Ivy Compton Burnett Quotes

A plot is like the bones of a person, not interesting like expression, or signs of experience, but the support of the whole. ~ Ivy Compton-Burnett

We none of us talk to people as we do behind their backs. ~ Ivy Compton-Burnett

Well, the English have no family feelings. That is, none of the kind you mean. They have them, and one of them is that relations must cause no expense. ~ Ivy Compton-Burnett

People do not like to lose their lives. That is the reason why they should not take other people's. ~ Ivy Compton-Burnett

As regards plots I find real life no help at all. Real life seems to have no plots. ~ Ivy Compton-Burnett

Some people always have a touch of youth about them. ~ Ivy Compton-Burnett

You should not want to know the things in people's minds. If you were meant to hear them, they would be said. ~ Ivy Compton-Burnett

I am ill at ease with people whose lives are an open book. ~ Ivy Compton-Burnett

Appearances are not held to be a clue to the truth,' said his cousin. 'But we seem to have no other. ~ Ivy Compton-Burnett

Never is a long word. ~ Ivy Compton-Burnett

Pushing forty? She's hanging on for dear life. ~ Ivy Compton-Burnett

There is more difference within the sexes than between them. ~ Ivy Compton-Burnett

We can build upon foundations anywhere if they are well and firmly laid. ~ Ivy Compton-Burnett

There is danger in courage. Cowardice is a power for good. We hardly know what it prevents. ~ Ivy Compton-Burnett

Our desires have a way of getting bigger with our incomes. ~ Ivy Compton-Burnett

Speaking of things robs them of half their terrors. ~ Ivy Compton-Burnett

Dear, dear, the miniature world of the family! All the emotions of mankind seem to find a place in it. ~ Ivy Compton-Burnett

There isn't much to say. I haven't been at all deedy. ~ Ivy Compton-Burnett

The wrong is never the only thing a wrong-doer has done. ~ Ivy Compton-Burnett

Everything is breaking stones, up to a point. ~ Ivy Compton-Burnett

To young people the future is still long. ~ Ivy Compton-Burnett

A leopard does not change his spots, or change his feeling that spots are rather a credit. ~ Ivy Compton-Burnett

It is in our minds that we live much of our life. ~ Ivy Compton-Burnett

[On writing:] What a difficult kind of work to choose! But of course one did not choose it. There was no choice. ~ Ivy Compton-Burnett

It will be a beautiful family talk, mean and worried and full of sorrow and spite and excitement. ~ Ivy Compton-Burnett

There is probably nothing like living together for blinding people to each other. ~ Ivy Compton-Burnett

My youth is escaping without giving me anything it owes me. ~ Ivy Compton-Burnett

The most original novelist now writing in English. ~ Ivy Compton-Burnett

If I were not a child with my parents, they would be more unloving toward me ... ~ Ivy Compton-Burnett

People have never lost what they think they have. ~ Ivy Compton-Burnett

We are always children to our mothers. ~ Ivy Compton-Burnett

It is so subtle to write things that have no meaning ~ Ivy Compton-Burnett

Charm should be on the surface. It has no hidden use. ~ Ivy Compton-Burnett

We must use words as they are used, or stand aside from life. ~ Ivy Compton-Burnett

People's weaker side is not necessarily their truer self. ~ Ivy Compton-Burnett

As regards plot I find real life no help at all. Real life seems to have no plots. And as I think a plot desirable and almost necessary, I have this extra grudge against life. ~ Ivy Compton-Burnett

There are different kinds of wrong. The people sinned against are not always the best. ~ Ivy Compton-Burnett

Real charity and real ability never to condemn-the one real virtue-is so often the result of a waking experience that gives a glimpse of what lies beneath things. ~ Ivy Compton-Burnett

Many people misjudge the permanent effect of sorrow, and their capacity to live in the past. ~ Ivy Compton-Burnett

At a certain point my novels set. They set just as hard as that jam jar. And then I know they are finished. ~ Ivy Compton-Burnett

Well, Buttermere, this is a day that is good to live and breathe in, that makes a man feel in his prime. Standing here in front of my house, I feel as young as when I moved into it thirty years ago, in the year eighteen hundred and fifty-nine. What aged man would you take me to be, as I step as it were casually into your view? ~ Ivy Compton-Burnett

