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No, it is not only our fate but our business to lose innocence, and once we have lost that, it is futile to attempt a picnic in Eden. By Elizabeth Bowen Eden Innocence Fate Business Lose

The Irish landowner, partly from laziness but also from an indifferent delicacy, does not interfere in the lives of the people round. Sport and death are the two great socializing factors in Ireland, but these cannot operate the whole time: on the whole, the landowner leaves his tenants and work-people to make their own mistakes, while he makes his. By Elizabeth Bowen Irish Partly Delicacy Round Landowner

Overhead, an enemy plane had been dragging, drumming slowly round in the pool of night, drawing up bursts of gunfirenosing, pausing, turning, fascinated to the point for its intent. The barrage banged, coughed, retched; in here the lights in the mirrors rocked. Now down a shaft of anticipating silence the bomb swung whistling. With the shock of detonation, still to be heard, four walls of in here yawped in then bellied out; bottles danced on glass; a distortion ran through the view. The detonation dulled off into the cataracting roar of a split building:direct hit,somewhere else. By Elizabeth Bowen Overhead Pausing Turning Dragging Drumming

I am dead against art's being self-expression. I see an inherent failure in any story which fails to detach itself from the author-detach itself in the sense that a well-blown soap-bubble detaches itself from the bowl of the blower's pipe and spherically takes off into the air as a new, whole, pure, iridescent world. Whereas the ill-blown bubble, as children know, timidly adheres to the bowl's lip, then either bursts or sinks flatly back again. By Elizabeth Bowen Selfexpression Dead Art Bowl Pure

Grown-up people seem to be busy by clockwork ... They run their unswerving course from object to object, directed by some mysterious inner needle that points all the time to what they must do next. You can only marvel at such misuse of time. By Elizabeth Bowen Grownup Clockwork People Busy Object

A romantic man often feels more uplifted with two women than with one: his love seems to hit the ideal mark somewhere between two different faces. By Elizabeth Bowen Faces Romantic Man Feels Uplifted

Imagination of my kind is most caught, most fired, most worked upon by the unfamiliar: I have thrivenon the changes and chances, the dislocations andcontrasts which have made up so much of my life. By Elizabeth Bowen Imagination Caught Fired Unfamiliar Chances

But there's no end to what's been said, and I'll be a party to nothing. I was born with my mouth shut:those with their mouths open do nothing but start trouble and catch flies. By Elizabeth Bowen End Party Shut Flies Born

Mr. [Aldous] Huxley has been the alarming young man for a long time, a sort of perpetual clever nephew who can be relied on to flutter the lunch party. Whatever will he say next? How does he think of those things? He has been deplored once or twice, but feeling is in his favor: he is steadily read. He is at once the truly clever person and the stupid person's idea of the clever person; he is expected to be relentless, to administer intellectual shocks. By Elizabeth Bowen Aldous Huxley Time Party Clever

And because no one answered or cared and a conversation went on without her she felt profoundly lonely, suspecting once more for herself a particular doom of exclusion. Something of the trees in their intimacy of shadow was shared by the husband and wife and their host in the tree-shadowed room. She thought of love with its gift of importance. "I must break in on all this," she thought as she looked around the room. By Elizabeth Bowen Lonely Suspecting Exclusion Answered Cared

She was young-looking--most because of the impression she gave of still being on happy sensuous terms with life. By Elizabeth Bowen Younglooking Life Impression Gave Happy

In this state, drugged by the rainy dusk, she almost always returned with sensual closeness to seaside childhood; once more she felt her heels in the pudding-softness of the hot tarred esplanade or her bare arm up to the elbow in rain-wet tamarisk. She smelt the shingle and heard it being sucked by the sea. By Elizabeth Bowen State Drugged Dusk Childhood Tamarisk

Two things are terrible in childhood: helplessness (being in other people's power) and apprehension - the apprehension that something is being concealed from us because it is too bad to be told. By Elizabeth Bowen Helplessness Childhood Power Told Apprehension

Almost everybody wore a curious limpidity of expression, like newborn babies or souls just after death. Dazed but curiously dignified ... after a criseof hysterical revulsion and tiredness, I passed beyondand became entered by a rather sublime feeling. By Elizabeth Bowen Expression Death Wore Curious Limpidity

The restaurant was waning, indifferently relaxing its illusion: for the late-comers a private illusion took its place. Their table seemed to stand on their own carpet; they had a sensation of custom, sedateness, of being inside small walls, as though dining at home again after her journey. She told him about her Mount Morris solitary suppers, in the middle of the library, the rim of the tray just not touching the base of the lamp ... the fire behind her back softly falling in on its own ash-no it had not been possible to feel lonely among those feeling things. By Elizabeth Bowen Illusion Waning Indifferently Place Restaurant

Often when I write I am trying to make words do the work of line and color. I have the painter's sensitivity to light. Much of my writing is verbal painting. By Elizabeth Bowen Color Write Make Words Work

Knowledge of Rome must be physical, sweated into the system, worked up into the brain through the thinning shoe-leather ... When it comes to knowing, the senses are more honest than the intelligence. Nothing is more real than the first wall you lean up against sobbing with exhaustion. Rome no more than beheld (that is, taken in through the eyes only) could still be a masterpiece in cardboard - the eye I suppose being of all the organs the most easily infatuated and then jaded and so tricked. Seeing is pleasure, but not knowledge. By Elizabeth Bowen Physical Sweated System Worked Shoeleather

The belt slid down her thin hips, and she nervously gripped at it, pulling it up. Short sleeves showed her very thin arms and big delicate elbow joints. Her body was all concave and jerkily fluid lines; it moved with sensitive looseness, loosely threaded together: each movement had a touch of exaggeration , as though some secret power kept springing out. By Elizabeth Bowen Hips Pulling Thin Belt Slid

