Quotes from Radclyffe Hall

After she had gone he sat on alone, and the lie was still bitter to his spirit as he sat there, and he covered his face for the shame that was in him - but because of the love that was in him he wept.

An ungentlemanly war it will be,' he grumbled. 'Will I lead my men with a sword? Ah, but no! I will lead my men with a dirty revolver in my hand. Parbleu! Such is modern warfare! A machine could do the whole cursed thing better -- we shall all be nothing but machines in this war.

Strange it is, but unforgettable moments are often connected with very small happenings, happenings that assume fictitious proportions, especially when we are children.

For the Celtic soul is the stronghold of dreams, of longings come down the dim paths of the ages; and within it there dwells a vague discontent, so that it must for ever go questing. And

Why should this girl have crossed Stephen's path, or indeed Stephen hers, if it came to that matter? Was not the world large enough for them both? Perhaps not — or perhaps the event of their meeting had already been written upon tablets of stone by some wise if relentless recording finger.

Love is the sweetest monotony that was ever conceived of by the Creator.

For together with those who themselves being normal, had long put intellects above bodies, were writers, painters, musicians and scholars, men and women who, set apart from their birth, had determined to hack out a niche in existence.

To keep life in his desolate, long-suffering soul, he had stored his mind with much profound learning. So now many poor devils went to him for advice, which he never refused though he gave it sadly. It was always the same: 'Do the best you can, no man can do more -- but never stop fighting. For us there is no sin so great as despair, and perhaps no virtue so vital as courage.

Nothing appears to succeed like success in a world that is principally made up of failure.

Who are you to deny me the right to love?

Reuben grinned and chewed more vigorously than ever; he had the measure of his master's foot to a nicety. The sun felt actually hot, and Hilary, in his heavy tweeds, began to be less inclined for the long walk over stubbly fields. His eye roved for a suitable place to rest, which he finally discovered under a hedge.

Have you ever thought about the enormous courage of trees? I have, and it seems to me amazing, The Lord dumps them down and they just gotta stick it, no matter what happens.

this thing seems more dreadful than anything else that has ever happened, more utterly dreadful — but you'll find that it will pass and be completely forgotten —

Those who have reached the seventh incarnation carry with them all that was learnt, suffered and experienced in the previous six. Life for them is a perpetual and unsatisfying deja vu. Nothing is new, truly interesting, truly vital. Everything has done before, even before it begins. Such a soul is said to live a 'Saturday Life

In this little room, tonight, every night, there is so much misery, so much despair, that the walls seem almost too narrow to contain it. … Yet outside there are happy people who sleep the sleep of the so-called just and righteous. When they wake it will be to persecute those who, through no fault of their own, have been set apart from the day of their birth, deprived of all sympathy, all understanding. They are thoughtless, these happy people who sleep.

I have put my pen at the service of some of the most persecuted and misunderstood people in the world.

And so blinded was she by those gleams of glory which the stars fling into the eyes of young lovers, that she saw perfection where none existed; saw a patient endurance that was purely fictitious, and conceived of a loyalty far beyond the limits of Angela's nature.

Oh, Stephen, Stephen, get used to the world -- it's a horrible place full of horrible people, but it's all there is, and we live in it, don't we? So we've just got to do as the world does, my Stephen.

For she thought that she glimpsed through the dust of the years, a faint flicker of the girl who had lingered in the lanes when the young man Williams and she had been courting. And looking at Williams as he stood before her twitching and bowed, she thought that she glimpsed a faint flicker of the youth, very stalwart and comely, who had bent his head downwards and sideways as he walked and whispered and kissed in the lanes.

Pat's been deserted -- have you heard that, darling? Do you think she'll take the veil or cocaine or something?

There seldom seemed to be a house left with a roof, or with anything much beyond its four walls, and quite often they must lie staring up at the stars, which would stare back again, aloof and untroubled.

And hearing him, Stephen found herself thinking that all men had something simple about them; something that took pleasure in the things that were blameless, that longed, as it were, to contact Nature.

The doctors cannot make the ignorant think, cannot hope to bring home the sufferings of millions; only one of ourselves can someday do that...It will need great courage but it will be done, because all things must work toward ultimate good; there is no real wastage and no destruction.

For the spirit of Morton would be part of her then, and would always remain somewhere deep down within her, aloof and untouched by the years that must follow, by the stress and the ugliness of life.