Convention was our safeguard: could one have stronger? Elizabeth Bowen More Quotes by Elizabeth Bowen More Quotes From Elizabeth Bowen Two things are terrible in childhood: helplessness (being in other people's power) and apprehension - the apprehension that something is being concealed from us because it is too bad to be told. Elizabeth Bowen childhood two people life is a succession of readjustments. Elizabeth Bowen succession change life-is One's sentiments -- call them that -- one's fidelities are so instinctive that one hardly knows they exist: only when they are betrayed or, worse still, when one betrays them does one realize their power. Elizabeth Bowen betrayed realizing doe No, it is not only our fate but our business to lose innocence, and once we have lost that, it is futile to attempt a picnic in Eden. Elizabeth Bowen picnics fate eden The writer, like a swimmer caught by an undertow, is borne in an unexpected direction. He is carried to a subject which has awaited him--a subject sometimes no part of his conscious plan. Reality, the reality of sensation, has accumulated where it was least sought. To write is to be captured--captured by some experience to which one may have given hardly a thought. Elizabeth Bowen writing may reality When I read a story, I relive the moment from which it sprang. A scene burned itself into me, a building magnetized me, a mood orseason of Nature's penetrated me, history suddenly appeared to me in some tiny act, or a face had begun to haunt me before I glanced at it. Elizabeth Bowen tiny stories live-in-the-moment Habit, of which passion must be wary, may all the same be the sweetest part of love. Elizabeth Bowen passion habit may After inside upheavals, it is important to fix on imperturbable things. Their imperturbableness, their air that nothing has happened renews our guarantee. Elizabeth Bowen important guarantees air Sacrificers are not the ones to pity. The ones to pity are those they sacrifice. Elizabeth Bowen pity sacrifice There is no doubt that sorrow brings one down in the world. The aristocratic privilege of silence belongs, you soon find out, to only the happy state- or, at least, to the state when pain keeps within bounds. Elizabeth Bowen pain silence doubt In big houses in which things are done properly, there is always the religious element. The diurnal cycle is observed with more feeling when there are servants to do the work. Elizabeth Bowen religious house feelings Grown-up people seem to be busy by clockwork... They run their unswerving course from object to object, directed by some mysterious inner needle that points all the time to what they must do next. You can only marvel at such misuse of time. Elizabeth Bowen time running people Princess Bibesco delighted in a semi-ideal world - a world which, though having a counterpart in her experience, was to a great extent brought into being by her own temperament and, one might say, flair. Elizabeth Bowen princess might world Though not all reading children grow up to be writers, I take it that most creative writers must in their day have been reading children. Elizabeth Bowen growing-up book children The child lives in the book; but just as much the book lives in the child. Elizabeth Bowen reading book children without fiction, either life would be insufficient or the winds from the north would blow too cold. Elizabeth Bowen blow wind book Have not all poetic truths been already stated? The essence of a poetic truth is that no statement of it can be final. Elizabeth Bowen poetic finals essence No object is mysterious. The mystery is in your eye. Elizabeth Bowen Art is the only thing that can go on mattering, once it has stopped hurting. Elizabeth Bowen Illusions are art, for the feeling person, and it is by art that you live, if you do. Elizabeth Bowen