Without fiction, either life would be insufficient or the winds from the north would blow too cold. By Elizabeth Bowen Fiction Cold Life Insufficient Winds

Ghosts, we hope, may be always with usthat is, never too far out of the reach of fancy. On the whole, it would seem they adapt themselves well, perhaps better than we do, to changing world conditionsthey enlarge their domain, shift their hold on our nerves, and, dispossessed of one habitat, set up house in another. The universal battiness of our century looks like providing them with a propitious climate ... By Elizabeth Bowen Ghosts Hope Fancy Usthat Reach

Henrietta knew of the heart as an organ; she privately saw it covered in red plush and believed that it could not break, though it might tear. By Elizabeth Bowen Henrietta Organ Break Tear Knew

Jealousy is no more than feeling alone against smiling enemies. By Elizabeth Bowen Jealousy Enemies Feeling Smiling

If he could have been reembodied, at that moment a black wind would have rushed through the Villa Fioretta, wrenching the shutters off and tearing the pictures down, or an earthquake cracked the floors, or the olivey hill above the villa erupted, showering hot choking ash. By Elizabeth Bowen Villa Fioretta Reembodied Wrenching Floors

Karen, her elbows folded on the deck-rail, wanted to share with someone the pleasure in being alone: this is the paradox of any happy solitude. She had never landed at Cork, so this hill and that hill beyond were as unexpected as pictures at which you say "Oh look!" Nobody was beside her to share the moment, which would have been imperfect with anyone else there. By Elizabeth Bowen Karen Deckrail Wanted Solitude Share

It is a wary business, walking about a strange house you know you are to know well. Only cats and dogs with their more expressive bodies enact the tension we share with them at such times. The you inside gathers up defensively; something is stealing upon you every moment; you will never be the same again. By Elizabeth Bowen Business Walking Wary Strange House

This, my first [bicycle] had an intrinsic beauty. And it opened for me an era of all but flying, which roads emptily crossing theairy, gold-gorsy Common enhanced. Nothing since has equalled that birdlike freedom. By Elizabeth Bowen Bicycle Beauty Intrinsic Common Flying

Whenever possible I avoid talking. Reprieve from talking is my idea of a holiday. At risk of seeming unsociable, which I am, I admit I love to be left in a beatific trance, when I am in one. Friendly Romans recognize that wish. By Elizabeth Bowen Talking Avoid Reprieve Holiday Romans

Looking back at a repetition of empty days, one sees that monuments have sprung up. Habit is not mere subjugation, it is a tender tie: when one remembers habit it seems to have been happiness. By Elizabeth Bowen Days Back Repetition Empty Monuments

Spezia offered Leopold almost nothing: his precocity devoured itself there, rejecting the steep sunny coast and nibbling blue edge of the sea that had drowned Shelley. His spirit became crustacean under douches of culture and mild philosophic chat from his Uncle Dee, who was cultured rather than erudite. By Elizabeth Bowen Shelley Leopold Spezia Rejecting Offered

Dress has never been at all a straightforward business: so much subterranean interest and complex feeling attaches to it. As a topic ... it has a flowery head but deep roots in the passion. On the subject of dress almost no one, for one or another reason, feels truly indifferent: if their own clothes do not concern them, somebody else's do ... Ten minutes talk about clothes (except between perfect friends) tends to make everyone present either overbearing, guarded or touchy. By Elizabeth Bowen Business Straightforward Subterranean Interest Complex

Childish fantasy, like the sheath over the bud, not only protects but curbs the terrible budding spirit, protects not only innocence from the world, but the world from the power of innocence. By Elizabeth Bowen World Protects Innocence Childish Fantasy

The furniture would have missed you?Furniture's knowing all right. Not much gets past the things in a room, I daresay, and chairs and tables don't go to the grave so soon. Every time I take the soft cloth to that stuff in the drawingroom, I could say, 'Well, you know a bit more'. By Elizabeth Bowen Furniture Missed Knowing Room Daresay

In my experience one thing you don't learn from is anything anyone set up to be a lesson; what you are to know you pick up as you go along. By Elizabeth Bowen Lesson Experience Thing Learn Set

History is not a book, arbitrarily divided into chapters, or a drama chopped into separate acts; it has flowed forward. Rome is a continuity, called 'eternal.' What has accumulated in this place acts on everyone, day and night, like an extra climate. By Elizabeth Bowen History Book Arbitrarily Chapters Forward

It is not our exalted feelings, it is our sentiments that build the necessary home. The need to attach themselves makes wandering people strike roots in a day: wherever we unconsciously feel, we live. By Elizabeth Bowen Feelings Home Exalted Sentiments Build

The writer, unlike his non-writing adult friend, has no predisposed outlook; he seldom observes deliberately. He sees what he didnot intend to see; he remembers what does not seem wholly possible. Inattentive learner in the schoolroom of life, he keeps some faculty free to veer and wander. His is the roving eye. By Elizabeth Bowen Writer Unlike Friend Outlook Deliberately

There is no doubt that sorrow brings one down in the world. The aristocratic privilege of silence belongs, you soon find out, to only the happy state- or, at least, to the state when pain keeps within bounds. By Elizabeth Bowen World Doubt Sorrow Brings State

The stupid person's idea of the clever person. [on Aldous Huxley, in Spectator magazine, 1936] By Elizabeth Bowen Person Huxley Stupid Idea Clever

She was anxious to be someone, and, no one having ever voiced a prejudice in her hearing without impressing her, had come to associate prejudice with identity. You could not be someone without disliking things. By Elizabeth Bowen Identity Prejudice Anxious Voiced Hearing

Love is obtuse and reckless; it interferes. By Elizabeth Bowen Love Reckless Interferes Obtuse

Art, at any rate in a novel, must be indissolubly linked with craft ... By Elizabeth Bowen Art Craft Rate Indissolubly Linked

