Quotes by Dodie Smith

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

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.

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!

Now, paper and pencils, said Miss Marcy, clapping her hands.Writing paper is scarce in this house, and I had no intention of tearing sheets out of this exercise book, which is a superb sixpenny one the Vicar gave me. In the end, Miss Marcy took the middle pages out of her library record, which gave us a pleasant feeling that we were stealing from the government, and then we sat round the table and elected her chairman.

I didnt make any mistake. I know that when he nearly asked me to marry him it was only on impulseIt is part if a follow-my-leader game of second-best we have all been playing - Rose with Simon, Simon with me, me with Stephen and Stephen, I suppose, with that detestable Leda Fox-Cotton. It isnt a very good game; the people you play it with are apt to get hurt.

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.

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 wasnt. You cant get insurance money without paying in premiums.

Of course, he sees creation as discovery. I mean, everything is already created, by the first cause---call it God if you like; everything is already there to be found.

I couldnt make it out - why you ever let me, I mean. I understand now. Things like that happen when youre in love with the wrong person. Worse things. Things you never forgive yourself for.

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.

And who says you always have to understand things? You can like them without understanding them -- like em better sometimes.

It is rather exciting to write by moonlight.

Your pain and anger will pass, but the guilt would remain with you for always.

Only half a page left now. Shall I fill it with I love you, I love you-- like fathers page of cats on the mat? No. Even a broken heart doesnt warrant a waste of good paper.

I have really sinned. I am going to pause now, and sit here on the mound repenting in deepest shame...

The Devils out of fashion.

Father says hot water can be as stimulating as an alcoholic drink and though I never come by one...I can well believe it.

He laughed a little, in an odd, nervous kind of way. Because if I dont 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.

...[I]f I dont 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.

Stews so comforting on a rainy day.