Elizabeth Bowen Quotes


No object is mysterious. The mystery is your eye. Elizabeth Bowen Eye 271
The charm, one might say the genius of memory, is that it is choosy, chancy, and temperamental: it rejects the edifying cathedral and indelibly photographs the small boy outside, chewing a hunk of melon in the dust. Elizabeth Bowen Memory 141
Jealousy is no more than feeling alone against smiling enemies. Elizabeth Bowen alone 139
Nobody can be kinder than the narcissist while you react to life in his own terms. Elizabeth Bowen Life 114
Never to lie is to have no lock on your door, you are never wholly alone. Elizabeth Bowen Uncategorized 95
Writers do not find subjects subjects find them. Elizabeth Bowen Quote 91
Art is one thing that can go on mattering once it has stopped hurting. Elizabeth Bowen Art 86
Intimacies between women often go backwards, beginning in revelations and ending in small talk. Elizabeth Bowen Women 80
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. Elizabeth Bowen Best 76
Ireland is a great country to die or be married in. Elizabeth Bowen Country 75
Fate is not an eagle, it creeps like a rat. Elizabeth Bowen Fate 75
The importance to the writer of first writing must be out of all proportion of the actual value of what is written. Elizabeth Bowen Actual 75
Autumn arrives in early morning, but spring at the close of a winter day. Elizabeth Bowen Seasons 71
There is no end to the violations committed by children on children, quietly talking alone. Elizabeth Bowen Alone 70
Fantasy is toxic: the private cruelty and the world war both have their start in the heated brain. Elizabeth Bowen Brain 70
Nothing can happen nowhere. The locale of the happening always colours the happening, and often, to a degree, shapes it. Elizabeth Bowen Colours 68
Art is the only thing that can go on mattering, once it has stopped hurting. Elizabeth Bowen Art 67
Silences have a climax, when you have got to speak. Elizabeth Bowen Uncategorized 66
Pity the selfishness of lovers: it is brief, a forlorn hope; it is impossible. Elizabeth Bowen Love 66
All your youth you want to have your greatness taken for granted; when you find it taken for granted, you are unnerved. Elizabeth Bowen Greatness 65
Absence blots people out. We really have no absent friends. Elizabeth Bowen Absence 59
It is not our exalted feelings, it is our sentiments that build the necessary home. Elizabeth Bowen Emotions 59
When you love someone all your saved up wishes start coming out. Elizabeth Bowen Love 56
When you love someone all your saved-up wishes start coming out. Elizabeth Bowen Love 55
Education is not so important as people think. Elizabeth Bowen Education 55
If you look at life one way, there is always cause for alarm. Elizabeth Bowen Life 53
Mechanical difficulties with language are the outcome of internal difficulties with thought. Elizabeth Bowen Uncategorized 53
Never to lie is to have no lock to your door, you are never wholly alone. Elizabeth Bowen DeceptionLying 52
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. Elizabeth Bowen Men 51
If a theme or idea is too near the surface, the novel becomes simply a tract illustrating an idea. Elizabeth Bowen Becomes 50
Some people are molded by their admirations, others by their hostilities. Elizabeth Bowen Growth 46
We are minor in everything but our passions. Elizabeth Bowen Minor 45
Nobody speaks the truth when there is something they must have. Elizabeth Bowen Nobody 43
Illusions are art, for the feeling person, and it is by art that we live, if we do. Elizabeth Bowen Art 43
Language is a mixture of statement and evocation. Elizabeth Bowen Uncategorized 43
One can live in the shadow of an idea without grasping it. Elizabeth Bowen Uncategorized 40
Livvy noted there seemed some communal feeling between the married any wife could be faintly rude to anyone elses husband. Elizabeth Bowen Marriage 39
That is partly why women marry – to keep up the fiction of being in the hub of things. Elizabeth Bowen Uncategorized 38
Experience isn't interesting until it begins to repeat itself. In fact, till it does that, it hardly is experience. Elizabeth Bowen Experience 37
I think the main thing, don't you, is to keep the show on the road. Elizabeth Bowen Uncategorized 33
Intimacies between women go backwards, beginning with revelations and ending up in small talk without loss of esteem. Elizabeth Bowen Men 30
The heart may think it knows better: the senses know that absence blots people out. We really have no absent friends. Elizabeth Bowen Absence 30
The innocent are so few that two of them seldom meet – when they do meet, their victims lie strewn all round. Elizabeth Bowen Uncategorized 29
I swear that each of us keeps battened down inside himself a sort of lunatic giant impossible socially but fullscale and that its the knockings and baterrings we sometimes hear in each other that keeps our intercourse from utter banaility. Elizabeth Bowen Madness 25

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Elizabeth Bowen Quotes

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