Dodie Smith Quotations

The family, that dear octopus from whose tentacles we never quite escape, nor in our innermost hearts never quite wish to.

Noble deeds and hot baths are the best cures for depression.

Contemplation seems to be about the only luxury that costs nothing.

There is something revolting about the way girls' minds often jump to marriage long before they jump to love. And most of those minds are shut to what marriage really means.

I have found that sitting in a place where you have never sat before can be inspiring.

Time takes the ugliness and horror out of death and turns it into beauty.

I have noticed that when things happen in one's imaginings, they never happen in one's life.

Just to be in love seemed the most blissful luxury I had ever known. The thought came to me that perhaps it is the loving that counts, not the being loved in return -- that perhaps true loving can never know anything but happiness. For a moment I felt that I had discovered a great truth.

I think it [religion] is an art, the greatest one; an extension of the communion all the other arts attempt.

Rose doesn’t like the flat country, but I always did – flat country seems to give the sky such a chance.

My God - it's a green child!" said the American. "What is this place - the House of Usher?

Father says hot water can be as stimulating as an alcoholic drink and though I never come by one...I can well believe it.

Am I really admitting that my sister is determined to marry a man she has only seen once and doesn't much like the look of? It is half real and half pretense - and I have an idea that it is a game most girls play when they meet an eligible young men. They just...wonder.

I have really sinned. I am going to pause now, and sit here on the mound repenting in deepest shame...

...With stories even a page can take me hours, but the truth seems to flow out as fast as I can get it down.

I could hear rain still pouring from the gutters and a thin branch scraping against one of the windows; but the church seemed completely cut off from the restless day outside--just as I felt cut off from the church. I thought: I am a restlessness inside a stillness inside a restlessness.

Only half a page left now. Shall I fill it with 'I love you, I love you'-- like father's page of cats on the mat? No. Even a broken heart doesn't warrant a waste of good paper.

I found it quite easy to carry on a casual conversation it was as if my real feelings were down fathoms deep in my mind and what we said was just a feathery surface spray.

Stew's so comforting on a rainy day.

The key to all knowledge comes in words of just one syllable, apparently.... There's only the last page left to write on. I'll fill it with words of just one syllable. I love. I have loved. I will love.

There is something revolting about the way girls' minds so often jump to marriage long before they jump to love.

We were restless for ages...After a while I heard an owl hooting and calmed myself by thinking of it flying over the dark fields – and then I remembered it would be pouncing on mice. I love owls, but I wish God had made them vegetarian.

I have noticed that rooms which are extra clean feel extra cold

And at last father flung the rug off as if it were hampering him and strode over to the table saying, 'cocoa, cocoa!'-- it might have been the most magnificent drink in the world; which, personally, I think it is.

It's odd how different a house feels when one is alone in it. It makes it easier to think rather private thoughts...

... for I know I shall be interrupted-- I shall want to be, really, because life is too exciting to sit still for long.

Oh, it is wonderful to wake up in the morning with things to look forward to!

If you love people, you take them on trust.

Still, looking through the old volumes was soothing, because thinking of the past made the present seem a little less real.

I know all about the facts of life, and I don't think much of them.

Americans do seem to say things which make the English notice England.

He stood staring into the wood for a minute, then said: "What is it about the English countryside — why is the beauty so much more than visual? Why does it touch one so?" He sounded faintly sad. Perhaps he finds beauty saddening — I do myself sometimes. Once when I was quite little I asked father why this was and he explained that it was due to our knowledge of beauty's evanescence, which reminds us that we ourselves shall die. Then he said I was probably too young to understand him; but I understood perfectly.

Only the margin left to write on now. I love you, I love you, I love you.

...I have noticed that when things happen in one's imaginings, they never happen in one's life, so I am curbing myself.

Topaz was wonderfully patient - but sometimes I wonder if it is not only patience, but also a faint resemblance to cows.

Prayer's a very tricky business.

Truthfulness so often goes with ruthlessness.

When things mean a very great deal to you, exciting anticipation just isn't safe.

I'm convinced England's overflowing with eccentric people, places, happenings. Indeed, you might say eccentricity's normal in England.

...surely I could give him--a sort of contentment... That isn't enough to give. Not for the giver.

The one Bach piece I learnt made me feel I was being repeatedly hit on the head with a teaspoon.

Sometimes [the expression] old age has a kind of harrowing beauty. But elderly - ugh!

I wanted to know more about the young ... strange that though they laughed so loud, they so seldom smiled. Perhaps laughter was involuntary whereas smiling was part of an attitude to life.

Perhaps what you call conventionality, I call decency.

And who says you always have to understand things? You can like them without understanding them -- like 'em better sometimes.

There was a wonderful atmosphere of gentle age, a smell of flowers and beeswax, sweet yet faintly sour and musty; a smell that makes you feel very tender towards the past.

