Rebecca West Quotes - Page 2

Quotes about:

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

  Rebecca West

  Unity, Analysis, Literature

  22 Copy quote

• The day was so delightful that I wished one could live slowly as one can play music slowly.

  Rebecca West

  Play, Delightful

  Rebecca West (2010). “The Fountain Overflows”, p.288, Open Road Media

  4 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)

  16 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

  22 Copy quote

• Motherhood is the strangest thing, it can be like being one's own Trojan horse.

  Rebecca West

  Funny, Mother, Horse

  Letter on August 20, 1959. "Rebecca West: A Life". Book by Victoria Glendinning. Part 5, Chapter 8, p. 206, 1987.

  72 Copy quote

• I really write to find out what I know about something and what is to be known about something.

  Rebecca West

  Writing, Knows, Known

  6 Copy quote

• Music is part of human life and partakes of the human tragedy. There is much more music in the world than is allowed to change into heard sounds and prove its point.

  Rebecca West

  Music, Tragedy, Sound

  Rebecca West (2010). “Family Memories: An Autobiographical Journey”, p.171, Open Road Media

  4 Copy quote

• I do not think women understand how repelled a man feels when he sees a woman wholly absorbed in what she is thinking, unless it is about her child, or her husband, or her lover. It ... gives one gooseflesh.

  Rebecca West

  Children, Husband, Men

  4 Copy quote

• A strong hatred is the best lamp to bear in our hands as we go over the dark places of life, cutting away the dead things men tell us to revere.

  Rebecca West

  Strong, Hate, Cutting

  Rebecca West, Jane Marcus (1982). “The Young Rebecca: Writings of Rebecca West, 1911-17”, New York : Viking Press

  9 Copy quote

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

  Rebecca West

  Book, Ideas, Numbers

  4 Copy quote

• I am not so repelled by Communism: an element of Communism in politics is necessary and inevitable. In any involved society there must be a feeling that something must be done about poverty - which is the basis of communism.

  Rebecca West

  Feelings, Elements, Done

  5 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

  10 Copy quote

• Unhappy people are dangerous.

  Rebecca West

  People, Unhappy, Unhappiness

  Rebecca West (2010). “The Judge”, p.231, Open Road Media

  8 Copy quote

• When we choose a god we choose one as much like ourselves as possible, or even more so!

  Rebecca West

  God

  5 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”

  21 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

  12 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

  19 Copy quote

• We think in youth that our bodies are identical to ourselves and have the same interests, but discover later in life that they are heartless companions who have been accidentally yoked with us, and who are as likely as not, in our extreme sickness or old age, to treat us with less mercy than we would have received at the hands of the worst bandits.

  Rebecca West

  Thinking, Later In Life, Hands

  Rebecca West (2010). “Black Lamb and Grey Falcon: A Journey Through Yugoslavia”, p.382, Open Road Media

  4 Copy quote

• Because hypocrisy stinks in the nostrils one is likely to rate it as a more powerful agent for destruction than it is.

  Rebecca West

  Powerful, Hypocrite, Hypocrisy

  Rebecca West (2010). “The Strange Necessity: Essays and Reviews”, p.175, Open Road Media

  8 Copy quote

• Submission to poverty is the unpardonable sin against the body. Submission to unhappiness is the unpardonable sin against the spirit.

  Rebecca West

  Body, Poverty, Spirit

  Rebecca West (2011). “The Young Rebecca: Writings of Rebecca West 1911-17”, p.42, Open Road Media

  5 Copy quote

• art is at least in part a way of collecting information about the universe.

  Rebecca West

  Art, Information, Way

  Rebecca West (2010). “The Strange Necessity: Essays and Reviews”, p.52, Open Road Media

  4 Copy quote

• The earth itself is slightly resistant to routine.

  Rebecca West

  Routine, Earth

  5 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

  4 Copy quote

• Once a secret society establishes itself within an open society, there is no end to the hideous mistrust it must cause.

  Rebecca West

  Secret, Causes, Ends

  The New Meaning of Treason (1966). West here was referring to the work of Communists seeking to undermine democracies.

  13 Copy quote

• It is astonishing how the human animal survives its misfortunes.

  Rebecca West

  Animal, Survival, Humans

  4 Copy quote

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