pain, that just being sorry for suffering people isn't enough. ~ Dodie Smith

It is rather exciting to write by moonlight. ~ Dodie Smith

I like seeing people when they can't see me. ~ Dodie Smith

I could look at stationers' shops forever and ever. ~ Dodie Smith

I love you, I love you, I love you. ~Cassandra
~ Dodie Smith

I could see he was nervous; at least, I thought I could, but then it struck me how little I know of him, or of Topaz or Rose or anyone in the world, really, except myself. ~ Dodie Smith

If I set my stones, my mum would be an opal, all swirly colours and clashy statements. I would put her at the north point of my stone compass and be grateful to her for my brains, and the fact that I stand up for myself. I'd be grateful to her for the ease with which I laugh, although I wish she'd rein in her own guffaws sometimes because really, who needs to be that loud? I was grateful that she didn't hover over me like some parents who couldn't seem to let their (nearly adult) children out of their sight without keeping constant telephone contact. He'll, I was even grateful that she had strict house rules that were a pain in the arse, because we both knew it would be much easier if she said yes, but she did no because she really believed no was the right answer. ~ Gabrielle Williams

I'm wondering. Shall we say its perfect for the sea and the sunlight - and the other Rose is perfect for candlelight? And perhaps what's most perfect of all is to find there are several Roses? ~ Dodie Smith

Cruel blows of fate call for extreme kindness in the family circle. ~ Dodie Smith

And who says you always have to understand things? You can like them without understanding them
like 'em better sometimes. ~ Dodie Smith I Capture The Castle

I glanced through another page in case I had missed something, and came to the description of Simon's face as he lay on the grass with his eyes closed. It gave me a stab in which happiness and misery were somehow a part of each other. ~ Dodie Smith

She will want things to stay just as they are. She will never have the fun of hoping something wonderful and exiting may be just around the corner. ~ Dodie Smith

We burnt the salt and the herbs (in America it is correct to drop the h in herbs
it does sound odd.) ~ Dodie Smith I Capture The Castle

I suddenly knew it wasn't only the wonderful luxury of being in love that had been buoying me up: deep down, in some vague, mixed up way I had been letting myself hope he didn't really care for her, that it was me he loved and that kissing me would have made him realise it. 'You're a fool and worse -' I told myself. 'You're a would-be thief. ~ Dodie Smith

And at last father flung the rug off as if it were hampering him and strode over to the table saying, 'cocoa, cocoa!'
it might have been the most magnificent drink in the world; which, personally, I think it is. ~ Dodie Smith

I think what I really mean is that [she] won't be WANTING things to happen. She will want things to say just as they are. She will never have the fun of hoping something wonderful and exciting may be just round the corner. ~ Dodie Smith I Capture The Castle

Slaves to our media delivery devices, we are ever available to this vague, demanding elsewhere, and our ability to experience the "now" is dissolving. ~ Dodie Bellamy

I couldn't stand to be alone, yet I didn't want anyone to witness my dailiness, an indiscriminate collage of fragments, random encounters. ~ Dodie Bellamy

But during the many happy hours that Cadpig was to sit watching it in the warm kitchen she never liked it quite so much as that other television, that still silent television she had seen on Christmas Eve when the puppies had rested so peacefully in that strange lofty building. She often remembered that building and wondered who owned it. Someone very kind she was sure for in front of every one of the many seats there had been a little carpet-eared puppy-sized dog-bed. ~ Dodie Smith

I could marry the Devil himself if he had some money. ~ Dodie Smith

Was I the only woman in the world who, at my age - and after a lifetime of quite rampant independence - still did not quite feel grown up? ~ Dodie Smith

It made no difference. Just to be in love
seemed the most blissful luxury I had ever known. The thought came to me that perhaps it is the loving that counts, not the being loved in return - that perhaps true loving can never know anything but true happiness. ~ Dodie Smith

It was so nice that Simon was here for it - tell him I enjoyed every minute - ' it was glorious writing that - almost like telling him I was glad he'd kissed me. But after I'd posted the letter I was worried in case he guessed what I'd meant. ~ Dodie Smith

When I read a book, I put in all the imagination I can, so that it is almost like writing the book as well as reading it - or rather, it is like living it. It makes reading so much more exciting, but I don't suppose many people try to do it. ~ Dodie Smith

Deep down, in some vague, mixed way I had been letting myself hope that he didn't really care for her, that it was me he loved and that kissing me would have made him realise it ... ~ Dodie Smith

Surely I could give him
a sort of contentment ...
That isn't enough to give. Not for the giver. ~ Dodie Smith

I don't want to miss anything. ~ Dodie Smith

Things you let yourself imagine happening, never do happen. ~ Dodie Smith

No, that was my privilege. ~ Dodie Smith

The vague expression was gone from his eyes - I had a feeling it was gone forever. ~ Dodie Smith