Quotes from Elisabeth Sanxay Holding

Her husband and her children did not consider her beyond criticism. She belonged to them; whatever she did affected them; their pride, their good name in the world lay in her hands. They would give her love, protection, even a sort of homage, but in return for that she must be what they wanted and needed her to be.

Why is it 'housewife'? What would I call myself if we lived in a hotel? Nobody ever puts down just 'wife,' or even just 'mother.' If you haven't got a job, and you don't keep house, then you aren't anything. apparently. I wish I was something else. I mean, besides keeping house, I wish I was a designer, for instance. The children would think a lot more of me, if I was a designer. Maybe Tom would, too.

People, by and large, weren't cruel, weren't heartless; it was simply that they couldn't believe anything could happen

Someone would come and see her. Someone always came. There was always a knock at the door. Everyone had a right to come to her; that was what she was for, that was her function, her reason for being. There was never an hour that belonged to her.

She had always been faintly disappointed in herself, disappointed in school because she had not been remarkable, disappointed when she married because she had not become the perfect housekeeper, most of all disappointed in herself as a mother.

I'm like a doll, she thought. I'm not real. As she sat at dinner with her family, this sense of unreality became almost frightening.

She knew, as all other people know, what lay within herself, how different she was from every one else who had ever lived, how interesting she was, both in her qualities and her experiences, a thing true of every one; and yet how impossible it is to make others see it!

Having as yet never lost anything, she didn't value anything.

She had a vague distaste for death, which was just sufficiently stronger than her apathy to preserve her existence.

Like all domestic tyrants, he was shamelessly deceived and "managed" by the women of his establishment.

You didn't have to love people or to hate them-you had only to get on with them.