Rebecca West Quotes - Page 7

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In England and America a beard usually means that its owner would rather be considered venerable than virile; on the continent of Europe it often means that its owner makes a special claim to virility.

Rebecca West

Mean, England And America, Europe

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All gambling is the telling of a fortune, but of a monstrously depleted fortune, empty of everything save one numerical circumstance, shorn of all such richness as a voyage across the water, a fair man that loves you, a dark woman that means you harm.

Rebecca West

Love You, Mean, Dark

Rebecca West (2010). “The Thinking Reed”, p.193, Open Road Media

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There are two kinds of imperialists - imperialists and bloody imperialists.

Rebecca West

Two, Kind, Imperialism

Rebecca West (2011). “The Young Rebecca: Writings of Rebecca West 1911-17”, p.4, Open Road Media

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Before a war military science seems a real science, like astronomy; but after a war it seems more like astrology.

Rebecca West

Funny, Military, Real

Quoted in Jonathon Green, Morrow's International Dictionary of Contemporary Quotations (1982)

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It is a great pity that every human being does not, at an early stage of his life, have to write a historical work. He would then realize that the human race is in quite a jam about truth.

Rebecca West

Writing, Race, History

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My memory is certainly in my hands. I can remember things only if I have a pencil and I can write with it and I can play with it. ... I think your hand concentrates for you. I don't know why it should be so.

Rebecca West

Memories, Writing, Thinking

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There is nothing rarer than a man who can be trusted never to throw away happiness, however eagerly he sometimes grasps it. In history we are as frequently interested in our own doom.

Rebecca West

Men, Sometimes, Doom

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

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A great many quite good plays could be performed with rhythmic howls in the place of dialogue and lose almost nothing by the change.

Rebecca West

Change, Drama, Play

Rebecca West (2010). “The Strange Necessity: Essays and Reviews”, p.16, Open Road Media

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Were it possible for us to wait for ourselves to come into the room, not many of us would find our hearts breaking into flower as we heard the door handle turn.

Rebecca West

Flower, Heart, Doors

Rebecca West (2010). “A Train of Powder”, p.75, Open Road Media

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every human activity, whether it be love, philosophy, art, or revolution, is carried on with a special intensity in Paris.

Rebecca West

Art, Philosophy, Paris

Rebecca West (2010). “The Birds Fall Down”, p.81, Open Road Media

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If ever peace is to be imposed on the world it will only be because a large number of men who could have taken part in the drill display by the Guards or Marines or at the Royal Tournament turn that strength and precision to the service of life.

Rebecca West

Peace, Taken, Marine

Rebecca West (2010). “Black Lamb and Grey Falcon: A Journey Through Yugoslavia”, p.442, Open Road Media

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Great music is in a sense serene; it is certain of the values it asserts.

Rebecca West

Music, Quiet, Certain

Rebecca West (2012). “The Saga of the Century: The Fountain Overflows, This Real Night, and Cousin Rosamund”, p.554, Open Road Media

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I've never gone anywhere where the men have come up to my infantile expectations. I always have gone through life constantly being surprised by the extreme, marvelous qualities of a small minority of men. But I can't see the rest of them. They seem awful rubbish.

Rebecca West

Men, Expectations, Quality

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Good God enlighten us! Which of these two belongs to the sterner sex - the man who sits in Whitehall all his life on a comfortable salary, or the woman who has to keep her teeth bared lest she has her meatless bone of 17s. 4d. a week snatched away from her and who has to produce the next generation on her off-days?

Rebecca West

Sex, Men, Two

Rebecca West (2011). “The Young Rebecca: Writings of Rebecca West 1911-17”, p.139, Open Road Media

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Mr. Arnold Bennett feels he has ranked himself for ever as a dry wine by what he mixed with himself of Maupassant; nevertheless he has put on the market some grocer's Sauterne in the form of several novels that are highly sentimental so far as their fundamental balance of values is concerned.

Rebecca West

Wine, Balance, Fundamentals

Rebecca West (2010). “The Strange Necessity: Essays and Reviews”, p.6, Open Road Media

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For some reason a nation feels as shy about admitting that it ever went forth to war for the sake of more wealth as a man would about admitting that he had accepted an invitation just for the sake of the food. This is one of humanity's most profound imbecilities, as perhaps the only justification for asking one's fellowmen to endure the horrors of war would be the knowledge that if they did not fight they would starve.

Rebecca West

War, Fighting, Men

Rebecca West (2010). “The Strange Necessity: Essays and Reviews”, p.143, Open Road Media

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International relationships are preordained to be clumsy gestures based on imperfect knowledge.

Rebecca West

Gestures, Imperfect, International

"The Strange Necessity: Essays and Reviews".

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A copy of the universe is not what is required of art; one of the damned things is ample.

Rebecca West

Funny, Art, Humor

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We all drew on the comfort which is given out by the major works of Mozart, which is as real and material as the warmth given up by a glass of brandy.

Rebecca West

Real, War, Glasses

Rebecca West (2010). “Black Lamb and Grey Falcon: A Journey Through Yugoslavia”, p.292, Open Road Media

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Were I to go down into the market-place, armed with the powers of witchcraft, and take a peasant by the shoulders and whisper to him, 'In your lifetime, have you known peace?' wait for his answer, shake his shoulders and transform him into his father, and ask him the same question, and transform him in his turn to his father, I would never hear the word 'Yes,' if I carried my questioning of the dead back for a thousand years. I would always hear, 'No, there was fear, there were our enemies without, our rulers within, there was prison, there was torture, there was violent death.

Rebecca West

Father, Years, Waiting

Rebecca West (2010). “Black Lamb and Grey Falcon: A Journey Through Yugoslavia”, p.36, Open Road Media

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Now different races and nationalities cherish different ideals of society that stink in each other's nostrils with an offensiveness beyond the power of any but the most monstrous private deed.

Rebecca West

Race, Different Nationalities, Deeds

Rebecca West (2010). “Black Lamb and Grey Falcon: A Journey Through Yugoslavia”, p.616, Open Road Media

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Men must be capable of imagining and executing and insisting on social change if they are to reform or even maintain civilization, and capable too of furnishing the rebellion which is sometimes necessary if society is not to perish of immobility.

Rebecca West

Men, Civilization, Reform

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

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When anything important has to be written ... I think your hand concentrates for you.

Rebecca West

Thinking, Hands, Important

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I do not myself find it agreeable to be 90, and I cannot imagine why it should seem so to other people. It is not that you have any fears about your own death, it is that your upholstery is already dead around you.

Rebecca West

People, Upholstery, Imagine

"There is nothing like a dame: Dame Rebecca West at ninety". "Vogue" Magazine, February 1983.

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One was kind, out of a bounty that could hardly be exhausted, to old governesses and gardeners, who could be relied upon to give thanks with proper abjection; one performed public duties, for which one was paid in full by deference; one was chaste, refusing to run away from one's husband with other men who for the most part did not ask one to do so, and who in any case had nothing better to offer than one's own home. Knowing no difficulties one was without fortitude; knowing no criteria but one's own achievements one was without taste.

Rebecca West

Running, Husband, Home

Rebecca West (2010). “The Thinking Reed”, p.149, 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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