Mary Wesley Quotes

• We're all like children. We may think we grow up, but to me, being grown up is death, stopping thinking, trying to find out things, going on learning.

  Mary Wesley

  Children, Growing Up, Thinking

  4 Copy quote

• Of course risk-taking does not always pay off, but it's a lot of fun!

  Mary Wesley

  Fun, Risk, Doe

  4 Copy quote

• Unimaginative people are spared quite a lot.

  Mary Wesley

  People

  6 Copy quote

• Unimaginative people are spared quite a lot. They're often much happier, because they don't go through all the variety of conceptions of the person they love.

  Mary Wesley

  People, Persons, Conception

  7 Copy quote

• In my eighties, my best friends are in their fifties, and I have many friends at university. It keeps one young, and up with the vocabulary. That's terribly important, especially for a writer.

  Mary Wesley

  Friends, Vocabulary, Important

  5 Copy quote

• I always read that men don't like intelligent girls, but I've always found the reverse.

  Mary Wesley

  Girl, Intelligent, Men

  7 Copy quote

• That image of the countryside being a threatening place still exists. People continue to resist the challenge of learning about aspects of life they don't understand.

  Mary Wesley

  People, Challenges, Threatening

  8 Copy quote

• They may turn out to be a great disappointment, or perhaps they may be full of enchanting surprises.

  Mary Wesley

  Disappointment, May, Surprise

  22 Copy quote

• We all lie to each other, present some sort of front.

  Mary Wesley

  Lying, Fronts

  4 Copy quote

• A lot of people stop short. They don't actually die but they say, 'Right I'm old, and I'm going to retire,' and then they dwindle into nothing. They go off to Florida and become jolly boring.

  Mary Wesley

  Florida, People, Boring

  4 Copy quote

• Imagination which comes into play in falling in love is different from any other. Certainly in my case, and I've fallen in love all my life, one imagines the person to be as you want them to be. They frequently turn out to be someone different, for better or worse.

  Mary Wesley

  Falling In Love, Love Is, Play

  7 Copy quote

• My father was a soldier and my mother was a great mover. She once counted up how many places she had lived in during the first 25 years of her marriage and it came to 20.

  Mary Wesley

  Marriage, Mother, Father

  5 Copy quote

• People try much less hard to make a marriage work than they used to fifty years ago. Divorce is easier.

  Mary Wesley

  Marriage, Divorce, Years

  7 Copy quote

• It seemed sensible to move to a market town where I could walk everywhere.

  Mary Wesley

  Moving, Towns, Sensible

  4 Copy quote

• I never really know the title of a book until it's finished.

  Mary Wesley

  Book, Titles, Knows

  4 Copy quote

• I have deliberately left Sylvester and Julia's appearances to the reader's imagination.

  Mary Wesley

  Imagination, Appearance, Reader

  4 Copy quote

• I was sent to a finishing school, which didn't last long when mother found out how badly chaperoned we were. Then I 'came out' before going to a domestic science school.

  Mary Wesley

  Mother, School, Science

  8 Copy quote

• I don't write for any particular kind of person.

  Mary Wesley

  Writing, Kind, Persons

  4 Copy quote

• Rebecca is an example of how not to manage men. The rules of the game never change, it requires subtlety.

  Mary Wesley

  Change, Men, Games

  7 Copy quote

• My first husband would never make up his mind in less than five years, so I used to get him to think that whatever course of action needed to be taken was his idea. Then he'd go right ahead.

  Mary Wesley

  Husband, Taken, Thinking

  4 Copy quote

• Women's courage is rather different from men's. The fact that women have to bring up children and look after husbands makes them braver at facing long-term issues, such as illness. Men are more immediately courageous. Lots of people are brave in battle.

  Mary Wesley

  Courage, Children, Husband

  8 Copy quote

• Twenty years ago, I was living in a lovely cottage on the edge of Dartmoor but I couldn't afford to run a car.

  Mary Wesley

  Running, Years, Car

  8 Copy quote

• I have a garden, and I'm passionately interested in young people.

  Mary Wesley

  Garden, People, Young

  6 Copy quote

• I found out only recently that we were making an index of enemy code signs.

  Mary Wesley

  Enemy, Found, Code

  4 Copy quote

• I remember the evacuee children from towns and cities throwing stones at the farm animals. When we explained that if you did that you wouldnt have any milk, meat or eggs, they soon learned to respect the animals.

  Mary Wesley

  Respect, Children, Animal

  8 Copy quote

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