Work is a dull thing; you cannot get away from that. The only agreeable existence is one of idleness, and that is not, unfortunately, always compatible with continuing to exist at all. Rose Macaulay More Quotes by Rose Macaulay More Quotes From Rose Macaulay Nothing, perhaps, is strange, once you have accepted life itself, the great strange business which includes all lesser strangeness. Rose Macaulay strangenessacceptedstrange It was a book to kill time for those who liked it better dead. Rose Macaulay agingtimebook So they left the subject and played croquet, which is a very good game for people who are annoyed with one another, giving many opportunities for venting rancor. Rose Macaulay gamesopportunitysports Nearly all novels are too long. Rose Macaulay novelliteraturelong A hot bath! How exquisite a vespertine pleasure, how luxurious, fervid and flagrant a consolation for the rigours, the austerities, the renunciations of the day. Rose Macaulay austerityfreedomhot Love's a disease. But curable. Rose Macaulay disease Sleeping in a bed -- it is, apparently, of immense importance. Against those who sleep, from choice or necessity, elsewhere society feels righteously hostile. It is not done. It is disorderly, anarchical. Rose Macaulay bedchoicessleep Cranks live by theory, not by pure desire. They want votes, peace, nuts, liberty, and spinning-looms not because they love these things, as a child loves jam, but because they think they ought to have them. That is one element which makes the crank. Rose Macaulay nutschildrenthinking You point out that war is only a symptom of the whole horrid business of human behavior, and cannot be isolated. And that, even if we abolish war, we shall not abolish hate and greed. So might it have been argued about slave emancipation, that slavery was but one aspect of human disgustingness, and that to abolish it would not end the barbarity that causes it. But did the abolitionists therefore waste their breath? And do we waste ours now in protesting against war? Rose Macaulay greedhatewar I seldom meet actors, they are to me bright strange fishes swimming in an element alien to me; I feel that to meet them is to See Life. Rose Macaulay swimmingelementsactors How agreeable to watch, from the other side of the high stile, this mighty creature, this fat bull of Bashan, snorting, champing, pawing the earth, lashing the tail, breathing defiance at heaven and at me ... his heart hot with hate, unable to climb a stile. Rose Macaulay breathinghateheart All sorts of articles and letters appear in the papers about women. Profound questions are raised concerning them. Should they smoke? Should they work? Vote? Marry? Exist? Are not their skirts too short, or their sleeves? Have they a sense of humor, of honor, of direction? Are spinsters superfluous? But how seldom similar inquiries are propounded about men. Rose Macaulay honormenprofound the position of women, that sad and well-nigh universal blot on civilizations, was never far from her mind. Rose Macaulay wellsmindcivilization Words move, turning over like tumbling clowns; like certain books and like fleas, they possess activity. All men equally have the right to say, 'This word shall bear this meaning,' and see if they can get it across. It is a sporting game, which all can play, only all cannot win. Rose Macaulay winningbookmoving Words, living and ghostly, the quick and the dead, crowd and jostle the otherwise too empty corridors of my mind ... To move among this bright, strange, often fabulous herd of beings, to summon them at my will, to fasten them on to paper like flies, that they may decorate it, this is the pleasure of writing. Rose Macaulay mindwritingmoving Giving is not at all interesting; but receiving is, there is no doubt about it, delightful. Rose Macaulay doubtgivinginteresting The manuscript may go forth from the writer to return with a faithfulness passing the faithfulness of the boomerang or the homing pigeon. Rose Macaulay pigeonsreturnmay Did you ever look through a microscope at a drop of pond water? You see plenty of love there. All the amoebae getting married. I presume they think it very exciting and important. We don't. Rose Macaulay importantwaterthinking Still I sojourn here, alone and palely loitering, though the sedge is withered from the lake and no birds sing. For I sent the bath towel to the wash this morning, and omitted to put out another. I have no towel. Rose Macaulay lakesmorningbird The poet has to make a synthesis out of the moral life of our time, and this life is lived at this moment on a political plane. Rose Macaulay moralpoliticalsynthesis
