Rebecca West Quotes - Page 5

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Hatred of domestic work is a natural and admirable result of civilization.

Rebecca West

Home, Civilization, House

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

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Neurotics, who cause less distress to themselves and their neighbours than those in the other category, are at war with their own natures. Their right hands are in conflict with their left. Psychotics, and it is those who commit purposeless crimes and prefer death to life, are at war with their environment. Right and left hands strike against the womb that carries them.

Rebecca West

War, Hands, Psychology

Rebecca West (1952). “The meaning of treason”

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works of art feel towards human beings exactly as we do towards ghosts. The transparency of spectres, the diffuseness in space which lets them drift through doors and walls, and their smell of death, disgust us not more than we disgust works of art by our meaninglessness, our diffuseness in time which lets us drift through three score years and ten without a quarter as much significance as a picture establishes instantaneously.

Rebecca West

Art, Wall, Doors

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the bad is more easily perceived than the good. A fresh lobster does not give such pleasure to the consumer as a stale one will give him pain.

Rebecca West

Pain, Evil, Giving

Rebecca West (2010). “A Train of Powder”, p.62, Open Road Media

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But just as it sometimes happens that the most temperate people, who have never acquired the habit of drinking alcohol, or even a taste for it, are tormented by the fear that somehow or other they will one day find themselves drunk, so Isabelle perpetually feared that she might be betrayed into an impulsive act that was destructive to such order as reason had imposed on life. Therefore she was forever running her faculty of analysis over in her mind with the preposterous zeal of an adolescent running a razor over his beardless chin.

Rebecca West

Running, Drinking, Order

Rebecca West (2010). “The Thinking Reed”, p.8, Open Road Media

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Economists are like Aeolian harps, and the sounds that issue from them are determined by the winds that blow.

Rebecca West

Blow, Wind, Issues

Rebecca West (2011). “Survivors in Mexico”, p.20, Open Road Media

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... it is nearly impossible to understand those who are beyond our sight, who are not explained to us by ties of birth or the contact of the flesh.

Rebecca West

Sight, Ties, Understanding

Rebecca West (2010). “The Strange Necessity: Essays and Reviews”, p.149, Open Road Media

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After any disturbance (such as two world wars coinciding with a period of growing economic and monetary incomprehensibility) we find our old concepts inadequate and look for new ones. But it unfortunately happens that the troubled times which produce an appetite for new ideas are the least propitious for clear thinking.

Rebecca West

War, Thinking, Ideas

"The Annual Obituary 1983". Book edited by Elizabeth Devine and Marion Stoker Morgan, p. 143, 1984.

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All men should have a drop of treason in their veins, if nations are not to go soft like so many sleepy pears.

Rebecca West

Sleep, Men, Should Have

Rebecca West (2010). “The New Meaning of Treason”, p.182, Open Road Media

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I see the main problem of my life, and indeed anybody's life, as the balancing of competitive freedoms ... a sense of mutual obligations that have to be honored, and a legal system which can be trusted to step in when that sense fails.

Rebecca West

Justice, Legal System, Steps

Rebecca West (2005). “Woman as Artist and Thinker”, p.40, iUniverse

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... there has never been a period in history when there have been necessary killings which has not been instantly followed by a period when there have been unnecessary killings.

Rebecca West

History, Unnecessary, Killing

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

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Nobody likes having salt rubbed into their wounds, even if it is the salt of the earth.

Rebecca West

Respect, Earth, Likes

Rebecca West (1977). “Rebecca West, a celebration”, Viking Adult

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Domesticity is essentially drama, for drama is conflict, and the home compels conflict by its concentration of active personalities in a small area. The real objection to domesticity is that it is too exciting.

Rebecca West

Real, Drama, Home

Rebecca West (1982). “The Young Rebecca: Writings of Rebecca West, 1911-17”

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There was too much hatred in the world; it was manifestly as dangerous as gunpowder, yet people let it lie about, in the way of ignition.

Rebecca West

Hate, Lying, People

Rebecca West (2010). “The Thinking Reed”, p.180, Open Road Media

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Writers on the subject of August Strindberg have hitherto omitted to mention that he could not write. ... Strindberg, who was neither a good nor a wise man, had a stroke of luck. He went mad. He lost the power of inhibition. Everything down to the pettiest suspicion that the dog had been given the leanest mutton chop, poured out of his lips. Men of his weakness and sensuality are usually, from their sheer brutishness, unable to express themselves. But Strindberg was mad and articulate. That is what makes him immortal.

Rebecca West

Wise, Dog, Writing

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Humanity is never more sphinxlike than when it is expressing itself.

Rebecca West

Humanity

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

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Human beings are mercifully so constituted as to be able to conceal from themselves what they intend to do until they are well into the doing of it.

Rebecca West

Able, Wells, Humans

Rebecca West (2011). “The Meaning of Treason”, p.148, Open Road Media

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If the poor ever feel poor as the rich do, we will have a most bloody revolution.

Rebecca West

Revolution, Wealth, Rich

Rebecca West (2010). “The Thinking Reed”, p.263, Open Road Media

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Like all bad drivers, he [Henry Andrews] thought he was the best driver in the world...

Rebecca West

Husband, World, Andrew

"Rebecca West, The Art of Fiction No. 65". Interview with Marina Warner, www.theparisreview.org. 1981.

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Mr. James Joyce is a great man who is entirely without taste.

Rebecca West

Men, Taste, Great Men

Rebecca West (2010). “The Strange Necessity: Essays and Reviews”, p.4, Open Road Media

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Journalism: an ability to meet the challenge of filling the space.

Rebecca West

Space, Challenges, Journalism

New York Herald Tribune 22 Apr. 1956, sec. 6, p. 2

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It appears that even the different parts of the same person do not converse among themselves, do not succeed in learning from each other what are their desires and their intentions.

Rebecca West

Desire, Different, Succeed

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sentences were used by man before words and still come with the readiness of instinct to his lips. They, and not words, are the foundations of all language. ... Your cat has no words, but it has considerable feeling for the architecture of the sentence in relation to the problem of expressing climax.

Rebecca West

Cat, Men, Feelings

Rebecca West (2010). “The Strange Necessity: Essays and Reviews”, p.13, Open Road Media

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History sometimes acts as madly as heredity, and her most unpredictable performances are often her most glorious.

Rebecca West

History, Sometimes, Heredity

Rebecca West (2010). “Black Lamb and Grey Falcon: A Journey Through Yugoslavia”, p.97, Open Road Media

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It isn't only living people who die, it is great stretches of living, which can die even when the people who lived there still exist.

Rebecca West

People, Stills, Dies

Rebecca West (2010). “The Birds Fall Down”, p.171, Open Road Media

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Born: December 21, 1892
Died: March 15, 1983
Occupation: Author
Cite this Page: Citation

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