Rebecca West Quotes

Quotes about:

• I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is: I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat.

  Rebecca West

  Girly, Time, Peace

  The Clarion, 14 Nov. 1913

  78 Copy quote

• God forbid that any book should be banned. The practice is as indefensible as infanticide.

  Rebecca West

  Funny, Sarcastic, Women

  The Strange Necessity (1928) "The Tosh Horse"

  90 Copy quote

• The world is round and the place which may seem like the end may also be only the beginning.

  Rebecca West

  Strength, Success, Encouraging

  27 Copy quote

• Whatever happens, never forget that people would rather be led to perdition by a man, than to victory by a woman.

  Rebecca West

  Men, People, Victory

  20 Copy quote

• There is, of course, no reason for the existence of the male sex except that one sometimes needs help with moving the piano.

  Rebecca West

  Sex, Moving, Men

  5 Copy quote

• No great thing happens suddenly.

  Rebecca West

  Change, Great Things, Happens

  Rebecca West (1982). “The young Rebecca: writings of Rebecca West, 1911-17”, Not Avail

  5 Copy quote

• The trouble about man is twofold. He cannot learn truths which are too complicated; he forgets truths which are too simple.

  Rebecca West

  Truth, Simple, Men

  Rebecca West (2011). “The Meaning of Treason”, p.426, Open Road Media

  24 Copy quote

• Idiocy is the female defect ... It is no worse than the male defect, which is lunacy.

  Rebecca West

  Males, Female, Idiocy

  Rebecca West (2010). “Black Lamb and Grey Falcon: A Journey Through Yugoslavia”, p.7, Open Road Media

  9 Copy quote

• Art is not a luxury, but a necessity.

  Rebecca West

  Art, Luxury, Art Is

  Rebecca West (2010). “The Strange Necessity: Essays and Reviews”, p.110, Open Road Media

  10 Copy quote

• The main difference between men and women is that men are lunatics and women are idiots.

  Rebecca West

  Women, Differences, Idiot

  60 Copy quote

• You must always believe that life is as extraordinary as music says it is.

  Rebecca West

  Life, Believe, Extraordinary

  Rebecca West (2010). “The Fountain Overflows”, p.153, Open Road Media

  17 Copy quote

• Nobody ever wrote a good book simply by collecting a number of accurate facts and valid ideas.

  Rebecca West

  Book, Ideas, Numbers

  3 Copy quote

• Did St. Francis preach to the birds? Whatever for? If he really liked birds he would have done better to preach to the cats.

  Rebecca West

  Peace, Cat, Bird

  Rebecca West (2012). “The Saga of the Century: The Fountain Overflows, This Real Night, and Cousin Rosamund”, p.491, Open Road Media

  15 Copy quote

• Writing has nothing to do with communication between person and person, only with communication between different parts of a person's mind.

  Rebecca West

  Communication, Writing, Mind

  21 Copy quote

• Literature must be an analysis of experience and a synthesis of the findings into a unity.

  Rebecca West

  Unity, Analysis, Literature

  20 Copy quote

• All our Western thought is founded on this repulsive pretence that pain is the proper price of any good thing.

  Rebecca West

  Pain, Good Things, Western

  Rebecca West (2010). “Black Lamb and Grey Falcon: A Journey Through Yugoslavia”, p.474, Open Road Media

  3 Copy quote

• Existence in itself, taken at its least miraculous, is a miracle.

  Rebecca West

  Taken, Miracle, Existence

  Rebecca West (1982). “Black lamb and grey falcon: a journey through Yugoslavia”, Penguin (Non-Classics)

  17 Copy quote

• Any authentic work of art must start an argument between the artist and his audience.

  Rebecca West

  Art, Women, Criticism

  Rebecca West (1957). “The Court and the Castle: Some Treatments of a Recurrent Theme /$Rebecca West”

  19 Copy quote

• Marriage had certain commercial advantages. By it the man secures the exclusive right to the woman's body and by it, the woman binds the man to support her during the rest of her life.... A more disgraceful bargain was never struck.

  Rebecca West

  Men, Support, Body

  18 Copy quote

• There is in every one of us an unending see-saw between the will to live and the will to die.

  Rebecca West

  Suicidal, Saws, Unending

  Rebecca West (1928). “The strange necessity: essays by Rebecca West”

  7 Copy quote

• There is no such thing as conversation. It is an illusion. There are intersecting monologues, that is all.

  Rebecca West

  Communication, Language, Illusion

  The Harsh Voice "There Is No Conversation" (1935)

  12 Copy quote

• ... when the Spaniards persecuted heretics they may have been crude, but they were not being unreasonable or unpractical. They were at least wiser than the people of to-day who pretend that it does not matter what a man believes, as who should say that the flavour and digestibility of a pudding will have nothing to do with its ingredients.

  Rebecca West

  Believe, Men, Ideas

  Rebecca West (1928). “The strange necessity: essays by Rebecca West”

  6 Copy quote

• Only part of us is sane: only part of us loves pleasure and the longer day of happiness, wants to live to our nineties and die in peace, in a house that we built, that shall shelter those who come after us. The other half of us is nearly mad. It prefers the disagreeable to the agreeable, loves pain and its darker night despair, and wants to die in a catastrophe that will set back life to its beginnings and leave nothing of our house save its blackened foundations.

  Rebecca West

  Pain, Night, Mad

  Rebecca West (2010). “Black Lamb and Grey Falcon: A Journey Through Yugoslavia”, p.818, Open Road Media

  17 Copy quote

• Hatred of domestic work is a natural and admirable result of civilization. ... The first thing a woman does when she gets a little money into her hands is to hire some other poor wretch to do her housework.

  Rebecca West

  Hands, Civilization, Hatred

  Rebecca West (1982). “The young Rebecca: writings of Rebecca West, 1911-17”, Not Avail

  3 Copy quote

• I find to my astonishment that an unhappy marriage goes on being unhappy when it is over.

  Rebecca West

  Divorce, Unhappy, Happy Marriage

  11 Copy quote

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