Quotes from Dodie Smith

I could never explain how the image and the reality merge, and how they somehow extend and beautify each other.

But her voice sounded wistful. It is one of her theories that a woman must never be jealous, never try to hold man against his will; but I could tell that she hadn't enjoyed seeing someone else bring father to life.

she is a girl who cannot walk her troubles off, or work them off; she is a girl to sit around and glare.

I decided that it was like the difference between the beautiful old Godsend graves and the new ones open to receive coffins (which I never can bear to look at); that time takes the ugliness and horror out of death and turns it into beauty.

But during the many happy hours that Cadpig was to sit watching it in the warm kitchen she never liked it quite so much as that other television, that still silent television she had seen on Christmas Eve when the puppies had rested so peacefully in that strange lofty building. She often remembered that building and wondered who owned it. Someone very kind she was sure for in front of every one of the many seats there had been a little carpet-eared puppy-sized dog-bed.

Oh I daresay she can't help it - she's one of the women who oughn't be loved too kindly when they are some primitive desire for brutality makes them try to provoke it.

It is part of a follow-my-leader game of second-best we have all been playing . . . it isn't a very good game; the people you play it with are apt to get hurt.

Topaz is beautiful - largely because of the strangeness of her face.

Now, carols are always beautiful, but if you are sad they can make you feel sadder. (There are some people who always find beauty makes them feel sadder, which is a very mysterious thing.)

I don't intend to let myself become the kind of author who can only work in seclusion – after all, Jane Austen wrote in the sitting-room and merely covered up her work when a visitor called (though I bet she thought a thing or two) – but I am not quite Jane Austen yet and there are limits to what I can stand.

And I suspect that, to the eyes of love, love shows. I knew about you as well as about myself, almost from the beginning.

Once I really looked at the sky, I wanted to go on looking; it seemed to draw me towards it and make me listen hard, though there was nothing to listen to, not so much as a twig was stirring.

Is it wrong for me to feel so happy? Perhaps I ought even to feel guilty? No. I didn't make it happen, and it can't hurt anyone but me. Surely I have a right to my joy. For as long as it lasts...

And they are like a drug, one needs them oftener and oftener and has to make them more and more exciting - until at last one's imagination won't work at all.

There is a connection between Dal mations and gipsies. Many people believe that it was the gipsies who first brought Dalmatians to England, long, long ago. And nothing like as long ago as that, there were gipsies who travelled round England with Dalmatians trained to do tricks. And these performing dogs earned money for the gipsies.

The thought was horrible, yet fascinating.

But I am not quite Jane Austen yet and there are limits to what I can stand.

I leaned against the carved banisters and listened to the music and felt quite different from any way I have ever felt before -- softer, very beautiful and as if a great many men were in love with me and I might very easily be in love with them.

Wakings are the worst times - almost before my eyes are open a great weight seems to roll on to my heart.

All of a sudden we saw a high, round tower in the distance, on a little hill. Father instantly decided that we must explore it, though mother wasn't enthusiastic. It was difficult to find because the little roads twisted and woods and villages kept hiding it from us, but every few minutes we caught a glimpse of it.

I could look at stationers' shops forever and ever.

I wish I could find words--serious, beautiful words--to describe it in the afternoon sunlight; the more I strive for them, the more they utterly elude me.

It was a rather dreadful thought but somehow comforting.

me daba la sensación de que alguien tan destrozado como yo debía recibir ayuda de la Iglesia. A continuación dije para mis adentros que, como no pensaba en la Iglesia cuando era feliz, difícilmente podía esperar algo cuando no lo era. No se puede cobrar el seguro sin abonar las cuotas.