Money is a jealous mistress If you want money you must want only money. ... I must tell you the one secret of life, there is only one: everything is a jealous mistress, everything is terribly possessive, and, by God, we want to be terribly possessed if we want to get somewhere - and we want to be terribly possessed - anyhow; or what is life?

Christina Stead

Categorized in : Money Passion Jealous

No rich man is a patriot, no rich man is a friend. They have all only got one fatherland the Ritz-Carlton; and one friend the mistress they're promising to divorce their wives for.

Christina Stead

divorce wife men

If all the rich people in the world divided up their money among themselves, there wouldn't be enough to go around.

Christina Stead

money business people

The waste, the insane freaks of these money men, the cynicism and egotism of their life... I'll show that they are not brilliant, not romantic, not delightful, not intelligent.

Christina Stead

intelligent men art

You want to be free and break new ground, speak your mind, fear no man, have the neighbours acknowledge that you're a good man; and at the same time you want to be a success, make money, join the country club, get the votes and kick the other man in the teeth and off the ladder.

Christina Stead

ambition success country

Creation of something out of nothing is the most primitive of human passions and the most optimistic

Christina Stead

optimistic creation passion

About myself - no. I'm unimportant, an observer, a wandering animal.

Christina Stead

wander animal art

The sensuality, delicacy of literature does not exist for me; only the passion, energy and struggle… Most of my friends deplore this: they are always telling me what I should leave out in order to have success. But I know that nothing has more success in the end than an intelligent ferocity.

Christina Stead

passion intelligent struggle

Radicalism is the opium of the middle class.

Christina Stead

radicalism middle class

Love is feared: it dissolves society, it's unpopular, and it's very rare.

Christina Stead

fear love-is

I don't know what imagination is, if not an unpruned, tangled kind of memory.

Christina Stead

tangled imagination memories

Each Australian is a Ulysses.

Christina Stead

ulysses australian australia

Gentlemen are overestimated, that is my experience.

Christina Stead

gentleman men

Intuition is not infallible; it only seems to be the truth. It is a message which we may interpret wrongly.

Christina Stead

intuition messages may

Charm is a cunning self-forgetfulness.

Christina Stead

forgetfulness charm self

Money has no country.

Christina Stead

money country

It is a rule of creative ability that it does nothing of any value, while it is possessed by this afflatus of vanity.

Christina Stead

vanity creativity creative

I know your breed; all your fine officials debauch the younger girls who are afraid to lose their jobs: that's as old as Washington.

Christina Stead

girl jobs art

Money goes where money is, money yearns where money is.

Christina Stead

money

When people are collecting gold they aren't doing business. ... Gold is constipation: even bankruptcy is more fluid. Gold isn't wealth: positions in markets are wealth.

Christina Stead

money gold people

A woman can't be, until a girl dies. . . . I mean the sprites that girls are, so different from us, all their fancies, their illusions, their flower world, the dreams they live in.

Christina Stead

women girl dream