Quotes from Rebecca West

It is sometimes very hard to tell the difference between history and the smell of skunk.

The world is round and the place which may seem like the end may also be only the beginning.

Humanity is never more sphinxlike than when it is expressing itself.

A copy of the universe is not what is required of art; one of the damned things is ample.

I take it as a prime cause of the present confusion of society that it is too sickly and too doubtful to use pleasure frankly as a test of value.

Now different races and nationalities cherish different ideals of society that stink in each other's nostrils with an offensiveness beyond the power of any but the most monstrous private deed.

In England and America a beard usually means that its owner would rather be considered venerable than virile; on the continent of Europe it often means that its owner makes a special claim to virility.

Humanity is never more sphinxlike than when it is expressing itself

Journalism is the ability to meet the challenge of filling space

International relationships are preordained to be clumsy gestures based on imperfect knowledge.

Motherhood is the strangest thing, it can be like being one's own Trojan horse.

He is every other inch a gentleman.

It is sometimes very hard to tell the difference between history and the smell of skunk.

Writing has nothing to do with communication between person and person, only with communication between different parts of a person's mind.

There is no wider gulf in the universe than yawns between those on the hither and thither side of vital experience.

It is a great pity that every human being does not, at an early stage of his life, have to write a historical work. He would then realize that the human race is in quite a jam about truth.

Because hypocrisy stinks in the nostrils one is likely to rate it as a more powerful agent for destruction than it is.

Great music is in a sense serene it is certain of the values it asserts.

All men should have a drop of treason in their veins, if nations are not to go soft like so many sleepy pears.

God forbid that any book should be banned. The practice is as indefensible as infanticide.

Just how difficult it is to write biography can be reckoned by anybody who sits down and considers just how many people know they real truth about his or her love affairs.

Man is a hating rather than a loving animal.

People call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat or a prostitute.

People call me feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat or a prostitute.