An audience proves its discipline by its capacity for stillness. Those who have never practiced continuous application to an exacting process cannot settle down to simple watching; they must chew gum, they must dig the peel off their oranges, they must shift from foot to foot, from buttock to buttock.

Rebecca West

Categorized in : Feet Simple Orange

God forbid that any book should be banned. The practice is as indefensible as infanticide.

Rebecca West

women sarcastic funny

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.

Rebecca West

girly time peace

Whatever happens, never forget that people would rather be led to perdition by a man, than to victory by a woman.

Rebecca West

victory men people

Literature must be an analysis of experience and a synthesis of the findings into a unity.

Rebecca West

unity analysis literature

The world is round and the place which may seem like the end may also be only the beginning.

Rebecca West

encouraging strength success

Motherhood is neither a duty nor a privilege, but simply the way that humanity can satisfy the desire for physical immortality and triumph over the fear of death.

Rebecca West

mom humanity mother

The trouble about man is twofold. He cannot learn truths which are too complicated; he forgets truths which are too simple.

Rebecca West

simple truth men

Any authentic work of art must start an argument between the artist and his audience.

Rebecca West

women criticism art

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

Rebecca West

idiot women differences

Writing has nothing to do with communication between person and person, only with communication between different parts of a person's mind.

Rebecca West

communication mind writing

Marriage had certain commercial advantages. By it the man secures the exclusive right to the woman's body and by it, the woman binds the man to support her during the rest of her life.... A more disgraceful bargain was never struck.

Rebecca West

support body men

It is the soul's duty to be loyal to its own desires. It must abandon itself to its master passion.

Rebecca West

passion destiny soul

Existence in itself, taken at its least miraculous, is a miracle.

Rebecca West

existence miracle taken

Motherhood is the strangest thing, it can be like being one's own Trojan horse.

Rebecca West

horse mother funny

You must always believe that life is as extraordinary as music says it is.

Rebecca West

extraordinary life believe

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

Rebecca West

cat bird peace

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

Rebecca West

struggle adventure life

Yes,” said Mamma, “this is the worst of life, that love does not give us common sense but is a sure way of losing it. We love people, and we say that we are going to do more for them than friendship, but it makes such fools of us that we do far less, indeed sometimes what we do could be mistaken for the work of hatred.

Rebecca West

common-sense giving people

Only part of us is sane: only part of us loves pleasure and the longer day of happiness, wants to live to our nineties and die in peace, in a house that we built, that shall shelter those who come after us. The other half of us is nearly mad. It prefers the disagreeable to the agreeable, loves pain and its darker night despair, and wants to die in a catastrophe that will set back life to its beginnings and leave nothing of our house save its blackened foundations.

Rebecca West

mad pain night

Art is not a luxury, but a necessity.

Rebecca West

art-is luxury art