Top 100 Dodie Smith Quotes
#1. Ah, but you're the insidious type
Jane Eyre with of touch of Becky Sharp. A thoroughly dangerous girl.
Dodie Smith
#2. I leaned against the carved banisters and listened to the music and felt quite different from any way I have ever felt before
softer, very beautiful and as if a great many men were in love with me and I might very easily be in love with them.
Dodie Smith
#3. Thinking of death
strange, beautiful, terrible and a long way off
made me feel happier than ever.
Dodie Smith
#4. The vague expression was gone from his eyes - I had a feeling it was gone forever.
Dodie Smith
#5. The table was a pool of candlelight -- so bright that the rest of the room seemed almost black, with the faces of the family portraits floating in the darkness.
Dodie Smith
#6. 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.
Dodie Smith
#7. 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.
Dodie Smith
#8. I wasn't merely remembering, it seemed to be trapped inside my eyelids.
Dodie Smith
#9. I like seeing people when they can't see me.
Dodie Smith
#10. A loss of sensibility follows a loss of innocence, at once a penalty and a compensation.
Dodie Smith
#11. I love you, I love you, I love you. ~Cassandra
Dodie Smith
#12. But it is always dreadful when the pictures in front of one's eyes become meaningless and the real word is there instead and seems meaningless, too.
Dodie Smith
#13. But her voice sounded wistful. It is one of her theories that a woman must never be jealous, never try to hold man against his will; but I could tell that she hadn't enjoyed seeing someone else bring father to life.
Dodie Smith
#14. Cruel blows of fate call for extreme kindness in the family circle.
Dodie Smith
#15. It is the still, yellow kind of afternoon when one is apt to get stuck in a dream if one sits very quiet
Dodie Smith
#16. I wonder if there isn't a catch about having plenty of money? Does it eventually take the pleasure out of things?
Dodie Smith
#17. While I have been writing I have lived in the past, the light of it has been all around me ...
Dodie Smith
#18. I have really sinned. I am going to pause now, and sit here on the mound repenting in deepest shame ...
Dodie Smith
#19. Still, looking through the old volumes was soothing, because thinking of the past made the present seem a little less real.
Dodie Smith
#20. Oh, it is wonderful to wake up in the morning with things to look forward to!
Dodie Smith
#21. I could never explain how the image and the reality merge, and how they somehow extend and beautify each other.
Dodie Smith
#22. The way one's mind can dash about just while one opens a window.
Dodie Smith
#23. Once I really looked at the sky, I wanted to go on looking; it seemed to draw me towards it and make me listen hard, though there was nothing to listen to, not so much as a twig was stirring.
Dodie Smith
#24. I only want to write. And there's no college for that except life.
Dodie Smith
#25. Like many other much-loved humans, they believed that they owned their dogs, instead of realizing that their dogs owned them.
Dodie Smith
#26. She is a girl who cannot walk her troubles off, or work them off; she is a girl to sit around and glare.
Dodie Smith
#27. I could marry the Devil himself if he had some money.
Dodie Smith
#28. The tea was a comfort - and by that time I more than needed comfort.
Dodie Smith
#29. I have noticed that when things happen in one's imaginings, they never happen in one's life, so I am curbing myself.
Dodie Smith
#30. I write this sitting in the kitchen sink.
Dodie Smith
#31. I think it [religion] is an art, the greatest one; an extension of the communion all the other arts attempt.
Dodie Smith
#33. 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.
Dodie Smith
#34. Things you let yourself imagine happening, never do happen.
Dodie Smith
#35. It's odd how different a house feels when one is alone in it. It makes it easier to think rather private thoughts ...
Dodie Smith
#36. Only the margin left to write on now. I love you, I love you, I love you.
Dodie Smith
#37. There used to be two of us always on the look-out for life, talking to Miss Blossom at night, wondering, hoping; two Bronte-Jane Austen girls, poor but spirited, two Girls of Godsend Castle.
Dodie Smith
#38. There is something revolting about the way girls' minds so often jump to marriage long before they jump to love.
Dodie Smith
#39. Miserable people cannot afford to dislike each other
Dodie Smith
#40. Even a broken heart doesn't warrant a waste of good paper.
Dodie Smith
#41. I have found that sitting in a place where you have never sat before can be inspiring.
Dodie Smith
#42. Is that branch worrying you?" Simon asked her. "Would you like to change places? I hope you wouldn't because your hair looks so nice against the leaves
Dodie Smith
#43. In addition, I think religion has a chance of a look-in whenever the mind craves solace in music or poetry
in any form of art at all. Personally, I think it is an art, the greatest one; an extension of the communication all the other arts attempt.
Dodie Smith
#44. 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?
Dodie Smith
#47. I should rather like to tear these last pages out of the book. Shall I? No-a journal ought not to cheat.
Dodie Smith
#49. Is it wrong for me to feel so happy? Perhaps I ought even to feel guilty? No. I didn't make it happen, and it can't hurt anyone but me. Surely I have a right to my joy. For as long as it lasts ...
Dodie Smith
#50. I couldn't make it out - why you ever let me, I mean. I understand now. Things like that happen when you're in love with the wrong person. Worse things. Things you never forgive yourself for.