Time is not a great healer. It is an indifferent and perfunctory one. Sometimes it does not heal at all. And sometimes when it seems to, no healing has been necessary. ~ Ivy Compton-Burnett

Anyone who picks up a Compton-Burnett finds it very hard not to put it down. ~ Ivy Compton-Burnett

It is better to be drunk with loss and to beat the ground, than to let the deeper things gradually escape. ~ Ivy Compton-Burnett

When I die, people will say it is the best thing for me. It is because they know it is the worst. They want to avoid the feeling of pity. As though they were the people most concerned! ~ Ivy Compton-Burnett

Well, of course, people are only human ... But it really does not seem much for them to be. ~ Ivy Compton-Burnett

My mouth dropped open. Oh my God, it was like having a conversation with a ruder Tink. Who, by the way, was practically shimmying with excitement as he leaned in, whispering into my ear. "I like this guy. I really like him. Can I keep him?"
The Summer Prince heard him, and interest sparked in his pale blue eyes. "I've never been kept by a brownie before, but … I've heard things. Interesting things."
I so needed an adult right now, but the adults were all staring at the ceiling, pretending like a live version of Fae Tinder wasn't going down right in front of us.
Tink straightened. "Do tell."
Fabian stepped toward us. "Is it true that a brownie's co - "
"Okay," Ren stepped in, apparently to Tanner's relief by the look on his face. "Let's get back on topic. You were talking about how Ivy isn't a special snowflake. ~ Jennifer L. Armentrout

From the green belt balcony, the wildfires look so pretty
Ponderosa canopy, I'd never leave if it were up to me
To the ruby redwood tree, and to the velvet climbing ivy painted all mahogany
I'd never leave if it were up to me ~ Owl City

Like a bird handled by humans whose flock would not accept it back, Rob now wore the unwashable scent of the Ivy League. ~ Jeff Hobbs

We let people invent us as they please, he thinks. The truth we keep to ourselves. ~ Ivy Pochoda

Celebrity was a long time in coming; it will go away. Everything goes away. ~ Carol Burnett

My son Darrel could recite 'Straight Outta Compton' at two years old. He loved it! You can expose your kids to anything as long as you sit there and explain it to them. ~ Ice Cube

Not very long after this a very exciting thing happened. Not only Sara, but the entire school, found it exciting, and made it the chief subject of conversation for weeks after it occurred. In one of his letters Captain Crewe told a most interesting story. A friend who had been at school with him when he was a boy had unexpectedly come to see him in India. He was the owner of a large tract of land upon which diamonds had been found, and he was engaged in developing the mines. If all went as was confidently expected, he would become possessed of such wealth as it made one dizzy to think of; and because he was fond of the friend of his school days, he had given him an opportunity to share in this enormous fortune by becoming a partner in his scheme. This, at least, was what Sara gathered from his letters. It is true that any other business scheme, however magnificent, would have had but small attraction for her or for the schoolroom; but "diamond mines" sounded so like the Arabian Nights that no one could be indifferent. Sara thought them enchanting, and painted pictures, for Ermengarde and Lottie, of labyrinthine passages in the bowels of the earth, where sparkling stones studded the walls and roofs and ceilings, and strange, dark men dug them out with heavy picks. Ermengarde delighted in the story, and Lottie insisted on its being retold to her every evening. Lavinia was very spiteful about it, and told Jessie that she didn't believe such things as diamond mines existed. ~ Frances Hodgson Burnett

Burnett hadn't gotten secure on his feet when Della said, "Don't start giving me crap. All I did was take the long way home. And if I hadn't, some poor girl would - "
"I'm not giving you crap," Burnett said.
Is that because he's saving it all to give to me? Chase stood quiet, dreading what might be forthcoming. ~ C.C. Hunter

I never regretted turning down anything, I never regretted losing a job because I always felt something else was out there. ~ Carol Burnett

So that's why Ivy always used canvas bags . It wasn't because she was especially eco-minded. They were quiet. ~ Kim Harrison

I'd say she's get us both fired, but the I.S. doesn't let anyone go. Alive. ~ Kim Harrison

