Dodie Smith Quotes

Perhaps watching someone you love suffer can teach you even more than suffering yourself can.

~ Dodie Smith

I am a restlessness inside a stillness inside a restlessness.

~ Dodie Smith

I only want to write. And there's no college for that except life.

~ Dodie Smith

Truthfulness so often goes with ruthlessness.

~ Dodie Smith

I suddenly knew that religion, God - something beyond everyday life - was there to be found, provided one is really willing. And I saw that though what I felt in the church was only imagination, it was a step on the way; because imagination itself can be a kind of willingness - a pretense that things are real, due to one's longing for them. It struck me that this was somehow tied up with what the Vicar said about religion being an extension of art - and then I had a glimpse of how religion can really cure you of sorrow; somehow make use of it, turn it to beauty, just as art can make sad things beautiful. I found myself saying: 'Sacrifice is the secret - you have to sacrifice things for art and it's the same with religion; and then the sacrifice turns out to be a gain.' Then I got confused and I couldn't hold on to what I meant - until Miss Blossom remarked: 'Nonsense, duckie - it's prefectly simple. You lose yourself in something beyond yourself and it's a lovely rest.'I saw that, all right. Then I thought: 'But that's how Miss Marcy cured her sorrow, too - only she lost herself in other people instead of in religion.' Which way of life was best - hers or the Vicar's? I decided that he loves God and merely likes the villagers, whereas she loves the villagers and merely likes God - and then I suddenly wondered if I could combine both ways, love God and my neighbor equally. Was I really willing to?

~ Dodie Smith

Just to be in love seemed the most blissful luxury I had ever known. The thought came to me that perhaps it is the loving that counts, not the being loved in return - that perhaps true loving can never know anything but true happiness.

~ Dodie Smith

Thinking of death--strange, beautiful, terrible and a long way off--made me feel happier than ever.

~ Dodie Smith

Perhaps if I make myself write I shall find out what is wrong with me.

~ Dodie Smith

I think it [religion] is an art, the greatest one; an extension of the communion all the other arts attempt.

~ Dodie Smith

Certain unique books seem to be without forerunners or successors as far as their authors are concerned. Even though they may profoundly influence the work of other writers, for their creator they're complete, not leading anywhere.

~ Dodie Smith

I like seeing people when they can't see me.

~ Dodie Smith

My God - it's a green child! said the American. What is this place - the House of Usher?

~ Dodie Smith

Rose doesn’t like the flat country, but I always did – flat country seems to give the sky such a chance.

~ Dodie Smith

He stood staring into the wood for a minute, then said: What is it about the English countryside — why is the beauty so much more than visual? Why does it touch one so?He sounded faintly sad. Perhaps he finds beauty saddening — I do myself sometimes. Once when I was quite little I asked father why this was and he explained that it was due to our knowledge of beauty's evanescence, which reminds us that we ourselves shall die. Then he said I was probably too young to understand him; but I understood perfectly.

~ Dodie Smith

In addition, I think religion has a chance of a look-in whenever the mind craves solace in music or poetry-- in any form of art at all. Personally, I think it is an art, the greatest one; an extension of the communication all the other arts attempt.

~ Dodie Smith

When I read a book, I put in all the imagination I can, so that it is almost like writing the book as well as reading it - or rather, it is like living it. It makes reading so much more exciting, but I don't suppose many people try to do it.

~ Dodie Smith

And no bathroom on earth will make up for marrying a bearded man you hate.

~ Dodie Smith

But some characters in books are really real--Jane Austen's are; and I know those five Bennets at the opening of Pride and Prejudice, simply waiting to raven the young men at Netherfield Park, are not giving one thought to the real facts of marriage.

~ Dodie Smith

There is something revolting about the way girls' minds so often jump to marriage long before they jump to love.

~ Dodie Smith

Am I really admitting that my sister is determined to marry a man she has only seen once and doesn't much like the look of? It is half real and half pretense - and I have an idea that it is a game most girls play when they meet an eligible young men. They just...wonder.

~ Dodie Smith

... there is something revolting about the way girls' minds so often jump to marriage long before they jump to love. And most of those minds are shut to what marriage really means.

~ Dodie Smith

It isn't a bit of use my pretending I'm not crying, because I am... Pause to mop up. Better now.Perhaps it would really be rather dull to be married and settled for life. Liar! It would be heaven.

~ Dodie Smith

I wonder if there isn't a catch about having plenty of money? Does it eventually take the pleasure out of things?

~ Dodie Smith

I could marry the Devil himself if he had some money.

~ Dodie Smith

Even a broken heart doesn't warrant a waste of good paper.

~ Dodie Smith

Cruel blows of fate call for extreme kindness in the family circle.

~ Dodie Smith

The family - that dear octopus from whose tentacles we never quite escape, nor, in our inmost hearts, ever quite wish to.

~ Dodie Smith

...I could never explain how the image and the reality merge, and how they somehow extend and beautify each other.

~ Dodie Smith

I am not so sure I should like the facts of life, but I have got over the bitter disappointment I felt when I first heard about them,...

~ Dodie Smith

I go backwards and forwards, recapturing the past, wondering about the future—and, most unreasonably, I find myself longing for the past more than for the future.

~ Dodie Smith

Did you think of anything when Miss Marcy said Scoatney Hall was being re-opened? I thought of the beginning of Pride and Prejudice – where Mrs. Bennet says 'Netherfield Park is let a last.' And then Mr. Bennet goes over to call on the rich new owner.

~ Dodie Smith

I am surprised to see how much I have written; with stories even a page can take me hours, but the truth seems to flow out as fast as I can get it down. But words are very inadequate – anyway, my words are.

~ Dodie Smith

Noble deeds and hot baths are the best cures for depression.

~ Dodie Smith

Prayer's a very tricky business.

~ Dodie Smith

A mist is rolling over the fields. Why is a summer mist romantic and autumn mist just sad?

~ Dodie Smith

Oh, it was an artful place--it must make people who have money want to spend it madly!

~ Dodie Smith

There was a wonderful atmosphere of gentle age, a smell of flowers and beeswax, sweet yet faintly sour and musty; a smell that makes you feel very tender towards the past.

~ Dodie Smith

A thousand pounds for clothes--when on thinks how long poor people could live on it! When one thinks how long we could live on it, for that matter!

~ Dodie Smith

I didn't make any mistake. I know that when he nearly asked me to marry him it was only on impulseIt is part if a follow-my-leader game of second-best we have all been playing - Rose with Simon, Simon with me, me with Stephen and Stephen, I suppose, with that detestable Leda Fox-Cotton. It isn't a very good game; the people you play it with are apt to get hurt.

~ Dodie Smith

The thought came to me that perhaps it is the loving that counts, not the being loved in return - that perhaps true loving can never know anything but happiness.

~ Dodie Smith