Dodie Smith, I Capture the Castle
42 quotes
"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."
"It is rather exciting to write by moonlight."
"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."
"I like seeing people when they can't see me."
"My God - it's a green child!" said the American. "What is this place - the House of Usher?"
"Rose doesn’t like the flat country, but I always did – flat country seems to give the sky such a chance."
"...he talked quite naturally while we ate — about the difficulty of finding words to describe the luminous mist, and why one has the desire to describe beauty."Perhaps it's an attempt to possess it," I said."Or be possessed by it; perhaps that's the same thing, really. I suppose it's the complete identification with beauty one's seeking."The mist grew brighter and brighter."
"In addition, I think religion has a chance of a look-in whenever the mind craves solace in music or poetry-- in any form of art at all. Personally, I think it is an art, the greatest one; an extension of the communication all the other arts attempt."
"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."
"And no bathroom on earth will make up for marrying a bearded man you hate."
"But some characters in books are really real--Jane Austen's are; and I know those five Bennets at the opening of Pride and Prejudice, simply waiting to raven the young men at Netherfield Park, are not giving one thought to the real facts of marriage."
"There is something revolting about the way girls' minds so often jump to marriage long before they jump to love."
"Am I really admitting that my sister is determined to marry a man she has only seen once and doesn't much like the look of? It is half real and half pretense - and I have an idea that it is a game most girls play when they meet an eligible young men. They just...wonder."
"... there is something revolting about the way girls' minds so often jump to marriage long before they jump to love. And most of those minds are shut to what marriage really means."
"It isn't a bit of use my pretending I'm not crying, because I am... Pause to mop up. Better now.Perhaps it would really be rather dull to be married and settled for life. Liar! It would be heaven."
"I wonder if there isn't a catch about having plenty of money? Does it eventually take the pleasure out of things?"
"I could marry the Devil himself if he had some money."
"Prayer's a very tricky business."
"Even a broken heart doesn't warrant a waste of good paper."
"Cruel blows of fate call for extreme kindness in the family circle."
"...I could never explain how the image and the reality merge, and how they somehow extend and beautify each other."
"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."
"Did you think of anything when Miss Marcy said Scoatney Hall was being re-opened? I thought of the beginning of Pride and Prejudice – where Mrs. Bennet says 'Netherfield Park is let a last.' And then Mr. Bennet goes over to call on the rich new owner."
"I am surprised to see how much I have written; with stories even a page can take me hours, but the truth seems to flow out as fast as I can get it down. But words are very inadequate – anyway, my words are."
"A mist is rolling over the fields. Why is a summer mist romantic and autumn mist just sad?"