One's sentiments call them that one's fidelities are so instinctive that one hardly knows they exist: only when they are betrayed or, worse still, when one betrays them does one realize their power. By Elizabeth Bowen Exist Worse Power Sentiments Call

Rich women live at such a distance from life that very often they never see their money - the Queen, they say, for instance, never carries a purse. By Elizabeth Bowen Queen Rich Money Instance Purse

First love, with its frantic haughty imagination, swings its object clear of the everyday, over the rut of living, making him all looks, silences, gestures, attitudes, a burning phrase with no context. By Elizabeth Bowen Silences Gestures Attitudes Love Imagination

There's something so showy about desperation, it takes hard wits to see it's a grandiose form of funk. By Elizabeth Bowen Desperation Funk Showy Hard Wits

There is no end to the violations committed by children on children, quietly talking alone. By Elizabeth Bowen Quietly Children End Violations Committed

A Bowen, in the first place, made Bowen's Court. Since then, with a rather alarming sureness, Bowen's Court has made all the succeeding Bowens. By Elizabeth Bowen Bowen Court Place Made Bowens

In general, the Anglo-Irish do not make good dancers; they are too spritely and conscious; they are incapable of one kind of trance or of being seemingly impersonal. And, for the formal, pure dance they lack the formality: about their stylishness (for they have stylishness) there is something impromptu, slightly disorderly. By Elizabeth Bowen General Dancers Conscious Impersonal Stylishness

People in love, in whom every sense is open, cannot beat off the influence of a place. By Elizabeth Bowen People Love Open Place Sense

Only in a house where one has learnt to be lonely does one have this solicitude for things. One's relation to them, the daily seeing or touching, begins to become love, and to lay one open to pain. By Elizabeth Bowen Things House Learnt Lonely Solicitude

But Miss Pym gave an impression, somehow, of having been attacked from within. By Elizabeth Bowen Miss Pym Impression Gave Attacked

Dogs are a habit, I think. By Elizabeth Bowen Dogs Habit

We can surmount the anger we feel. To find oneself like a young tree inside a tomb is to discover the power to crack the tomb and grow up to any height. By Elizabeth Bowen Feel Surmount Anger Tomb Height

She posed as being more indolent than she felt, for fear of finding herself less able than she could wish. By Elizabeth Bowen Felt Posed Indolent Fear Finding

The most striking fault in work by young or beginning novelists, submitted for criticism, is irrelevancedue either to infatuation or indecision. To direct such an author's attention to the imperative of relevance is certainly the most usefuland possibly the onlyhelp that can be given. By Elizabeth Bowen Novelists Submitted Criticism Indecision Striking

Temperamentally, the writer exists on happenings, on contacts, conflicts, action and reaction, speed, pressure, tension. Were he acontemplative purely, he would not write. By Elizabeth Bowen Temperamentally Conflicts Speed Pressure Tension

A novel which survives, which withstands and outlives time, does do something more than merely survive. It does not stand still. It accumulates round itself the understanding of all these persons who bring to it something of their own. It acquires associations, it becomes a form of experience in itself, so that two people who meet can often make friends, find an approach to each other, because of this one great common experience they have had ... By Elizabeth Bowen Survives Survive Time Withstands Outlives

Some ideas, like dandelions in lawns, strike tenaciously: you may pull off the top but the root remains, drives down suckers and may even sprout again. By Elizabeth Bowen Ideas Lawns Strike Tenaciously Remains

Exhibitionism and a nervous wish for concealment, for anonymity, thus battle inside the buyer of any piece of clothing. By Elizabeth Bowen Exhibitionism Concealment Anonymity Clothing Nervous

Children like change - for one thing, they never anticipate regret. By Elizabeth Bowen Children Change Thing Regret Anticipate

Everything ungirt, artless, ardent, urgent about Louie was to the fore: all over herself she gave the impression of twisted stockings. By Elizabeth Bowen Artless Ardent Louie Ungirt Urgent

The silence of a shut park does not sound like the country silence; it is tense and confined. By Elizabeth Bowen Confined Silence Shut Park Sound

What must novel dialogue ... really be and do? It must be pointed, intentional, relevant. It must crystallize situation. It must express character. It must advance plot. During dialogue, the characters confront one another. The confrontation is in itself an occasion. Each one of these occasions, throughout the novel, is unique. By Elizabeth Bowen Dialogue Intentional Relevant Pointed Occasion

Short of a small range of physical acts-a fight, murder, lovemaking-dialogue is the most vigorous and visible inter-action of which characters in a novel are capable. Speech is what characters do to each other. By Elizabeth Bowen Murder Short Fight Lovemakingdialogue Capable

Young girls like the excess of any quality. Without knowing, they want to suffer, to suffer they must exaggerate; they like to have loud chords struck on them. By Elizabeth Bowen Young Quality Girls Excess Suffer

Expectations are the most perilous form of dream, and when dreams do realise themselves it is in the waking world: the difference is subtly but often painfully felt. By Elizabeth Bowen Expectations World Felt Perilous Form

Everything is very quiet, the streets are never crowded, and the people one dislikes are out of town. By Elizabeth Bowen Quiet Crowded Town Streets People

Innocence so constantly finds itself in a false position that inwardly innocent people learn to be disingenuous. Finding no language to speak in their own terms they resign themselves to being translated imperfectly. They exist alone; when they try and enter into relations they compromise falsifyingly- through anxiety, through desire to impart and to feel warmth. The system of our affections is too corrupt for them. They are bound to blunder, then to be told they cheat...Their singleness, their ruthlessness, their one continuous wish makes them bound to be cruel, and to suffer cruelty. By Elizabeth Bowen Innocence Disingenuous Constantly Finds False

A living dog's better than a dead lion. By Elizabeth Bowen Lion Living Dog Dead

The process of reading is reciprocal; the book is no more than a formula, to be furnished out with images out of the reader's mind. By Elizabeth Bowen Reciprocal Formula Mind Process Reading

