Enid Bagnold Quotations

In marriage there are no manners to keep up, and beneath the wildest accusations no real criticism. Each is familiar with that ancient child in the other who may erupt again. We are not ridiculous to ourselves. We are ageless. That is the luxury of the wedding ring.

A father is always making his baby into a little woman. And when she is a woman he turns her back again.

When a man goes through six years training to be a doctor he will never be the same. He knows too much.

The pleasure of one's effect on other people still exists in age - what's called making a hit. But the hit is much rarer and made of different stuff.

The theatre is a gross art, built in sweeps and over-emphasis. Compromise is its second name.

As for death one gets used to it, even if it's only other people's death you get used to.

If a dog doesn't put you first where are you both? In what relation? A dog needs God. It lives by your glances, your wishes. It even shares your humor. This happens about the fifth year. If it doesn't happen you are only keeping an animal.

Who wants to become a writer? And why? Because it's the answer to everything. To ''Why am I here?'' To uselessness. It's the streaming reason for living. To note, to pin down, to build up, to create, to be astonished at nothing, to cherish the oddities, to let nothing go down the drain, to make something, to make a great flower out of life, even if it's a cactus.

The great and terrible step was taken. What else could you expect from a girl so expectant? 'Sex,' said Frank Harris, 'is the gateway to life.' So I went through the gateway in an upper room in the Cafe Royal.

Dead news like dead love has no phoenix in its ashes.

Judges don't age. Time decorates them.

But I had been in love pretty often and I didn't think it stood the wear and tear.

After forty years of marriage we still stood with broken swords in our hands.

Marriage. The beginning and the end are wonderful. But the middle part is hell.

Things come suitable to the time.

One can lie, but truth is more interesting.

You will be old-fashioned one day. It's more shocking than getting old.

Sex -- the great inequality, the great miscalculator, the great Irritator.

Pity is exhaustible. What a terrible discovery!

Why do birds sing in the morning? It's the triumphant shout: 'We got through another night!'

I shall continue to explore-the astonishment of living.

Before you fall asleep everyday, say something positive to yourself.

One never knows when one is old for certain.

From birth to death we are alone ...

if death becomes cheap it is the watcher, not the dying, who is poisoned.

Isn't the fear of pain next brother to pain itself?

The dangerous thing about hate is that it seems so reasonable.

An only child is never twelve.

There may be wonder in money, but, dear God, there is money in wonder.

The Press blew, the public stared, hands flew out like a million little fishes after bread.

One's palate is reborn every morning!

I am not a born writer, but I was born a writer.

As for death, one gets used to it, even if it is only other people is death you get used to.

Let this serve as an axiom to every lover: A woman who refuses lunch refuses everything.

It's not till sex has died out between a man and a woman that they can really love. And now I mean affection. Now I mean to be fond of (as one is fond of oneself) -to hope, to be disappointed, to live inside the other heart. When I look back on the pain of sex, the love like a wild fox so ready to bite, the antagonism that sits like a twin beside love, and contrast it with affection, so deeply unrepeatable, of two people who have lived a life together (and of whom one must die) it's the affection I find richer. It's that I would have again. Not all those doubtful rainbow colors.

I don't like people," said Velvet. "... I only like horses.

Who wants to become a writer? And why? Because it's the answer to everything. ... It's the streaming reason for living. To note, to pin down, to build up, to create, to be astonished at nothing, to cherish the oddities, to let nothing go down the drain, to make something, to make a great flower out of life, even if it's a cactus.