Quotes from Elizabeth Jane Howard

Nicht zu wissen, was ich genau will, heißt allerdings nicht, dass ich zu etwas Langweiligem gezwungen werden möchte, von dem alle denken, es wäre gut für mich. Damit meinen sie doch nur, dass es sicher und langweilig ist und nicht schlecht. Aber Sicherheit interessiert mich nicht.

Siamo abituati a pensare che lo shock coincida con la scoperta di qualcosa che non ci aspettavamo, mentre spesso coincide con il venire a galla di certe nostre paure profonde.

Why do they call them daytime dramas, anyway? Shouldn't they be bedtime dramas? All anyone ever talks about is getting someone into bed! Plus if you're at home watching, you're probably watching in bed. And if you're like me, after an hour or two of watching all those sexy goings-on you forget the silly story entirely and fall asleep. Just like it's bedtime!

Sozialistin oder Feministin?' 'Ich könnte doch beides sein. Der Wunsch, dass es für Frauen gerechter zugeht, gehört doch zum Wunsch dazu, dass es für alle gerechter zugeht. Oder nicht?

Ha! Also für den Fall, dass du es nicht weißt - einer der Unterschiede zwischen einem Amateur und jemandem, der professionell arbeitet, ist, dass Amateure nur arbeiten, wenn ihnen danach ist, während jemand Professionelles sich unabhängig von seiner Laune dransetzt.

do not like the people who read fifteen books by a man who has written three worth reading.' 'But if one enjoys reading, one must be resigned to many disappointments.' 'Disappointments – certainly. But if you read a book and are disappointed, it is because you intended to be pleased.

I do not like the people who read fifteen books by a man who has written three worth reading.' 'But if one enjoys reading, one must be resigned to many disappointments.' 'Disappointments – certainly. But if you read a book and are disappointed, it is because you intended to be pleased.

Halb möchte sie Pazifistin sein - wie Christopher -, und in gewisser Hinsicht bin ich auch der Meinung,' sagte Polly. 'Aber sie möchte auch Flugzeuge fliegen und ein U-Boot kommandieren können, was nicht besonders logisch ist, Archie, da musst du mir recht geben

Alone, without the looking-glass of another person's presence, the mirrors of the imagination sometimes effect cunning distortions. By

Wir gingen in keinen Nachtclub, schrieb sie in ihr Tagebuch. Eigentlich nur gut, denn angeblich ist es dort ausgesprochen langweilig - nur etwas für Leute, die viel trinken und sich verlieben wollen.

It is extraordinarily difficult not to hate someone when one feels powerless with them.

Ich habe festgestellt, dass es gefährlich ist, sich an Dinge zu gewöhnen.' 'Gilt das für alles?' 'Ja, für alles. Man nimmt, was immer es ist, einfach nicht mehr wahr, und, schlimmer noch, man hat die Illusion, etwas geschafft zu haben.

Aber ich weiß, dass deine Maßstäbe unglaublich hoch sind. Ich glaube, die meisten Menschen könnten ihnen nicht genügen. Nicht ständig. Und genauso kann ich kritisch sein und dich trotzdem sehr gern haben. Ich kann nicht anders, als es zu bemerken, aber das ändert nichts an meinen wirklichen Gefühlen.

Das schönste an einer Freundschaft ist,' sagte sie, 'zu tun, wozu man Lust hat, ohne mit dem anderen reden zu müssen.

Es war herrlich, frei zu sein, ihr Zuhause verlassen zu können, allmählich Dinge herauszufinden über Menschen, die nicht zur Familie gehörten. Alles kann passieren, dachte sie, wirklich alles! Und ich will auch, dass es passiert - was immer es ist.

Wohltätigkeit ist nur einer andere Art, dafür zu sorgen, dass Menschen nicht nach mehr streben.

Mum could be a nurse,' he said, anxious to include her (she'd been jolly decent

He always -- or always tried -- to do things from larger principles, not out of what he felt about people, or any particular people, but what he thought people ought to feel about -- humanity. He wasn't really interested in people singly or personally.

This duel of consideration for one another that they had conducted for the last sixteen years involved shifting the truth about between them or withholding it altogether and was called good manners or affection, supposed to smooth the humdrum or prickly path of everyday married life. Its tyranny was apparent to neither.

She felt she was a bottomless pit of memories, and she was only fifteen. What on earth must it be like when you reached the Duchy's age? You'd hardly be able to think at all for them; it would be like having so much furniture in a room that there was nowhere left to move.

It was funny how with grown-ups you had to say the same things again and again. Perhaps that was why babies were born with such big heads: the head stayed the same and the person got larger, but it meant that there was the same amount of room in your brain to remember things, so the longer you lived, the more you forgot.

Sull'aeroplano ci sentiamo membri di un organismo gigantesco: tutto sotto di noi si fa piccolo, maneggevole e lezioso come un giocattolo, finché ogni cosa si scioglie in una distanza indistinta sotto di noi e la nostra casa diventa il cielo, che ci appare pieno di dettagli e di cose da osservare.

Fear made people greedy and therefore selfish; that small minority who honestly did not care for themselves in that way, who could sincerely say that money was unimportant to them, almost always had no dependants.

that small minority who honestly did not care for themselves in that way, who could sincerely say that money was unimportant to them, almost always had no dependants.