Quotes by Rebecca West

“I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is; I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat”

“It is the souls duty to be loyal to its own desires. It must abandon itself to its master passion.”

“I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat or a prostitute.”

“Writing has nothing to do with communication between person and person, only with communication between different parts of a persons mind.”

“There is no such thing as conversation. It is an illusion. There are intersecting monologues, that is all.”

“Did St. Francis preach to the birds? Whatever for? If he really liked birds he would have done better to preach to the cats.”

“Journalism is the ability to meet the challenge of filling space.”

“Life ought to be a struggle of desire toward adventures whose nobility will fertilize the soul.”

“The main difference between men and women is that men are lunatics and women are idiots.”

“If the whole human race lay in one grave, the epitaph on its headstone might well be: It seemed a good idea at the time.”

“She saw she had fallen into the hands of one of those doctors who have strayed too far from apparent in the direction of the soul.”

“There is no wider gulf in the universe than yawns between those on the hither and thither side of vital experience.”

“Great music is in a sense serene; it is certain of the values it asserts.”

“But there are other things than dissipation that thicken the features. Tears, for example.”

“Now different races and nationalities cherish different ideals of society that stink in each others nostrils with an offensiveness beyond the power of any but the most monstrous private deed.”

“The fear of life which is the beginning of all evil....”

“Right now, the water just looks dirty, but it is safe.”

“Humanity is never more sphinxlike than when it is expressing itself”

“A copy of the universe is not what is required of art; one of the damned things is ample.”

“She was like the embodiment of all women who have felt an astonished protest because their children have died before them.”