Quotes from Angela Thirkell

I have been very, very happy. Mamma always said that even if there wasn't any happiness one must try to be happy without it.

I suppose everybody has a mental picture of the days of the week, some seeing them as a circle, some as an endless line, and others again, for all I know, as triangles and cubes. Mine is a wavy line proceeding to infinity, dipping to Wednesday which is the colour of old silver dark with polishing and rising again to a pale gold Sunday. This day has a feeling in my picture of warmth and light breezes and sunshine and afternoons that stretch to infinity and mornings full of far-off bells.

At this moment the headmaster found Master Wesendonck's tall pile of books slipping from his grasp. He juggled frantically with them for a moment and then, to the infinite joy of the boarders and day boys, they crashed to the ground in all directions. A bevy of form masters rushed forward to the rescue. Master Wesendonck, realising with immense presence of mind that his natural enemies were for once in their proper place, grovelling on the floor, stood still and did nothing.

People who say Jane or talk about Janeites revolt me. The sort that can walk with kings and not lose that common touch. 'Miss Austen to you' is what I feel inclined to say.

Tell Aunt Louise to boil her head," said Robin.

Now that," said Mrs. Morland, up in arms for seeing things straight, "is just rubbish. There isn't any good or bad taste about what books you read: it's what you like or don't like.

Good,' said Mr Carton. 'Why children, a loathsome breed who should be kept under hatches or in monasteries till they have acquired some rudiments of manners and consideration for others, should be encouraged to think themselves of importance now, I do not know. The English as a race have always been sentimental about dogs, and draught horses in Italy where most of them have never been, but this wave of sentiment about children is a new and revolting outburst.

Perhaps as one gets older one takes one's joys altruistically,"said John, in turn thinking aloud. "I must say though I sometimes wish I could get it selfishly, just for myself, as Gay used to give me, when I was young." Lady Emily found nothing to say. John's last words fell dead on her heart. It terrified her that he could speak of his youth as a perished thing.

There are some names that one can't even say in a normal voice because they lay open some nerve. I was frightfully in love with a woman once. Her name was Susan and she came from Norwich and she lived with her husband in Ovington Square. I fell out of love with her, and I haven't seen her or heard of her for years, but if I read or hear the words Susan, or Norwich, or Ovington, I go all queer.

I'm sorry to disturb you, madam,' said Nurse, 'but I thought I'd better speak to you. It's about Miss Delia's knickers' she continued, after a glance at the Vicar and a rapid decision that his cloth protected him. 'She really hasn't a pair fit to wear...

Like most healthy men he thought that any illness was death

How is Mrs. Rivers doing?' asked the agent, a very tall and large man, well-dressed, bald and depressing, with a manner of gliding into his office from a side door without perceptibly moving his feet which had struck terror into many young writers and caused them to accept the lowest terms Mr. Hobb could offer.

and Bill broke a cheerful silence for the first time to say he wished he hadn't lost his ocarina with his kit, because he had never had a better one.

The Admiral had the intense pleasure of welcoming Bill and Tubby again as his guests when they returned from a cheerful violation of Norway's highly un-neutral waters, with their rescued fellow-seamen; and when Mrs. Birkett heard that Bill had had the ocarina with him on that glorious occasion she felt that she had in no small measure contributed to the victory and the rescue and became quite bloated with pride. Two

Time is a very rum thing, as Shakespeare knew--ambling, trotting, galloping and sometimes standing still; though why he had to add "withal" to these interesting facts we cannot explain. Perhaps he could not explain either, but wrote whatever came into his head.

Mother had an old aunt over at Allington when she was a girl, Aunt Lily Dale, and she was great on families and used to snap mother's head off if she didn't know who was whose relation, especially in East Barsetshire. She had some kind of dislike to the de Courcys, mother never knew why, and wouldn't talk about them, but otherwise she was a walking 'Who's Who.

But the youngest grandson committed it all to memory so that he could show off in the literature lesson at school—which he did with such a horrid affection of angelic innocence that his long-suffering form-master could not find an outwardly valid excuse for keeping him in. But he evened the score by putting in the term's report that Crawley, S. A. (Septimus Arabin) would do better if he did not try to be funny.

If there is one pleasure on earth which surpasses all others, it is leaving a play before the end. I might perhaps except the joy of taking tickets for a play, dining well, sitting on after dinner, and finally not going at all. That, of course, is very heaven.

He was now entirely disillusioned and his whole life shattered. His heart's devotion had been at Mrs. Dean's feet, and she had found it trying.

To Mrs Belton's relief the lights in the hall were now put out and the curtains drawn apart. As all amateur theatricals are exclusively for the benefit of the actors with no reference to the wishes or tastes of the audience, we will not attempt to describe these in any detail.

And of course they'll get their milk from us, because Gooch's milk in the village really can't be trusted. I do hope, Henry, the vicarage drains are all right if Martin is to go there, because the French are rather vague about drains.' 'Yes, but darling, they aren't bringing their drains with them'...

Mrs. Barton asked her about the new litter, and whether she had sold all her last litter but one, but Sally gave such stupid answers that Mrs. Barton came to the conclusion she was thinking of mating Chloe again, a business which always occupied Sally's mind very fully, as the lurcher did not see eye to eye with her mistress about husbands, preferring natural worth to Norman blood.

Her mother's heart was divided, one half feeling a so natural pang at the sight of her lovely daughter setting out into a new life in a distant country, far from her parents' care, the other and by far the larger half feeling a gratitude amounting to idolatry for the son-in-law who was going to relieve her of a child that had done her best for the last five or six years to drive her parents mad.

Philip said that the older he got the more he realised that everyone in Dickens, without exception, was a real person, and quite a lot of them were among his friends.