Dodie Smith
#51. It was so nice that Simon was here for it - tell him I enjoyed every minute - ' it was glorious writing that - almost like telling him I was glad he'd kissed me. But after I'd posted the letter I was worried in case he guessed what I'd meant.
Dodie Smith
#53. Perhaps watching someone you love suffer can teach you even more than suffering yourself can.
Dodie Smith
#55. You're the kind of child who might develop a passion for Bach.
I told him I hadn't at school. The one Bach piece I learnt made me feel I was being repeatedly hit on the head with a teaspoon.
Dodie Smith
#56. I shouldn't think even millionaires could eat anything nicer than new bread and real butter and honey for tea.
Dodie Smith
#57. All I really want to write about is what happened just before he left. But if I let myself start with that I might forget some of the things which came first. And every word he said is of deepest value to me.
Dodie Smith
#58. Why is summer mist romantic and autumn mist just sad?
Dodie Smith
#59. I stood there ringing the bell and banging on the door, feeling I could make someone be there, knowing all the time that I couldn't.
Dodie Smith
#60. I was wandering around as usual, in my unpleasantly populated sub-conscious ...
Dodie Smith
#61. Death is too much to ask of the living.
Dodie Smith
#62. They said this flat was converted but I think its still heathen
Dodie Smith
#63. I'm wondering. Shall we say its perfect for the sea and the sunlight - and the other Rose is perfect for candlelight? And perhaps what's most perfect of all is to find there are several Roses?
Dodie Smith
#64. I could look at stationers' shops forever and ever.
Dodie Smith
#65. And they are like a drug, one needs them oftener and oftener and has to make them more and more exciting - until at last one's imagination won't work at all.
Dodie Smith
#66. It was wonderful, of course
ham with mustard is a meal of glory.
Dodie Smith
#67. It seemed an awful waste that we weren't in love with each other.
Dodie Smith
#68. Deep down, in some vague, mixed way I had been letting myself hope that he didn't really care for her, that it was me he loved and that kissing me would have made him realise it ...
Dodie Smith
#69. When things mean a very great deal to you, exciting anticipation just isn't safe.
Dodie Smith
#70. Mr. Dearly wasn't exactly handsome but he had the kind of face you don't get tired of.
Dodie Smith
#71. I have noticed that rooms which are extra clean feel extra cold
Dodie Smith
#72. It made no difference. 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 true happiness.
Dodie Smith
#73. I still didn't believe him. And for the moment, I didn't much care one way or the other. My whole mind had swung back to Simon.
Dodie Smith
#74. It isn't a bit of use my pretending I'm not crying, because I am ... Pause to mop up. Better now.
Perhaps it would really be rather dull to be married and settled for life. Liar! It would be heaven.
Dodie Smith
#75. Americans do seem to say things which make the English notice England.
Dodie Smith
#76. The thought was horrible, yet fascinating.
Dodie Smith
#77. Sometimes [the expression] old age has a kind of harrowing beauty. But elderly - ugh!
Dodie Smith
#78. But the happiness you hoped to win for me will never be mine.
Dodie Smith
#79. I could see he was nervous; at least, I thought I could, but then it struck me how little I know of him, or of Topaz or Rose or anyone in the world, really, except myself.
Dodie Smith
#80. 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.
Dodie Smith
#81. I'm convinced England's overflowing with eccentric people, places, happenings. Indeed, you might say eccentricity's normal in England.
Dodie Smith
#82. And no bathroom on earth will make up for marrying a bearded man you hate.
Dodie Smith
#83. There's nothing more, except that I usually sit down until the flames die down and try to think myself back into the past.
Dodie Smith
#84. 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.
Dodie Smith
#85. Well, my paper has asked me to do a series: Lives of the Great Musicians, reading time 2 minutes.
Dodie Smith
#86. Then I told myself that as I never gave the Church a thought when I was feeling happy, I could hardly expect it to do anything for me when I wasn't. You can't get insurance money without paying in premiums.
Dodie Smith
#87. I felt as I did once when Rose had very bad toothache - that it was callous of me to be so separate from the pain, that just being sorry for suffering people isn't enough.
Dodie Smith
#88. For I know I shall be interrupted
I shall want to be, really, because life is too exciting to sit still for long.
Dodie Smith
#89. Was he again
I had never forgotten that overheard phrase of Eve's
being kind to be cruel? I only knew I had been given back enough to live on. And dimly, dimly, I began to see a new Last Act to crown my play.
Dodie Smith
#90. The family - that dear octopus from whose tentacles we never quite escape, nor, in our inmost hearts, ever quite wish to.
Dodie Smith
#91. She is a famous artists' model who claims to have been christened Topaz - even if this is true there is no law to make a woman stick to a name like that.
Dodie Smith
#92. As long as I live I shall remember that silent minute.
Dodie Smith
#93. He can be so appreciative of all forms of art, but so matter-of-fact and unemotional about it.
Dodie Smith
#94. 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.
Dodie Smith
#95. 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.
Dodie Smith
#96. 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.
Dodie Smith
#97. Father says hot water can be as stimulating as an alcoholic drink and though I never come by one ... I can well believe it.
Dodie Smith
#98. It was a rather dreadful thought but somehow comforting.
Dodie Smith
#99. What is this insurmountable barrier round him? What's it made of? Where did it come from?
Dodie Smith
#100. Art could state very little - it's whole business is to evoke responses.
Dodie Smith
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