Best 102 quotes of Dodie Smith on MyQuotes

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

How can a young man like to wear a beard?

How I wish I lived in a Jane Austen novel!

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

I wanted so terribly to be good to him.

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

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

I write this sitting in the kitchen sink.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

Oh, comfortable cocoa!

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.

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

People's clothes ought to be buried with them.

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

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

Prayer's a very tricky business.

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

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

Stew's so comforting on a rainy day.

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

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

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

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.