The story must spring from an impression or perception pressing enough to have made the writer write. It should magnetize the imagination and give pleasure. By Elizabeth Bowen Write Story Spring Impression Perception

The importance to the writer of first writing must be out of all proportion of the actual value of what is written. By Elizabeth Bowen Written Importance Writer Writing Proportion

But in general, for the purposes of most novelists, the number of objects genuinely necessary for ... describing a scene will be found to be very small. By Elizabeth Bowen General Novelists Purposes Number Objects

The innocent are so few that two of them seldom meet - when they do, their victims lie strewn around. By Elizabeth Bowen Meet Innocent Seldom Victims Lie

As a novelist, I cannot occupy myself with "characters," or at any rate central ones, who lack panache, in one or another sense, who would be incapable of a major action or a major passion, or who have not a touch of the ambiguity, the ultimate unaccountability, the enlarging mistiness of persons "in history." History, as more austerely I now know it, is not romantic. But I am. By Elizabeth Bowen Major Characters History Novelist Panache

The writer, like a swimmer caught by an undertow, is borne in an unexpected direction. He is carried to a subject which has awaited hima subject sometimes no part of his conscious plan. Reality, the reality of sensation, has accumulated where it was least sought. To write is to be capturedcaptured by some experience to which one may have given hardly a thought. By Elizabeth Bowen Writer Undertow Direction Swimmer Caught

I am fully intelligent only when I write. I have a certain amount of small-change intelligence, which I carry round with me as, at any rate in a town, one has to carry small money, for the needs of the day, the non-writing day. But it seems to me I seldom purely think ... if I thought more I might write less. By Elizabeth Bowen Day Fully Intelligent Carry Write

By the rules of fiction, with which life to be credible must comply, he was as a character "impossible" - each time they met, for instance, he showed no shred or trace of having been continuous since they last met. By Elizabeth Bowen Impossible Met Fiction Comply Character

Good-byes breed a sort of distaste for whomever you say good-bye to; this hurts, you feel, this must not happen again. By Elizabeth Bowen Hurts Feel Breed Sort Distaste

Art is one thing that can go on mattering once it has stopped hurting. By Elizabeth Bowen Art Hurting Thing Mattering Stopped

She thought she need not worry about her youth; it wasted itself spontaneously, like sunshine elsewhere or firelight in an empty room. By Elizabeth Bowen Youth Spontaneously Room Thought Worry

Revenge was a very wild kind of justice ... By Elizabeth Bowen Revenge Justice Wild Kind

We desert those who desert us; we cannot afford to suffer; we must live how we can. By Elizabeth Bowen Desert Suffer Afford Live

Darling, I don't want you; I've got no place for you; I only want what you give. I don't want the whole of anyone ... What you want is the whole of me-isn't it, isn't it?-and the whole of me isn't there for anybody. In that full sense you want me I don't exist. By Elizabeth Bowen Darling Give Place Exist Meis

I suspect victims; they win in the long run. By Elizabeth Bowen Victims Run Suspect Win Long

Are you really an orphan?Yes, I am, said Portia a shade shortly. Are you?No, not at present, but I suppose it's a thing one is bound to be. By Elizabeth Bowen Portia Orphan Shortly Shade Present

The short story is at an advantage over the novel, and can claim its nearer kinship to poetry, because it must be more concentrated, can be more visionary, and is not weighed down (as the novel is bound to be) by facts, explanation, or analysis. I do not mean to say that the short story is by any means exempt from the laws of narrative: it must observe them, but on its own terms. By Elizabeth Bowen Explanation Short Story Poetry Concentrated

To the sun Rome owes its underlying glow, and its air called golden - to me, more the yellow of white wine; like wine it raises agreeability to poetry. By Elizabeth Bowen Rome Wine Glow Golden Poetry

Princess Bibesco delighted in a semi-ideal world - a world which, though having a counterpart in her experience, was to a great extent brought into being by her own temperament and, one might say, flair. By Elizabeth Bowen Flair Bibesco World Princess Experience

Plot might seem to be a matter of choice. It is not. The particular plot is something the novelist is driven to: it is what is left after the whittling-away of alternatives.' Elizabeth Bowen opened her Notes on Writing a Novel (1945, reprinted in Collected Impressions, Longmans, Green & Co., By Elizabeth Bowen Choice Matter Plot Longmans Green

We have really no absent friends. By Elizabeth Bowen Friends Absent

Dialogue is the ideal means of showing what is between the characters. It crystallizes relationships. It should, ideally, be so effective as to make analysis or explanation of the relationships between the characters unnecessary. By Elizabeth Bowen Dialogue Characters Ideal Showing Relationships

When I read a story, I relive the moment from which it sprang. A scene burned itself into me, a building magnetized me, a mood orseason of Nature's penetrated me, history suddenly appeared to me in some tiny act, or a face had begun to haunt me before I glanced at it. By Elizabeth Bowen Story Sprang Read Relive Moment

I pity people who do not care for Society. They are poorer for the oblation they do not make. By Elizabeth Bowen Society Pity People Care Make

In nine out of ten cases the original wish to write is the wish to make oneself felt[ellipsis in source] the non-essential writer never gets past that wish. By Elizabeth Bowen Felt Ellipsis Source Ten Cases

All my life I have said, "Whatever happens there will always be tables and chairs"and what a mistake. By Elizabeth Bowen Chairs Mistake Life Tables

Autumn arrives in the early morning. By Elizabeth Bowen Autumn Morning Arrives Early

She was a scrap of a widow, ever so plucky, just back from China, with damp little hands, a husky voice, and defective tear-ducts that gave her eyes always rather a swimmy look. She had a prostrated way of looking up at you, and that fluffy, bird's-nesty hair that hairpins get lost in. By Elizabeth Bowen China Widow Plucky Hands Voice

Certain books come to meet me, as do people. By Elizabeth Bowen People Books Meet

