Alice Thomas Ellis Quotes & Sayings

I have never had much trouble simultaneously entertaining diametrically opposed propositions, and welcome the possibility that this is not because I have one mind and am out of it, but because I have lots of them, all beavering away on their own. — Alice Thomas Ellis

When a person implores you to be reasonable what he means is that you should speed round forthwith to his point of view. — Alice Thomas Ellis

Phrase books seem to be a universal and eternal source of hilarity and I think I know why. Their authors go mad in the course of compiling them. — Alice Thomas Ellis

I like money. That is, it is my preferred means of completing pecuniary transactions. I'm not particularly keen on handing over wads of currency of the realm, but at least one knows where one is, whereas the chequebook is a snare and a delusion, containing misleading numbers of blank cheques when none of the money that the bank contains is rightfully one's own ... I think banks owe their customers a lot by way of compensation for the aggravation they cause them. — Alice Thomas Ellis

Our only hope rests on the off-chance that God does exist. — Alice Thomas Ellis

They shared an image of the American Christmas
riches, reconciliations, tears, snow, success, sentiment, furs and firs, the shop windows shining like Heaven and everything good for sale. — Alice Thomas Ellis

I think the meaning of the universe is bound up with the egg ... I am fed up with the meaning of the universe. Everything starts in the egg and ends in death. I think it's called 'the heartbreak at the heart of things.' But then perhaps our very mortality is an egg and at the moment of death our souls will emerge like damp chicks. — Alice Thomas Ellis

Those who live on vanity must, not unreasonably, expect to die of mortification. — Alice Thomas Ellis

Evil and laughter cannot co-exist. — Alice Thomas Ellis

There is no reciprocity. Men love women, women love children, children love hamsters. — Alice Thomas Ellis

The snag in being married to a person who knows more or less everything is that one gets hopelessly lazy ... I never look things up in books because all I need to do is ask him, and when he gives me the answers I don't properly commit them to memory because I know if I forget all I have to do is to ask him again. It is rather like keeping one's brain in a suitcase. — Alice Thomas Ellis

Men were made for war. Without it they wandered greyly about, getting under the feet of the women, who were trying to organize the really important things of life. — Alice Thomas Ellis

Adolescence is usually typified by an unanswerable combination of innocence and insolence. — Alice Thomas Ellis

When a baronet is discovered behind a bush in the park with a guardsman, or a minister of the crown is caught creeping out of a country with his socks stuffed full of bank notes and a woman not his wife ten paces behind, or a public person is revealed disporting himself with a couple of tarts and a teddy bear in West Paddington, they complain to the press that the outcry is hypocritical and that everyone would like to do what they were doing if only they had the chance. They regard the law as an instrument of envy, like nationalization and death duties. — Alice Thomas Ellis

Optimism is the last resort of those in deep despair. There can't be any optimists in heaven. — Alice Thomas Ellis

Everything looked the same every morning: all in order and just the same. It was in the nights that the difference held sway and there was no comfort for lost and lonely things. — Alice Thomas Ellis

Death is the last enemy: once we've got past that I think everything will be alright. — Alice Thomas Ellis

There is no relationship. Women, like men, women, children, babies hamsters.
This is the Google Translate of the quote in Persian, above. — Alice Thomas Ellis

One can get very fond of the people one meets in bars. The trouble is they then appear sort of different in the daylight and you realize that taking them with you is rather like taking a goldfish for a walk: not entirely correct, and surprising for the next people you run into. — Alice Thomas Ellis

Claudia's the sort of girl who goes through life holding onto the sides. — Alice Thomas Ellis

There seems to be a peculiar and particular tie between men who have been drunk together. — Alice Thomas Ellis

Scarlet, when aware that she was consciously asking her friend for advice and support, felt guilty, for she had come to believe that advice and support were commodities for which you paid professionals, rather as you paid prostitutes for love and bought your vegetables instead of growing them yourself. — Alice Thomas Ellis

Things are never so indescribably ghastly that they can't get worse. — Alice Thomas Ellis

I have frequently thought that the dead should be buried with all their belongings. It seems weirdly perverse that their clothes should still be here when the people you love best in the world have gone. — Alice Thomas Ellis

It's when most of the guests have gone that the party really gets interesting - peering under the table and into the bath to see who's stayed and what shape they're in. It is then that those who are still conscious divulge things you had not known before: sometimes about themselves, sometimes about other people and sometimes about you. It does not necessarily make pleasant hearing but it is always fascinating. In the relaxed atmosphere, in the wake of the hubbub, they unwind and grow confidential - nay, indiscreet. If they are not already, they end up as your closest friends. — Alice Thomas Ellis

There is a hint of despair in the cry of 'I told you so,' an element of disappointment in the apparent satisfaction when idols turn out to have clay feet. The human race, when it thinks it has proved that no one is superior, is partly gratified and partly depressed. — Alice Thomas Ellis

This perhaps is what is meant by hiraeth: a lifelong yearning for what is gona and out of reach. — Alice Thomas Ellis

To cook well and with imagination you have to be in a cheerful and contented frame of mind, and thus inclined to be generous. — Alice Thomas Ellis

Well, I think adultery is a filthy habit,' said Rose, 'like using someone else's toothbrush. — Alice Thomas Ellis