I wonder if we are all wrong about each other, if we are just composing unwritten novels about the people we meet? Rebecca West More Quotes by Rebecca West More Quotes From Rebecca West Reason's a thing we dimly see in sleep. Rebecca West reasonsleep All gambling is the telling of a fortune, but of a monstrously depleted fortune, empty of everything save one numerical circumstance, shorn of all such richness as a voyage across the water, a fair man that loves you, a dark woman that means you harm. Rebecca West darklove-youmean I've never been able to do just one draft. That seems a wonderful thing. Do you know anyone who can? Rebecca West ableknowswonderful But once a culture develops sufficiently to become skeptical, the idea of censorship becomes less attractive. To suppress a book or a picture or a sculpture or a play or a film is a terrible act of aggression against the artist who created it. This is a miming of capital punishment; it destroys the life that has been emanated by a life. Rebecca West punishmentartistbook For the sake of my country, and perhaps a little for the sake of my soul, I have given up the deep peace of being in opposition. Rebecca West soullittlescountry When anything important has to be written ... I think your hand concentrates for you. Rebecca West importanthandsthinking I do not myself find it agreeable to be 90, and I cannot imagine why it should seem so to other people. It is not that you have any fears about your own death, it is that your upholstery is already dead around you. Rebecca West upholsteryimaginepeople After any disturbance (such as two world wars coinciding with a period of growing economic and monetary incomprehensibility) we find our old concepts inadequate and look for new ones. But it unfortunately happens that the troubled times which produce an appetite for new ideas are the least propitious for clear thinking. Rebecca West warideasthinking Behind it was that vast suspension bridge which always troubles me because it reminds me that in this mechanized age I am as little able to understand my environment as any primitive woman who thinks that a waterfall is inhabited by a spirit, and indeed less so, for her opinion might from a poetical point of view be correct. Rebecca West bridgesviewsthinking I have never been able to write with anything more than the left hand of my mind; the right hand has always been engaged in something to do with personal relationships. I don't complain, because I think my left hand's power, as much as it has, is due to its knowledge of what my right hand is doing. Rebecca West writinghandsthinking I do not think women understand how repelled a man feels when he sees a woman wholly absorbed in what she is thinking, unless it is about her child, or her husband, or her lover. It ... gives one gooseflesh. Rebecca West husbandmenchildren Idiocy is the female defect ... It is no worse than the male defect, which is lunacy. Rebecca West idiocymalesfemale Unhappy people are dangerous. Rebecca West unhappinessunhappypeople There was too much hatred in the world; it was manifestly as dangerous as gunpowder, yet people let it lie about, in the way of ignition. Rebecca West hatelyingpeople To make laws is a human instinct that arises as soon as food and shelter have been ensured, among all peoples, everywhere. Rebecca West shelterinstinctlaw music is a missionary effort to colonize earth for imperialistic heaven. Rebecca West effortmusicheaven Where there is real love one wants to go to church first. Rebecca West churchrealwant Music is part of human life and partakes of the human tragedy. There is much more music in the world than is allowed to change into heard sounds and prove its point. Rebecca West musictragedysound If I do not do sensible things about investments I shall spend my old age in a workhouse, where nobody will understand my jokes. Rebecca West investmentagesensible The mind is its own enemy, that fights itself with the innumerable pliant and ineluctable arms of the octopus. Rebecca West octopusfightingmind
