Rosamond Lehmann Quotes

• A writer works from the material she has, but it comes from the unconscious. Everything is stored up and one never knows what comes up to the surface at a given moment. A period of gestation is certainly needed, what Wordsworth called ‘emotion recollected in tranquility.’ You cannot write about an experience when you are living it, suffering it. You are too busy surviving to look at it objectively. At least I can’t.

  Rosamond Lehmann

  Writing, Gestation Period, Suffering

  12 Copy quote

• One can present people with opportunities. One cannot make them equal to them.

  Rosamond Lehmann

  Opportunity, People, Equal

  Rosamond Lehmann (1975). “The ballad and the source”, Harvest Books

  8 Copy quote

• anything that becomes a cult, or a mass movement, loses its moral and spiritual value. The crusade has to be personal, individual. As soon as it becomes collective it loses its purpose.

  Rosamond Lehmann

  Change, Spiritual, Purpose

  8 Copy quote

• when two people unite, kindness must be mutual, or shocking things will happen.

  Rosamond Lehmann

  Kindness, Two, People

  Rosamond Lehmann (1975). “The ballad and the source”, Harvest Books

  6 Copy quote

• Convention is another name for the habits of society.

  Rosamond Lehmann

  Names, Habit, Conventions

  Rosamond Lehmann (1975). “The ballad and the source”, Harvest Books

  5 Copy quote

• But poetry is not to be lived, except for the few to whom it is more important than self-preservation.

  Rosamond Lehmann

  Self, Poetry, Important

  Rosamond Lehmann (1975). “The ballad and the source”, Harvest Books

  4 Copy quote

• How long, I wonder, will ignorance spell purity and knowledge shame?

  Rosamond Lehmann

  Ignorance, Long, Wonder

  Rosamond Lehmann (1975). “The ballad and the source”, Harvest Books

  5 Copy quote

• Looking back into childhood is like looking into a semi-transparent globe within which people and places lie embedded. A shake - and they stir, rise up, circle in inter-weaving groups, then settle down again.

  Rosamond Lehmann

  Lying, Past, Circles

  Rosamond Lehmann (1975). “The ballad and the source”, Harvest Books

  6 Copy quote

• Advice to Young Journal Keepers. Be lenient with yourself. Conceal your worst faults, leave out your most shameful thoughts, actions, and temptations. Give yourself all the good and interesting qualities you want and haven't got. If you should die young, what comfort would it be to your relatives to read the truth and have to say: It is not a pearl we have lost, but a swine?

  Rosamond Lehmann

  Giving, Interesting, Advice

  Rosamond Lehmann (2012). “Invitation To The Waltz”, p.55, Hachette UK

  4 Copy quote

• In a corner of the churchyard grew a plantation of white violets, enormously plump and prosperous-looking. ... I saw the dead stretched out under me in the earth, feeding these flowers with a thin milk drawn from their bones.

  Rosamond Lehmann

  Flower, White, Saws

  Rosamond Lehmann (1975). “The ballad and the source”, Harvest Books

  6 Copy quote

• One should always act from one's inner sense of rhythm.

  Rosamond Lehmann

  Should, Rhythm

  4 Copy quote

• The novel will never die, but it will keep changing and evolving and taking different shapes.

  Rosamond Lehmann

  Different, Shapes, Novel

  4 Copy quote

• People have been saying the novel is dead for as far back as I can remember. The novel will never die, but it will keep changing and evolving and taking different shapes. Storytelling, which is the basis of the novel, has always existed and always will.

  Rosamond Lehmann

  People, Different, Shapes

  4 Copy quote

• One must have the humility and the imagination to honor all deep human experiences - not least those one has never come near to sharing.

  Rosamond Lehmann

  Respect, Humility, Imagination

  5 Copy quote

• [On Ian Fleming:] The trouble with Ian is that he gets off with women because he can't get on with them.

  Rosamond Lehmann

  Men, Trouble

  5 Copy quote

• It's the thought that counts.

  Rosamond Lehmann

  Thinking

  "Legion of Super-Heroes". Adventure Comics v2, 2009.

  4 Copy quote

• Holidays, if you enjoy them, have no history.

  Rosamond Lehmann

  Holiday, Enjoy, Ifs

  Rosamond Lehmann (1932). “A letter to a sister”

  5 Copy quote

• I have decided to keep a record of my inmost real-self thoughts. Perhaps it will help me to find out what I really am like: horrid, I know: selfish, conceited, and material-minded. For instance, lately whenever I've tried to concentrate on anything serious or beautiful, I've started thinking about the Spencers' dance next week. I am ashamed of my pettiness. I'm going to try to do better this year--develop my character more and not always be thinking about enjoying myself. I've always been so happy, I dread disappointment and unhappiness, but they would be good for me. But I don't want them.

  Rosamond Lehmann

  Beautiful, Disappointment, Selfish

  4 Copy quote

You May Also Like:

Elizabeth Bowen

Vita Sackville-West

E. M. Delafield

Rose Macaulay

Cecil Day-Lewis

Winifred Holtby

Ivy Compton-Burnett

Dorothy Richardson