I want to take you until you are boneless. I want to drain you of strength. I want to fill you and take my fill of you. My dear, Ivy, I want to devour you. I want your juices on my toung, flooding my mouth. I want your wetness on my face, your scent covering me. I want your blood in my veins. ~ Kathryn Smith

I abandoned the plan to make millions from the spell when I realised that people would finally realise their cats are selfish little bastards who only care about themselves. There would have been mass feline abandonment if they heard what their pets really have to say. ~ Helen Harper

Honesty was a tough customer ... Once you started allowing yourself some honesty, it couldn't easily be contained or limited to one part of your life. It was like poison ivy or a bossy houseguest. Once it was there, you couldn't tell it what to do. You had to really fight to keep it from taking over. ~ Ann Brashares

I never grew up in the Valley. I lived in Compton/Gardena my whole life. ~ Tyga

Gwen was kind of amazed. A mother with several degrees and a prestigious position at an Ivy League college did not ensure that she'd be any less embarrassing to her child than a mother who became a nurse through night school. Gwen knew this when Alla launched into her "unfortunate changes in my vagina after the birth of Lachlan" discussion.

"No. It was his shoulders. He's always had very large shoulders. I mean look at him. Even as a baby they were freakishly long."

"Freakishly?" Lock snapped.

"They stretched me right out."

"Mom!"

Brody shrugged and reached for more moo goo gai pork. "I didn't mind."

"Dad!"

"Well, darling, you were always quite large, so it made things a little easier for both of us when it came to sex."

"Mom!"

Alla shook her head. "I don't know what happened to you, Lachlan MacRyrie." She turned to Gwen. "I've always insisted on being quite open about human bodies when talking to my children. There's no shame in a woman's body. And like everything else in the world, it ages. So while you still have the exquisite body you've been blessed with, Gwen dear, and that prebirth vagina - enjoy it."

"Is there any way to get you to stop?" Lock begged. ~ Shelly Laurenston

That's why you start where you are. Not where you wish you were. Not where you hope you are. Not where you think you should be. But right where you are. ~ Bill Burnett

If He made us, He must know He is to blame when He has made us weak or evil. And He must understand why we have been so made, and when we throw ourselves into the dust before Him, and pray for help and pardon, surely
surely He will lend an ear! ~ Frances Hodgson Burnett

Today people look at me, at my job and my Ivy League credentials, and assume that I'm some sort of genius, that only a truly extraordinary person could have made it to where I am today. With all due respect to those people, I think that theory is a load of bullshit. Whatever ~ J.D. Vance

It almost looked like slow motion. The bag ripped and three pregnancy tests along with a pamphlet on safe sex and one on gonorrhea landed on the front seat with Holiday and Burnett.
Burnett looked down, gasped, and then looked up at Kylie. "For God's sake!" He muttered. ~ C.C. Hunter

The great strength she had used in the old days to conquer and subdue, to win her will and to defend her way, seemed now a power but to protect the suffering and uphold the weak, and this she did, not alone in hovels but in the brilliant court and world of fashion, for there she found suffering and weakness also, all the more bitter and sorrowful since it dared not cry aloud. ~ Frances Hodgson Burnett

The greatest photographs are motivated by human feeling. ~ David Burnett

Often thought that you had just the kind of commonplace gifts that a host of commonplace people want to find at their service. An old servant of mine who lives in Mortimer Street ~ Frances Hodgson Burnett

Busyness is now the social norm that people feel they must conform to, Burnett says, or risk being outcasts. ~ Brigid Schulte

I don't eat much meat, fish, or poultry. ~ Carol Burnett

As bad as it was - and you paid a heavy price for being a paratrooper, believe me, always put on the front lines under bad conditions - and even with the emotional scars you live with, I'm glad I did it. All goodness came out of it. I would never have had the opportunity to meet guys like Winters, Guarnere, Toye, Ed Joint and Joe Lesiewksi, Malarkey, J.D. Henderson, Shifty Powers, Chuck Grant, One Lung McClung, Compton, Mike McMann, and most important, Muck, Penkala, Campbell, and Julian, who never came back. Guarnere I don't have to mention, he's nuts, he always let's me know he's around! It makes you feel good that you were with these guys all over Europe in some tough spots, guys you shared a hole with, and guys who saved your life ... ~ Edward Heffron

