Most people's first books are their best anyways. It's the one they wanted most to write. Josephine Tey More Quotes by Josephine Tey More Quotes From Josephine Tey The truth of anything at all doesn't lie in someone's account of it. It lies in all the small facts of the time. An advertisement in a paper, the sale of a house, the price of a ring. Josephine Tey paperhouselying Horse sense is the instinct that keeps horses from betting on men. Josephine Tey gamblinghorsemen It is the utterly destructive quality. When you say vanity, you are thinking of the kind that admires itself in mirrors and buys things to deck itself out in. But that is merely personal conceit. Real vanity is something quite different. A matter not of person but of personality. Vanity says, "I must have this because I am me." It is a frightening thing because it is incurable. Josephine Tey vanityrealthinking Nothing great ever came out of common sense. Josephine Tey common-sensecommon The trouble with you, dear, is that you think an angel of the Lord as a creature with wings, whereas he is probably a scruffy little man with a bowler hat. Josephine Tey angelmenthinking You can't have a tin can tied to your tail and go through life pretending it isn't there. Josephine Tey tin-cansdenialtails A man may own a ship, but unless he is captain of a crew he goes where the ship goes. Josephine Tey independencemaymen It is not possible to love and be wise. Josephine Tey being-wisewisdomwise Truth isn’t in accounts but in account-books. Josephine Tey accountstruth-isbook Nothing in this world came out of satisfaction. Except the human race. Josephine Tey satisfactionraceworld If you think about the unthinkable long enough it becomes quite reasonable. Josephine Tey enoughlongthinking One would expect boredom to be a great yawning emotion, but it isn't, of course. It's a small niggling thing. Josephine Tey yawningboredomemotion It was pleasant to talk shop again; to use that elliptical, allusive speech that one uses only with another of one's trade. Josephine Tey jargonspeechuse Nothing puts things in perspective as quickly as a mountain. Josephine Tey mountainperspective The worst of pushing horrible things down into one's subconscious is that when they pop up again they are as fresh as if they had been in a refrigerator. You haven't allowed time to get at them to-to mould them over a little. Josephine Tey pushingmindlittles Weak people can be very stubborn. Josephine Tey stubbornweaknesspeople I expect this is what death is like when you meet it. Sort of wildly unfair but inevitable. Josephine Tey inevitableunfair Letterwriting is the natural outlet of the "odds." The busy-bodies, the idle, the perverted, the cranks, the feel-it-my-duties ... Also the plain depraved. They all write letters. It's their safe outlet, you see. They can be as interfering, as long-winded, as obscene, as pompous, as one-idea'd, as they like on paper, and no one can kick them for it. So they write. My God, how they write! Josephine Tey oddswritingideas In hospitals there is no time off for good behavior. Josephine Tey good-behaviorhospitalsbehavior That was the way with grief: it left you alone for months together until you thought that you were cured, and then without warning it blotted out the sunlight. Josephine Tey griefwarningtogether