Every love has a poetic relevance of its own; each love brings to light only what to it is relevant. Outside lies the junk-yard of what does not matter. By Elizabeth Bowen Relevant Love Poetic Relevance Brings

After inside upheavals, it is important to fix on imperturbable things. Their imperturbableness, their air that nothing has happened renews our guarantee. By Elizabeth Bowen Upheavals Things Inside Important Fix

I think the main thing, don't you, is to keep the show on the road. By Elizabeth Bowen Thing Road Main Show

Fantasy is toxic: the private cruelty and the world war both have their start in the heated brain. By Elizabeth Bowen Fantasy Toxic Brain Private Cruelty

Very young people are true but not resounding instruments. By Elizabeth Bowen Instruments Young People True Resounding

It seemed to her that while people were very happy, individual persons were surely damned. So, she shrank from that specious mystery the individual throws about himself, from Anna's smiles, from Lilian's tomorrows, from the shut-in room, the turned-in heart. By Elizabeth Bowen Happy Damned Individual People Persons

But complex people are never certain that they are not crooks, never certain their passports are quite in order, and are, therefore, unnerved by the slightest thing. By Elizabeth Bowen Crooks Order Unnerved Thing Complex

To walk into history is to be free at once, to be at large among people. By Elizabeth Bowen People Walk History Free Large

In big houses in which things are done properly, there is always the religious element. The diurnal cycle is observed with more feeling when there are servants to do the work. By Elizabeth Bowen Properly Element Big Houses Things

Sins cut boldly up through every class in society, but mere misdemeanours show a certain level in life. By Elizabeth Bowen Sins Society Life Cut Boldly

Meeting people unlike oneself does not enlarge one's outlook; it only confirms one's idea that one is unique. By Elizabeth Bowen Meeting Outlook Unique People Unlike

Nothing is more restful than conformity. By Elizabeth Bowen Conformity Restful

She had one of those charming faces which, according to the angle from which you see them, look either melancholy or impertinent. Her eyes were grey; her trick of narrowing them made her seem to reflect, the greater part of the time, in the dusk of her second thoughts. With that mood, that touch of arriere pensee, went an uncertain, speaking set of lips. By Elizabeth Bowen Impertinent Charming Faces Angle Melancholy

Each piece of dialogue MUST be "something happening" ... The "amusing" for its OWN sake should above all be censored ... The functional use of dialogue for the plot must be the first thing in the writer's mind. Where functional usefulness cannot be established, dialogue must be left out. By Elizabeth Bowen Dialogue Happening Piece Functional Amusing

One can suffer a convulsion of one's entire nature, and, unless it makes some noise, no one notices. It's not just that we are incurious; we completely lack any sense of each other's existences. By Elizabeth Bowen Nature Noise Notices Suffer Convulsion

Autumn arrives in early morning, but spring at the close of a winter day. By Elizabeth Bowen Autumn Morning Day Arrives Early

The power-loving temperament is more dangerous when it either prefers or is forced to operate in what is materially a void. Wehave everything to dread from the dispossessed. By Elizabeth Bowen Void Powerloving Temperament Dangerous Prefers

To foresee pleasures makes anybody a poet ... to seek pleasure makes a hero of anyone: you open yourself so entirely to fate. By Elizabeth Bowen Poet Makes Foresee Pleasures Pleasure

What is a novel? I say: an invented story. At the same time a story which, though invented has the power to ring true. True to what? True to life as the reader knows life to be or, it may be, feels life to be. And I mean the adult, the grown-up reader. Such a reader has outgrown fairy tales, and we do not want the fantastic and the impossible. So I say to you that a novel must stand up to the adult tests of reality. By Elizabeth Bowen True Life Reader Invented Story

Who is ever adequate? We all create situations each other can't live up to, then break our hearts at them because they don't. By Elizabeth Bowen Adequate Create Situations Live Break

Memory is to love what the saucer is to the cup. By Elizabeth Bowen Memory Cup Love Saucer

No one of the characters in my novels has originated, so far as I know, in real life. If anything, the contrary was the case: persons playing a part in my lifethe first twenty years of ithad about them something semi-fictitious. By Elizabeth Bowen Originated Life Characters Real Case

Roughly, the action of a character should be unpredictable before it has been shown, inevitable when it has been shown. In the first half of a novel, the unpredictability should be the more striking. In the second half, the inevitability should be the more striking. By Elizabeth Bowen Shown Roughly Striking Inevitable Action

Someone soon to start on a journey is always a little holy. By Elizabeth Bowen Holy Start Journey

He feels spikes everywhere and rushes to impale himself. By Elizabeth Bowen Feels Spikes Rushes Impale

The novelist'sany writer'sobject is to whittle down his meaning to the exactest and finest possible point. What, of course, isfatal is when he does not know what he does mean: he has no point to sharpen. By Elizabeth Bowen Point Novelistsany Writersobject Whittle Meaning

Love dreads being isolated, being left to speak in a void at the beginning it would often rather listen than speak. By Elizabeth Bowen Love Isolated Speak Dreads Left

The slight sense of degeneracy induced by reading novels before luncheon By Elizabeth Bowen Luncheon Slight Sense Degeneracy Induced

Nobody can be kinder than the narcissist while you react to life in his own terms. By Elizabeth Bowen Terms Kinder Narcissist React Life

Yes, writing a novel, my boy, is like driving pigs to market - you have one of them making a bolt down the wrong lane; another won't get over the right stile ... By Elizabeth Bowen Writing Boy Market Lane Stile

Pity the selfishness of lovers: it is brief, a forlorn hope; it is impossible. By Elizabeth Bowen Pity Lovers Hope Impossible Selfishness

Life is a succession of readjustments. By Elizabeth Bowen Life Readjustments Succession

