Quotes by Dodie Smith - Page 2 | QuoteForever

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Perhaps it would really be rather dull to be married and settled for life. Liar! It would be heaven.
Dodie Smith / Novelist
Heaven
Liars
Would Be
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I have really sinned. I am going to pause now, and sit here on the mound repenting in deepest shame.
Dodie Smith / Novelist
Pauses
Repent
Shame
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Wakings are the worst times--almost before my eyes are open a great weight seems to roll on my heart.
Dodie Smith / Novelist
Eye
Heart
Worst Times
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Ah, but you're the insidious type--Jane Eyre with of touch of Becky Sharp. A thoroughly dangerous girl.
Dodie Smith / Novelist
Girl
Becky
Type
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I should rather like to tear these last pages out of the book. Shall I? No-a journal ought not to cheat.
Dodie Smith / Novelist
Book
Pages
Tears
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Rose doesn’t like the flat country, but I always did – flat country seems to give the sky such a chance.
Dodie Smith / Novelist
Country
Giving
Sky
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...With stories even a page can take me hours, but the truth seems to flow out as fast as I can get it down.
Dodie Smith / Novelist
Flow
Pages
Stories
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I think it [religion] is an art, the greatest one; an extension of the communion all the other arts attempt.
Dodie Smith / Novelist
Art
Communion
Thinking
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I shouldn't think even millionaires could eat anything nicer than new bread and real butter and honey for tea.
Dodie Smith / Novelist
Real
Tea
Thinking
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There is something revolting about the way girls' minds so often jump to marriage long before they jump to love.
Dodie Smith / Novelist
Girl
Long
Mind
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What is it about the English countryside — why is the beauty so much more than visual? Why does it touch one so?
Dodie Smith / Novelist
Countryside
Doe
Visuals
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I wonder if there isn't a catch about having plenty of money? Does it eventually take the pleasure out of things?
Dodie Smith / Novelist
Money
Doe
Wonder
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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 / Novelist
Different
House
Thinking
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...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 / Novelist
Happens
Things Happen
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... 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 / Novelist
Life Is
Long
Want
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Topaz was wonderfully patient - but sometimes I wonder if it is not only patience, but also a faint resemblance to cows.
Dodie Smith / Novelist
Cows
Patient
Topaz
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The family - that dear octopus from whose tentacles we never quite escape, nor, in our inmost hearts, ever quite wish to.
Dodie Smith / Novelist
Funny
Family
Heart
Octopus
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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 / Novelist
Believe
Father
Water
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The family, that dear octopus from whose tentacles we never quite escape, nor in our innermost hearts never quite wish to.
Dodie Smith / Novelist
Family
Dear
Octopus
Wish
Quite
Never
Escape
Hearts
Innermost
Nor
Whose
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Still, looking through the old volumes was soothing, because thinking of the past made the present seem a little less real.
Dodie Smith / Novelist
Past
Real
Thinking
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Like many other much-loved humans, they believed that they owned their dogs, instead of realizing that their dogs owned them.
Dodie Smith / Novelist
Friendship
Canine
Dog
Realizing
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And who says you always have to understand things? You can like them without understanding them -- like 'em better sometimes.
Dodie Smith / Novelist
Ems
Sometimes
Understanding
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Though he had very little Latin beyond "Cave canem," he had, as a young dog, devoured Shakespeare (in a tasty leather binding).
Dodie Smith / Novelist
Dog
Latin
Training
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It's a beautiful sight to see good dancers doing simple steps. It's a painful sight to see beginners doing complicated patterns.
Dodie Smith / Novelist
Beautiful
Sight
Simple
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I'm convinced England's overflowing with eccentric people, places, happenings. Indeed, you might say eccentricity's normal in England.
Dodie Smith / Novelist
Eccentric
Might
People
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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 / Novelist
Age
Independence
World
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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
Dodie Smith / Novelist
Littles
Long
Names
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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.
Dodie Smith / Novelist
Flower
Past
Sweet
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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 / Novelist
Feelings
Mind
Real
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There is something revolting about the way girls' minds often jump to marriage long before they jump to love. And most of those minds are shut to what marriage really means.
Dodie Smith / Novelist
Jump
Minds
Revolting
Shut
To Love
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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.
Dodie Smith / Novelist
Father
Heart
Love You
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Walking down Belmotte was the oddest sensation-- every step took us deeper into the mist until at last it closed over our heads. It was like being drowned in the ghost of water.
Dodie Smith / Novelist
Lasts
Steps
Water
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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 / Novelist
Attitude
Laughter
Strange
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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.
Dodie Smith / Novelist
Keys
Pages
Writing
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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.
Dodie Smith / Novelist
Father
Thinking
World
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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 / Novelist
Book
May
Unique
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We were restless for ages...After a while I heard an owl hooting and calmed myself by thinking of it flying over the dark fields – and then I remembered it would be pouncing on mice. I love owls, but I wish God had made them vegetarian.
Dodie Smith / Novelist
Love
Dark
Thinking
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When I read a book, I put in all the imagination I can, so that it is almost like writing the book as well as reading it - or rather, it is like living it. It makes reading so much more exciting, but I don't suppose many people try to do it.
Dodie Smith / Novelist
Book
Reading
Writing
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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 / Novelist
Insanity
Long
May
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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.
Dodie Smith / Novelist
Book
Character
Real
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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 / Novelist
Forever
Heart
Together
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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 / Novelist
Thinking
Tired
Writing
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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.
Dodie Smith / Novelist
Girl
Men
Real
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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 / Novelist
Believe
Brain
Ideas
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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 / Novelist
Love
Luxury
Return
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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.
Dodie Smith / Novelist
Church
Cutting
Rain
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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.
Dodie Smith / Novelist
Dog
Mean
Tails
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They call them the haunted shores, these stretches of Devonshire and Cornwall and Ireland which rear up against the westward ocean. Mists gather here, and sea fog, and eerie stories. That's not because there are more ghosts here than in other places, mind you. It's just that people who live hereabouts are strangely aware of them.
Dodie Smith / Novelist
Ocean
Fog
Sea
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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.
Dodie Smith / Novelist
Doe
Father
Littles
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