Quotes by Enid Bagnold

“Judges dont age; time decorates them.”

“In marriage there are no manners to keep up, and beneath the wildest accusations no real criticism. Each is familiar with that ancient child in the other who may erupt again. We are not ridiculous to ourselves. We are ageless. That is the luxury of the wedding ring.”

“If a dog doesnt put you first where are you both? In what relation? A dog needs God. It lives by your glances, your wishes. It even shares your humor. This happens about the fifth year. If it doesnt happen you are only keeping an animal.”

“The theatre is a gross art, built in sweeps and over-emphasis. Compromise is its second name.”

“Yes, I do touch. I believe that everyone needs that.”

“It’s not till sex has died out between a man and a woman that they can really love. And now I mean affection. Now I mean to be fond of (as one is fond of oneself) --to hope, to be disappointed, to live inside the other heart.”

“Who wants to become a writer? And why? Because its the answer to everything. To Why am I here? To uselessness. Its the streaming reason for living. To note, to pin down, to build up, to create, to be astonished at nothing, to cherish the oddities, to let nothing go down the drain, to make something, to make a great flower out of life, even if its a cactus.”

“The great and terrible step was taken. What else could you expect from a girl so expectant? Sex, said Frank Harris, is the gateway to life. So I went through the gateway in an upper room in the Cafe Royal.”

“As for death one gets used to it, even if its only other peoples death you get used to.”

If I had my life over again[, ] Id have thought more about words. And thought about them earlier.

It was March. The days of March creeping gustily on like something that man couldnt hinder and God wouldnt hurry.

Suddenly, as they walked with their buckets, it was not the child in each face that she sought, but the Wonder that had raised itself on to its two feet, that had learnt to walk, to run, that had spoken, that had got in touch with life under her hand.

The children seemed to cast their Precursors like shadows about the house, sometimes tangibly, in the sound of a voice, sometimes by suggestion, because it was striking the hour for their return from a walk, sometimes mysteriously, because inside the shell of their mothers head the children were painted like angels on the roof of a chapel.

And now, finished with that puzzling mixture of insane intimacy and isolation which is notoriety, Velvet was able to get on quietly to her next adventures.

Judges dont age time decorates them.

When a man goes through six years training to be a doctor he will never be the same. He knows too much.

In marriage there are no manners to keep up, and beneath the wildest accusations no real criticism. Each is familiar with that ancient child in the other who may erupt again. We are not ridiculous to ourselves. We are ageless. That is the luxury of the wedding ring.

A father is always making his baby into a little woman. And when she is a woman he turns her back again.