I wish I could write librettos for the rest of my life. It is the purest of human pleasures, a heavenly hermaphroditism of being both writer and musician. No wonder that selfish beast Wagner kept it all to himself. Sylvia Townsend Warner More Quotes by Sylvia Townsend Warner More Quotes From Sylvia Townsend Warner It is best as one grows older to strip oneself of possessions, to shed oneself downward like a tree, to be almost wholly earth before one dies. Sylvia Townsend Warner possession earth tree The fatal flaw of gravity; when you are down, everything falls down on you. Sylvia Townsend Warner gravity flaws fall Truth has beauty, power, and necessity. Sylvia Townsend Warner truth To think of losing is to lose already. Sylvia Townsend Warner loses losing thinking One cannot overestimate the power of a good rancorous hatred on the part of the stupid. The stupid have so much more industry and energy to expend on hating. They build it up like coral insects. Sylvia Townsend Warner hate hatred stupid once, when I was a young lady and on a night express ... I was awakened by a man coming in from the corridor and taking hold of my leg ... Quite as much to my own astonishment as his, I uttered the most appalling growl that ever came out of a tigress. He fled, poor man, without a word: and I lay there, trembling slightly, not at my escape but at my potentialities. Sylvia Townsend Warner confidence men night The night was at her disposal. She might walk back to Great Mop and arrive very late; or she might sleep out and not trouble to arrive till to-morrow. Whichever she did Mrs Leak would not mind. That was one of the advantages of dealing with witches; they do not mind if you are a little odd in your ways, frown if you are late for meals, fret if you are out all night, pry and commiserate when at length you return. Lovely to be with people who prefer their thoughts to yours, lovely to live at your own sweet will, lovely to sleep out all night! Sylvia Townsend Warner sleep sweet love I seem to use this word 'kind' very frequently. When one is unhappy or anxious it is a quality one dwells on. Sylvia Townsend Warner quality unhappy kindness There is a period in one's life - perhaps not longer than six months - when one lives in two worlds at once ... It is the time when one has freshly learned to read. The Word, till then a denominating aspect of the Thing, has suddenly become detached from it and is perceived as a glittering entity, transparent and unseizable as a jellyfish, yet able to create an independent world that is both more recondite and more instantaneously convincing than the world one knew before. Sylvia Townsend Warner independent reading two And another day is tucked under my wing. Sylvia Townsend Warner another-day wings night Nine people out of ten (in Germany and England, perhaps ten people) would rather wait for their rights than fight for their rights. Sylvia Townsend Warner fighting change rights Young people are careless of their virginity; one day they may have it and the next not. Sylvia Townsend Warner one-day may people There is a moral, of course, and like all morals it is better not pursued. Sylvia Townsend Warner pursued courses moral Idleness is righteous if it is comfortable. Uncomfortable idleness is sin & sinful waste. Sylvia Townsend Warner leisure waste sin Love is the only real patriation, and without one's dear one sits in a dreary and boring exile. Sylvia Townsend Warner dear-ones real love-is One doesn’t become a witch to run around being helpful either…. It’s to escape all that – to have a life of one’s own, not an existence doled out to you by others, charitable refuse of their thoughts, so many ounces of stale bread of life a day. Sylvia Townsend Warner bread-of-life helpful running [John Craske] painted like a man giving witness under oath to a wild story. Sylvia Townsend Warner artist giving men I feel domesticity just slipping off me. It is a choice. Either one can let it go or one can intensify it. The people who intensify it seem to get quite a lot of interest out of that, too, and are as preoccupied as pirates. Sylvia Townsend Warner pirate choices people London life was very full and exciting [...] But in London there would be no greenhouse with a glossy tank, and no apple-room, and no potting-shed, earthy and warm, with bunches of poppy heads hanging from the ceiling, and sunflower seeds in a wooden box, and bulbs in thick paper bags, and hanks of tarred string, and lavender drying on a tea-tray. Sylvia Townsend Warner sunflower apples tea Happiness is an immunity. Sylvia Townsend Warner immunity happiness
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