Memory must be patchy; what is more alarming is its face-savingness. Something in one shrinks from catching it out - unique to oneself, one's own, one's claim to identity, it implicates one's identity in its fibbing. By Elizabeth Bowen Memory Patchy Facesavingness Alarming Identity

When one is a child, the disposition of objects, tables and chairs and doors, seems part of the natural order: a house-move lets in chaos - as it does for a dog. By Elizabeth Bowen Child Objects Tables Doors Order

At the age of twelve I was finding the world too small: it appeared to me like a dull, trim back garden, in which only trivial games could be played. By Elizabeth Bowen Small Dull Trim Garden Played

The happy passive nature, locked up with itself like a mirror in an airy room, reflects what goes on but demands not to be approached. By Elizabeth Bowen Nature Locked Room Reflects Approached

Livvy noted there seemed some communal feeling between the married: any wife could be faintly rude to anyone else's husband. By Elizabeth Bowen Livvy Married Husband Noted Communal

There must be perfect towns where shadows were strong like buildings, towns secret without coldness, unaware without indifference. By Elizabeth Bowen Buildings Coldness Unaware Indifference Towns

Sport and death are the two great socializing factors in Ireland ... By Elizabeth Bowen Ireland Sport Death Great Socializing

Also, perhaps children are sterner than grown-up people in their refusal to suffer, in their refusal, even, to feel at all. By Elizabeth Bowen Refusal Suffer Children Sterner Grownup

Don't you understand that all language is dead currency? How they keep on playing shop with it all the same ... By Elizabeth Bowen Currency Understand Language Dead Playing

The heart may think it knows better: the senses know that absence blots people out. We have really no absent friends. By Elizabeth Bowen Heart Senses Absence Blots People

It is in this unearthly first hour of spring twilight that earth's almost agonized livingness is most felt. This hour is so dreadful to some people that they hurry indoors and turn on the lights. By Elizabeth Bowen Felt Hour Unearthly Spring Twilight

Love of privacy - perhaps because of the increasing exactions of society - has become in many people almost pathological. By Elizabeth Bowen Love Privacy Society Pathological Increasing

Art is for [the Irish] inseparable from artifice: of that, the theatre is the home. Possibly, it was England made me a novelist. By Elizabeth Bowen Irish Art Inseparable Artifice Home

Each of us keeps, battened down inside himself, a sort of lunatic giant; impossible socially, but full scale; and it's the knockings and battering we sometimes hear in each other that keep our banter from utter banality. By Elizabeth Bowen Battened Giant Impossible Socially Scale

My writing, I am prepared to think, may be a substitute for something I have been born without - a so-called normal relation to society. My books are my relation to society. By Elizabeth Bowen Society Writing Relation Prepared Substitute

Though not all reading children grow up to be writers, I take it that most creative writers must in their day have been reading children. By Elizabeth Bowen Reading Children Writers Grow Creative

Education is not so important as people think. By Elizabeth Bowen Education Important People

Proust has pointed out that the predisposition to love creates its own objects; is this not also true of fear? By Elizabeth Bowen Proust Objects Fear Pointed Predisposition

Experience isn't interesting until it begins to repeat itself. In fact, till it does that, it hardly is experience. By Elizabeth Bowen Experience Interesting Begins Repeat Fact

What is being said is the effect of something that has happened; at the same time, what is being said is in itself something happening, which will, in turn, leave its effect. By Elizabeth Bowen Effect Happened Time Happening Turn

We are minor in everything but our passions. By Elizabeth Bowen Passions Minor

Solitary and farouche people don't have relationships; they are quite unrelatable. By Elizabeth Bowen Solitary Relationships Unrelatable Farouche People

Language is a mixture of statement and evocation. By Elizabeth Bowen Language Evocation Mixture Statement

With three or more people there is something bold in the air: direct things get said which would frighten two people alone and conscious of each inch of their nearness to one another. To be three is to be in public - you feel safe. By Elizabeth Bowen People Air Direct Bold Things

I don't know what's come over this place,' Maud stated. 'However, the Lord did, so in despair He showed me what I had better do.' 'And did the Lord suggest your sticking up your father for ten shillings?' 'No, I thought of that,' said Maud, not turning a hair. By Elizabeth Bowen Lord Place Stated Maud Shillings

Rudeness to Mrs. Dosely was like dropping a pat of butter on to a hot plate - it slid and melted away. By Elizabeth Bowen Mrs Dosely Rudeness Plate Dropping

Intimacies between women often go backwards, beginning in revelations and ending in small talk. By Elizabeth Bowen Intimacies Backwards Beginning Talk Women

Nothing, that is say no one, can be such an inexorable tour-conductor as one's own conscience or sense of duty, if one allows either the upper hand: the self-bullying that goes on in the name of sight-seeing is grievous. By Elizabeth Bowen Duty Hand Grievous Inexorable Tourconductor

What's the matter with this country is the matter with the lot of us individually - our sense of personality is a sense of outrage ... By Elizabeth Bowen Matter Sense Individually Outrage Country

Dialogue should convey a sense of spontaneity but eliminate the repetitiveness of real talk. By Elizabeth Bowen Dialogue Talk Convey Sense Spontaneity

Dialogue in fiction is what characters do to one another. By Elizabeth Bowen Dialogue Fiction Characters

The best that an individual can do is to concentrate on what he or she can do, in the course of a burning effort to do it better. By Elizabeth Bowen Individual Concentrate Burning Effort

Jane Austen, much in advance of her day, was a mistress of the use of the dialogue. She used it as dialogue should be used-to advance the story; not only to show the characters, but to advance. By Elizabeth Bowen Austen Advance Jane Day Dialogue

All good dialogue perhaps deals with something unprecedented. By Elizabeth Bowen Unprecedented Good Dialogue Deals

Writers do not find subjects; subjects find them. By Elizabeth Bowen Writers Find Subjects