How is it that animals understand things I do not know, but it is certain that they do understand. Perhaps there is a language that is not made up of words & everything in this world understands it. Perhaps there is a soul hidden in everything & it can always speak, without making a sound, to another soul. ~ Frances Hodgson Burnett

Did I mention how much I've missed you? ~ R.S. Burnett

You are a very threatening princess."
"Be Careful or I'll beat you up with my tiara. ~ Alyssa Rose Ivy

She flourishes and grows green amid ruins; she has ivy for the stones and love for man. ~ Victor Hugo

Confused, I asked, "The coven's what?"
"Plumber," Ivy said, looking pale as she leaned on Glenn. "You know. Stops leaks?"
Oh goodie. I'm a leak. ~ Kim Harrison

I mean to say, really, I am near to developing a neurosis - is there anyone around who doesn't want to study or kill me?"
Floote raised a tentative hand.
"Ah, yes, thank you, Floote."
"There is also Mrs Tunstell, madam," he offered hopefully, is if Ivy were some kind of consolation prize.
"I notice you don't mention my fair-weather husband."
"I suspect, at this moment, madam, he probably wants to kill you."
Alexia couldn't help smiling. "Good point. ~ Gail Carriger

Style has always been in my mind the author's Self, the creative expression of that Self. ~ Whit Burnett

But since Catt was more realist than fabulist, she understood her actual death at the hands of her killer would be something much slower. It would be a classical feminine death, like a marriage…Raised by meek working-class parents, she despised petty groveling and had no talent for making shit up. She wanted to be a "real" intellectual moving with dizzying freedom between high and low points in the culture. And to a certain extent, she'd succeeded. Catt's semi-name attracted a following among Asberger's boys, girls who'd been hospitalized for mental illness, sex workers, Ivy alumnae on meth, and always, the cutters. With her small self-made fortune, Catt saw herself as Moll Flanders, out-sourcing her visiting professorships and writing commissions to younger artists whose work she believed in. But she'd reached a point lately where the same young people she'd helped were blogging against her, exposing the 'cottage industry' she ran out of her Los Angeles compound facing the Hollywood sign … the same compound these bloggers had lived in rent-free after arriving from Iowa City, Alberta, New Zealand. Loathing all institutions, Catt had become one herself. Even her dentist asked her for money. ~ Chris Kraus

To make the moral achievement implicit in science a source of strength to civilization, the scientist will have to have the cooperation also of the philosopher and the religious teacher. ~ Arthur Holly Compton

You can't really mean to punish the entire male gender for the errors of a few ~ Alyssa Rose Ivy

Mistress Mary Quite Contrary ~ Frances Hodgson Burnett

The mere fact of her sufferings and adventures made her a priceless possession. ~ Frances Hodgson Burnett

to speak to her. He was interested in his roses (which, she heard afterward, were to be sent to town to an invalid friend), ~ Frances Hodgson Burnett

C'mon, man!" B exclaimed. "It's one thing to be gay, but pinky swearing is for chicks!" "You do it, too," Ivy said, stepping through the doorway. "So don't be acting like you don't." "Burned," Rome sang. "Aww, baby, why you gotta do me like that? ~ Cambria Hebert

I've dug so deep into his background, I can practically tell you when he stopped waring diapers. ~ C.C. Hunter

I know what it is to be hungry, and it is very hard when one cannot even pretend it away. -Sara ~ Frances Hodgson Burnett

My kids - even though it's a family business - they don't even know what day or time 'Survivor' is even on. They just know it's on TiVo. ~ Mark Burnett

The fact that I have a little ten-megapixel camera with me all the time, is way better than having the greatest camera in the world sitting at home on a desk instead of on my shoulder. ~ David Burnett

do not think I have ever met with a single fact which seems to me to justify the theory, of which Dr. von Martius is perhaps the leading advocate, that the ordinary condition of the savage is the result of degeneration from a far higher state. ~ Edward Burnett Tylor

This entire cast, N.W.A, was an all-star group, and I really feel like people are going to look at 'Straight Outta Compton' years from now like this was an all-star cast. ~ O'Shea Jackson, Jr.