Beryl Bainbridge Quotes & Sayings

Nothing is so sad as the injustices of old age. — Beryl Bainbridge

No one had experiences any more, only traumas. — Beryl Bainbridge

Life was absurd, she thought, bouncing her up and down as if she were a rubber ball. She longed to lose height and roll away into a corner and be forgotten. — Beryl Bainbridge

Mrs MacFarley called the valley the Glen. She called the light at early evening the gloaming. She liked to go Roaming in the Gloaming in the Glen. — Beryl Bainbridge

I've never been drawn to the feminist movement. I was brought up to believe that men had little to do with the home or children - except to bring in the money. — Beryl Bainbridge

When passion is mutual, there is always the danger of the fire burning to ashes. — Beryl Bainbridge

Emotions weren't like washing. There was no call to peg them out for all the world to view. — Beryl Bainbridge

Some people find it comfortable to go through life on their knees, and good luck to them, but I prefer to keep my spine in the position nature intended. — Beryl Bainbridge

Moonlight lined the windowsills like a fall of snow. — Beryl Bainbridge

At night when they prepared for bed Freda removed all her clothes and lay like a great fretful baby, majestically dimpled and curved. Brenda wore her pajamas and her underwear and a tweed coat - that was the difference between them. — Beryl Bainbridge

I was scared for my life, but at the same time I couldn't help noticing how bright everything was, the ice not really blue at all but shot through with spangled points of rosy light so dazzling that it made me crinkle up my eyes as though I had something to smile about, and there was a shadow cast by the Owner's shoulder that washed from seagreen to purple as he twisted in his traces. — Beryl Bainbridge

What we remember is probably fiction anyway. — Beryl Bainbridge

...he raised his eyes above the black shapes of the trees and saw a small moon, the colour of a lemon, dragged by clouds across the sky. Moons, he thought, were so that men like himself would know they lived here on earth. — Beryl Bainbridge

There is nothing more guaranteed to reduce a man to the essentials than to live beneath the sky. — Beryl Bainbridge

The prize I value most was given to me 60 years ago. I was named the girl with the cleanest fingernails. — Beryl Bainbridge

Being constantly with children was like wearing a pair of shoes that were expensive and too small. She couldn't bear to throw them out, but they gave her blisters. — Beryl Bainbridge

A man bears the weight of his own body without knowing it, but he soon feels the weight of any other object. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, that a man cannot forget- but not himself. — Beryl Bainbridge

There are many things in this life capable of throwing people off course - the death of someone close, the loss of income or health, the realisation that cherished hopes cannot always be fulfilled — Beryl Bainbridge

I've never been put down by a man, unless I deserved it, and have never felt inferior, — Beryl Bainbridge

The next day,' I'd conclude, 'when we'd returned safely to base camp, ice flowers had formed on the newly frozen sea, sculptured blooms like those waxen wreaths in the cemeteries of home. — Beryl Bainbridge

Women are programmed to love completely, and men are programmed to spread it around. We are fools to think it's any different. — Beryl Bainbridge

It wasn't all misery. On one of our halts we lay spreadeagled on the ice and stared up at a sky blazing with the glory of the most wonderful aurora I'd ever witnessed. I groaned beneath the splendour of those silken curtains, yellow, green, and orange, billowing at the window of the heavens. — Beryl Bainbridge

It is the generation of the unemphatic. Steal, kill, lie, fornicate, but beware of indulging with conviction. — Beryl Bainbridge

Once the grammar has been learned, writing is simply talking on paper and in time learning what not to say. — Beryl Bainbridge

The vital accessories to my work are my reference books, such as the complete Shakespeare and a prayer book, and a large refuse bin. — Beryl Bainbridge

I don't know why everybody doesn't write because everybody talks. — Beryl Bainbridge

I left him and went up on deck to look out at the slithering city, its glitter of street lamps fizzy under the rain. There's something wrong about a ship in dock, something pathetic, like a bird fluttering in a spill of oil. The Nova was tethered to her berth by ropes and chains, caught in a pool of greasy water. I could feel her shifting under my feet, tugging to be free. — Beryl Bainbridge

It seems to me that a mutually beneficial relationship between a man and woman requires the man to be dominant. A sensible woman will allow the man to think he is the most important partner. — Beryl Bainbridge

Well, I woke up one morning around Christmas, went as far as the shops, and when I got to the corner I felt this violent pain in me left leg. I mentioned it to my daughter and she took me instantly to the hospital. It turned out it was vasculitis. In other words, you can have your leg off. — Beryl Bainbridge

The older one becomes the quicker the present fades into sepia and the past looms up in glorious technicolour — Beryl Bainbridge

Everything else you grow out of, but you never recover from childhood. — Beryl Bainbridge

The sun burnt on, drugging everything with warmth. — Beryl Bainbridge

When I got a telly we had no aerial, but I discovered that if I or one of the children stood by it you could get a picture. So I had to make a statue that could stand by the telly. — Beryl Bainbridge