Nothing can happen nowhere. The locale of the happening always colours the happening, and often, to a degree, shapes it. By Elizabeth Bowen Happen Happening Degree Shapes Locale

The novel does not simply recount experience, it adds to experience. By Elizabeth Bowen Experience Simply Recount Adds

Style is the thing that's always a bit phony, and at the same time you cannot write without style. By Elizabeth Bowen Phony Style Thing Bit Time

A smell of sandalwood boxes, a kind of glaze on the air from all the chintzes numbed his earthy vitality, he became all ribs and uniform. By Elizabeth Bowen Boxes Vitality Uniform Smell Sandalwood

For people who live on expectations, to face up to their realization is something of an ordeal. By Elizabeth Bowen Expectations Ordeal People Live Face

What I have found is, anything one keeps hidden should now and then be hidden somewhere else. By Elizabeth Bowen Hidden Found

Some people are moulded by their aspirations, others by their hostilities. By Elizabeth Bowen Aspirations Hostilities People Moulded

I know that I have in my make-up layers of synthetic experiences, and that the most powerful of my memories are only half true. By Elizabeth Bowen Experiences True Makeup Layers Synthetic

Habit, of which passion must be wary, may all the same be the sweetest part of love. By Elizabeth Bowen Habit Wary Love Passion Sweetest

But what a horrible world 'society' is. By Elizabeth Bowen Society World Horrible

Artists were intended to be an ornament to society. As a society in themselves they are unthinkable. By Elizabeth Bowen Artists Society Intended Ornament Unthinkable

The paradox of romantic love that what one possesses, one can no longer desire was at work. By Elizabeth Bowen Possesses Work Paradox Romantic Love

I can't help thinking Suppose the world was made for happiness after all. By Elizabeth Bowen Suppose Thinking World Made Happiness

Plot is the knowing of destination. By Elizabeth Bowen Plot Destination Knowing

To leap is not only to leap, it is to hit the ground somewhere. By Elizabeth Bowen Leap Hit Ground

Makes of men date, like makes of car. By Elizabeth Bowen Makes Date Car Men

If you look at life one way, there is always cause for alarm. By Elizabeth Bowen Alarm Life

Never to lie is to have no lock on your door, you are never wholly alone. By Elizabeth Bowen Door Lie Lock Wholly

Reason can never reconcile one to life: nothing allays the wants one cannot explain. By Elizabeth Bowen Reason Life Explain Reconcile Allays

No object is mysterious. The mystery is your eye By Elizabeth Bowen Mysterious Object Eye Mystery

Fashion seems to exist for an abstract person who is not you or me. By Elizabeth Bowen Fashion Exist Abstract Person

The passion of vanity has its own depths in the spirit, and is powerfully militant. By Elizabeth Bowen Spirit Militant Passion Vanity Depths

Chance is better than choice; it is more lordly. Chance is God, choice is man. By Elizabeth Bowen Chance Lordly Choice God Man

It appears to me that problems, inherent in any writing, loom unduly large when one looks ahead. Though nothing is easy, little is quite impossible. By Elizabeth Bowen Problems Inherent Writing Loom Ahead

The child lives in the book; but just as much the book lives in the child. By Elizabeth Bowen Child Lives Book

Almost everyone admits to hunger during the Opera ... Hunger is so exalting that during a last act you practically levitate. By Elizabeth Bowen Opera Hunger Admits Levitate Exalting

Silence sat in the taxi, as though a stranger had got in. By Elizabeth Bowen Silence Taxi Sat Stranger

At Spezia when I am angry I go full of smoke inside, but when you make me angry I see everything. By Elizabeth Bowen Angry Spezia Inside Full Smoke

Their hands, swinging, touched lightly now and then; their nearness was as natural as the June day. By Elizabeth Bowen Swinging June Hands Touched Day

Meetings that do not come off keep a character of their own. They stay as they were projected. By Elizabeth Bowen Meetings Character Projected Stay

Wariness had driven away poetry; from hesitating to feel came the moment when you no longer could. By Elizabeth Bowen Wariness Poetry Driven Hesitating Feel

Sacrificers are not the ones to pity. The ones to pity are those they sacrifice. By Elizabeth Bowen Sacrificers Pity Sacrifice

[A writer] should try not to be too far, personally, below the level of his work. By Elizabeth Bowen Personally Writer Work Level

Spoilt pleasure is a sad, unseemly thing; you can only bury it. By Elizabeth Bowen Spoilt Sad Unseemly Thing Pleasure

A novel survives because of its basic truthfulness, its having within it something general and universal, and a quality of imaginative perception which applies just as much now as it did in the fifty or hundred or two hundred years since the novel came to life. By Elizabeth Bowen Truthfulness Universal Life Hundred Survives

Nobody speaks the truth when there's something they must have. By Elizabeth Bowen Speaks Truth

Where would the Irish be without someone to be Irish at? By Elizabeth Bowen Irish

I became, and remain, my characters' close and intent watcher: their director, never. Their creator I cannot feel that I was, or am. By Elizabeth Bowen Remain Watcher Director Characters Close

She walked about with the rather fated expression you see in photographs of girls who have subsequently been murdered, but nothing had so far happened to her. By Elizabeth Bowen Murdered Walked Fated Expression Photographs

Nobody ever dies of an indignity. By Elizabeth Bowen Indignity Dies

But to be quite oneself one must first waste a little time. By Elizabeth Bowen Time Oneself Waste

For God's sake, is there no plain man? By Elizabeth Bowen God Sake Man Plain

But surely love wouldn't get so much talked about if there were not something in it? By Elizabeth Bowen Surely Love Talked

All your youth you want to have your greatness taken for granted; when you find it taken for granted, you are unnerved. By Elizabeth Bowen Granted Unnerved Youth Greatness Find

I do like Italian graves; they look so much more lived in. By Elizabeth Bowen Italian Graves Lived

Ireland is a great country to die or be married in. By Elizabeth Bowen Ireland Great Country Die Married

