Dodie Smith

A thousand pounds for clothes--when on thinks how long poor people could live on it! When one thinks how long we could live on it, for that matter!

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.

Oh, it was an artful place--it must make people who have money want to spend it madly!

My imagination longs to dash ahead and plan developments; but I have noticed that when things happen in one's imagination, they never happen in one's life.

A mist is rolling over the fields. Why is a summer mist romantic and autumn mist just sad?

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

Prayer's a very tricky business.

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

I am surprised to see how much I have written; with stories even a page can take me hours, but the truth seems to flow out as fast as I can get it down. But words are very inadequate _ anyway, my words are.

Did you think of anything when Miss Marcy said Scoatney Hall was being re-opened? I thought of the beginning of Pride and Prejudice _ where Mrs. Bennet says 'Netherfield Park is let a last.' And then Mr. Bennet goes over to call on the rich new owner.

I go backwards and forwards, recapturing the past, wondering about the future__nd, most unreasonably, I find myself longing for the past more than for the future.

I suddenly knew that religion, God - something beyond everyday life - was there to be found, provided one is really willing. And I saw that though what I felt in the church was only imagination, it was a step on the way; because imagination itself can be a kind of willingness - a pretense that things are real, due to one's longing for them. It struck me that this was somehow tied up with what the Vicar said about religion being an extension of art - and then I had a glimpse of how religion can really cure you of sorrow; somehow make use of it, turn it to beauty, just as art can make sad things beautiful. I found myself saying: 'Sacrifice is the secret - you have to sacrifice things for art and it's the same with religion; and then the sacrifice turns out to be a gain.' Then I got confused and I couldn't hold on to what I meant - until Miss Blossom remarked: 'Nonsense, duckie - it's prefectly simple. You lose yourself in something beyond yourself and it's a lovely rest.'I saw that, all right. Then I thought: 'But that's how Miss Marcy cured her sorrow, too - only she lost herself in other people instead of in religion.' Which way of life was best - hers or the Vicar's? I decided that he loves God and merely likes the villagers, whereas she loves the villagers and merely likes God - and then I suddenly wondered if I could combine both ways, love God and my neighbor equally. Was I really willing to?

I am not so sure I should like the facts of life, but I have got over the bitter disappointment I felt when I first heard about them,...

...I could never explain how the image and the reality merge, and how they somehow extend and beautify each other.

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

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

Truthfulness so often goes with ruthlessness.

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