Quotes from Dodie Smith

It's hopeless to make friends with people who never talk about themselves.

I]f I don't get going soon, the whole impetus may die---and if that happens, well, I really shall consider a long, restful plunge into insanity. Sometimes the abyss yawns very attractively.

Of course, he sees creation as discovery. I mean, everything is already created, by the first cause---call it God if you like; everything is already there to be found.

miserable people cannot afford to dislike each other. Cruel blows of fate call for extreme kindness in the family circle.

Sometimes I try to imagine what happens to characters in books - after the books finish, I mean.

I love owls, but I wish God had made them vegetarian.

If someone even mentions his name it is like a little present to me - and I long to mention it myself. I start subjects leading up to it, and then I feel myself going red. I keep swearing to myself not to speak to him again - and then an opportunity occurs and I jump at it!

We used to manage quite well when she was away sitting for artists, because in those days we lived mostly on bread, vegetables and eggs; but now that we can afford some meat or even chickens, I keep coming to grief. I scrubbed some rather dirty-looking chops with soap which proved very lingering, and I did not take certain things out of a chicken that I ought to have done.

I am not so sure I should like the facts of life, but I have got over the bitter disappointment I felt when I first heard about them, and one obviously has to try them sooner or later.

Then I told myself that as I never gave the Church a thought when I was feeling happy, I could hardly expect it to do anything for me when I wasn't. You can't get insurance money without paying in premiums.

I think your father believes that the interest so many people take in puzzles and problems — which often starts in earliest childhood — represents more than a mere desire for recreation; that it may even derive from man's eternal curiosity about his origin. Anyway, it makes use of certain faculties for progressive, cumulative search which no other mental exercise does.

then we danced the tune through again, without saying one word - indeed, we never spoke all the time we were dancing. I can't remember that I even thought. I seemed to move with a pleasure that was mindless.

deep down, in some vague, mixed way I had been letting myself hope that he didn't really care for her, that it was me he loved and that kissing me would have made him realise it...

Ik schrijf dit terwijl ik in de gootsteen zit

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.

The pictures are postcard reproductions of Old Masters. She has lots of metal animals about an inch long, little wooden shoes, painted boxes only big enough to hold stamps.

Doing things for others gives you a lovely glow. So does port, I said cynically.

Because there's so much that just can't be said plainly. Try describing what beauty is - plainly - and you'll see what I mean.

the old towns in the South where queer grey moss hangs from the trees...

I was going to give the farewell call – a farewell for ever this time, not just for a year. The call is a queer wordless cry made up of all the vowel sounds - and it was thrilling when Rose and I used to make it together, but I do it fairly well by myself. 'Ayieou!' I called - and it echoed back from the castle walls as I knew it would.

And though I cannot honestly say I would ever turn my back on any luxury that I could come by, I do feel there is something a bit wrong in it. Perhaps that makes it all the more enjoyable.

they believed that they owned their dogs, instead of realizing that their dogs owned them.

I tried to explain: 'Well, once you stop believing in an old gentleman with a beard...It's only the word God, you know – it makes such a conventional noise.' 'It's merely a shorthand for where we come from, where we're going, and what it's all about.

Suddenly I remembered a line in a poem by Vaughan: 'There is in God (some say) a deep but dazzling darkness' – and the next second, the darkness exploded into light.