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

a loss of sensibility follows a loss of innocence, at once a penalty and a compensation.

I wonder if there isn't a catch about having plenty of money? Does it eventually take the pleasure out of things?

Ah, but you're the insidious type--Jane Eyre with of touch of Becky Sharp. A thoroughly dangerous girl.

Thinking of death--strange, beautiful, terrible and a long way off--made me feel happier than ever.

Cruel blows of fate call for extreme kindness in the family circle.

Oh, comfortable cocoa!

How can a young man like to wear a beard?

I could marry the Devil himself if he had some money.

The Devil's out of fashion.

It is rather exciting to write by moonlight.

I was wandering around as usual, in my unpleasantly populated sub-conscious...

I write this sitting in the kitchen sink.

Oh, wise young judge.

I should rather like to tear these last pages out of the book. Shall I? No-a journal ought not to cheat.

Was I the only woman in the world who, at my age - and after a lifetime of quite rampant independence - still did not quite feel grown up?

How I wish I lived in a Jane Austen novel!

Even a broken heart doesn't warrant a waste of good paper.

My hand is very tired but I want to go on writing. I keep resting and thinking. All day I have been two people - the me imprisoned in yesterday and the me out here on the mound; and now there is a third me trying to get in - the me in what is going to happen next.

They call them the haunted shores, these stretches of Devonshire and Cornwall and Ireland which rear up against the westward ocean. Mists gather here, and sea fog, and eerie stories. That's not because there are more ghosts here than in other places, mind you. It's just that people who live hereabouts are strangely aware of them.

The tea was a comfort - and by that time I more than needed comfort.

I wanted so terribly to be good to him.

Death is too much to ask of the living.

Though he had very little Latin beyond "Cave canem," he had, as a young dog, devoured Shakespeare (in a tasty leather binding).

What is it about the English countryside — why is the beauty so much more than visual? Why does it touch one so?

Ham with mustard is a meal of glory

It's a beautiful sight to see good dancers doing simple steps. It's a painful sight to see beginners doing complicated patterns.

Perhaps it would really be rather dull to be married and settled for life. Liar! It would be heaven.

Well, my paper has asked me to do a series: Lives of the Great Musicians, reading time 2 minutes.

So many of the loveliest things in England are melancholy.

He laughed a little, in an odd, nervous kind of way. "Because if 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.

Many dogs can understand almost every word humans say, while humans seldom learn to recognize more than half a dozen barks, if that. And barks are only a small part of the dog language. A wagging tail can mean so many things. Humans know that it means a dog is pleased, but not what a dog is saying about his pleasedness.

What a tiny list of friends I have! All my fault. I less and less want to see people.

Perhaps watching someone you love suffer can teach you even more than suffering yourself can.

I am a restlessness inside a stillness inside a restlessness.

But some characters in books are really real--Jane Austen's are; and I know those five Bennets at the opening of Pride and Prejudice, simply waiting to raven the young men at Netherfield Park, are not giving one thought to the real facts of marriage.

I like seeing people when they can't see me.

Perhaps if I make myself write I shall find out what is wrong with me.

I suppose the best kind of spring morning is the best weather God has to offer.

I only want to write. And there's no college for that except life.

People's clothes ought to be buried with them.

Why is summer mist romantic and autumn mist just sad?

When I read a book, I put in all the imagination I can, so that it is almost like writing the book as well as reading it - or rather, it is like living it. It makes reading so much more exciting, but I don't suppose many people try to do it.

Certain unique books seem to be without forerunners or successors as far as their authors are concerned. Even though they may profoundly influence the work of other writers, for their creator they're complete, not leading anywhere.

I shouldn't think even millionaires could eat anything nicer than new bread and real butter and honey for tea.

Like many other much-loved humans, they believed that they owned their dogs, instead of realizing that their dogs owned them.

Everything in the least connected with him has value for me; if someone even mentions his name it is like a little present to me-and I long to mention it myself

It came to me that Hyde Park has never belonged to London - that it has always been , in spirit, a stretch of countryside; and that it links the Londons of all periods together most magically - by remaining forever unchanged at the heart of a ever-changing town.

Walking down Belmotte was the oddest sensation-- every step took us deeper into the mist until at last it closed over our heads. It was like being drowned in the ghost of water.

And no bathroom on earth will make up for marrying a bearded man you hate.

extreme happiness invites religion almost as much as extreme misery.

I believe it is customary to get one's washing over first in baths and bask afterwards; personally, I bask first. I have discovered that the first few minutes are the best and not to be wasted-- my brain always seethes with ideas and life suddenly looks much better than did.

The family - that dear octopus from whose tentacles we never quite escape, nor, in our inmost hearts, ever quite wish to.