Somehow at parties at which one stays standing up one seems to require to be more concentratedly intelligent than one does at those at which one can sit down. By Elizabeth Bowen Parties Stays Standing Require Concentratedly

Every short story is an experiment - what one must ask is not only, did it come off, but was it, as an experiment, worth making? By Elizabeth Bowen Experiment Worth Making Short Story

Characters are not created by writers. They pre-exist and have to be found. By Elizabeth Bowen Characters Writers Created Found Preexist

Story involves action. Action towards an end not to be foreseen (by the reader) but also towards an end which, having been reached, must be seen to have been from the start inevitable. By Elizabeth Bowen Story Action Involves End Foreseen

In 'real life' everything is diluted; in the novel everything is condensed. By Elizabeth Bowen Real Life Diluted Condensed

Good general-purpose manners nowadays may be said to consist in knowing how much you can get away with. By Elizabeth Bowen Good Generalpurpose Manners Nowadays Consist

Into the novel goes such taste as I have for rational behaviour and social portraiture. The short story, as I see it to be, allows for what is crazy about humanity: obstinacies, inordinate heroisms, immortal longings. By Elizabeth Bowen Portraiture Obstinacies Taste Rational Behaviour

Have not all poetic truths been already stated? The essence of a poetic truth is that no statement of it can be final. By Elizabeth Bowen Stated Poetic Truths Truth Final

Silences have a climax, when you have got to speak. By Elizabeth Bowen Silences Climax Speak

That is partly why women marry - to keep up the fiction of being in the hub of things. By Elizabeth Bowen Marry Things Partly Women Fiction

One can live in the shadow of an idea without grasping it. By Elizabeth Bowen Live Shadow Idea Grasping

Nothing arrives on paper as it started, and so much arrives that never started at all. To write is always to rave a little, even if one did once know what one meant. By Elizabeth Bowen Arrives Started Paper Meant Write

Dialogue should show the relationships among people. By Elizabeth Bowen Dialogue People Show Relationships

If a theme or idea is too near the surface, the novel becomes simply a tract illustrating an idea. By Elizabeth Bowen Surface Idea Theme Simply Tract

Forgiveness should be an act, but this is a state with him. By Elizabeth Bowen Forgiveness Act State

The wish to lead out one's lover must be a tribal feeling; the wish to be seen as loved is part of one's self-respect. By Elizabeth Bowen Feeling Selfrespect Lead Lover Tribal

Disappointment tears the bearable film of life. By Elizabeth Bowen Disappointment Life Tears Bearable Film

Curiosity in Rome is a form of courtesy. By Elizabeth Bowen Rome Curiosity Courtesy Form

Nobody speaks the truth when there is something they must have. By Elizabeth Bowen Speaks Truth

On the subject of dress almost no one, for one or another reason, feels truly indifferent: if their own clothes do not concern them, somebody else's do. By Elizabeth Bowen Reason Feels Indifferent Subject Dress

Bring all your intelligence to bear on your beginning. By Elizabeth Bowen Bring Beginning Intelligence Bear

Silences can be as different as sounds. By Elizabeth Bowen Silences Sounds

The most steady, the most self-sufficient nature depends, more than it knows, on its few chosen stimuli. By Elizabeth Bowen Steady Depends Stimuli Selfsufficient Nature

When you love someone, all your saved-up wishes start coming out. By Elizabeth Bowen Love Savedup Wishes Start Coming

Mechanical difficulties with language are the outcome of internal difficulties with thought. By Elizabeth Bowen Difficulties Mechanical Thought Language Outcome

Some of my ideas get enlarged almost before I have them. By Elizabeth Bowen Ideas Enlarged

I can't see or feel the conflict between love and religion. To me, they're the same thing. By Elizabeth Bowen Religion Feel Conflict Love Thing

It is not helpful to help a friend by putting coins in his pockets when he has got holes in his pockets. By Elizabeth Bowen Pockets Helpful Friend Putting Coins

You must show him your monkey: I am sure he will like that. By Elizabeth Bowen Monkey Show

The craft of the novelist does lie first of all in story-telling. By Elizabeth Bowen Storytelling Craft Novelist Lie

One should discuss one's difficulties only when they are over. By Elizabeth Bowen Discuss Difficulties

I swear that each of us keeps, battened down inside himself, a sort of lunatic giant - impossible socially, but full-scale - and that it's the knockings and baterrings we sometimes hear in each other that keeps our intercourse from utter banaility. By Elizabeth Bowen Battened Giant Impossible Socially Fullscale

Characters should on the whole, be under rather than over articulate. What they intend to say should be more evident, more striking (because of its greater inner importance to the plot) than what they arrive at saying. By Elizabeth Bowen Characters Articulate Evident Striking Plot

As for Thomas, the longer he lived, the less he cared for the world. By Elizabeth Bowen Thomas Lived World Longer Cared

Not only is there no question of solitude, but in the long run we may not choose our company. By Elizabeth Bowen Solitude Company Question Long Run

[My early stories] are the work of a living writer whom I know in a sense, but can never meet. By Elizabeth Bowen Stories Sense Meet Early Work

Makes of men date, like makes of cars... By Elizabeth Bowen Makes Date Cars Men

Any fictionis bound to be transposed autobiography. By Elizabeth Bowen Autobiography Fictionis Bound Transposed

Illusions are art, for the feeling person, and it is by art that we live, if we do. By Elizabeth Bowen Illusions Person Live Art Feeling

Raids are slightly constipating. By Elizabeth Bowen Raids Constipating Slightly

Fate is not an eagle, it creeps like a rat. By Elizabeth Bowen Fate Eagle Rat Creeps

Convention was our safeguard: could one have stronger? By Elizabeth Bowen Convention Safeguard Stronger

There must be something she wanted; and that therefore she was no lady. By Elizabeth Bowen Wanted Lady