Dodie Smith Quotes & Sayings

Contemplation seems to be about the only luxury that costs nothing. — Dodie Smith

Prayer's a very tricky business. — Dodie Smith

Perhaps what you call conventionality, I call decency. — Dodie Smith

Oh, I have just had an idea - after tea I shall attack myself with sandpaper. — Dodie Smith

I know all about the facts of life, and I don't think much of them. — Dodie Smith

I believe it is customary to get one's washing over first in baths and bask afterwards; personally, I bask first. I have discovered that the first few minutes are the best and not to be wasted
my brain always seethes with ideas and life suddenly looks much better than did. — Dodie Smith

Sometimes [the expression] old age has a kind of harrowing beauty. But elderly - ugh! — Dodie Smith

I wanted to know more about the young ... strange that though they laughed so loud, they so seldom smiled. Perhaps laughter was involuntary whereas smiling was part of an attitude to life. — 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

Oh, wise young judge. — Dodie Smith

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

I love you, I love you, I love you. ~Cassandra
— Dodie Smith

It was so nice that Simon was here for it - tell him I enjoyed every minute - ' it was glorious writing that - almost like telling him I was glad he'd kissed me. But after I'd posted the letter I was worried in case he guessed what I'd meant. — Dodie Smith

Is it wrong for me to feel so happy? Perhaps I ought even to feel guilty? No. I didn't make it happen, and it can't hurt anyone but me. Surely I have a right to my joy. For as long as it lasts ... — Dodie Smith

On Thursday, I woke to find a perfect September morning, summer with the first gentle hint of autumn, exactly the wrong day to be away from the country. I would have gone for an enormous walk
except that, while in the bath, I saw exactly how to finish the book I was writing, after being stuck for weeks; though as things turned out, I doubt if I should have walked or written, because during breakfast I suddenly knew how to paint the view framed by my open window. I had been threatening to paint for months, sometimes seeing myself as a primitive, sometimes as an abstractionist. Today the primitive mood was in the ascendent. — Dodie Smith

They call them the haunted shores, these stretches of Devonshire and Cornwall and Ireland which rear up against the westward ocean. Mists gather here, and sea fog, and eerie stories. That's not because there are more ghosts here than in other places, mind you. It's just that people who live hereabouts are strangely aware of them. — Dodie Smith

I'm wondering. Shall we say its perfect for the sea and the sunlight - and the other Rose is perfect for candlelight? And perhaps what's most perfect of all is to find there are several Roses? — Dodie Smith

Topaz was wonderfully patient - but sometimes I wonder if it is not only patience, but also a faint resemblance to cows. — Dodie Smith

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

She is a girl who cannot walk her troubles off, or work them off; she is a girl to sit around and glare. — Dodie Smith

I didn't make any mistake. I know that when he nearly asked me to marry him it was only on impulse
It 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

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 perfectly simple. You lose yourself in something beyond yourself and it's a lovely rest. — Dodie Smith

But I can't see how anyone could believe that you killed the bear with a pitchfork,' I said.
'I didn't. I only wounded it - badly, I think, but not enough to put it out of action. It came blundering towards me, I stepped aside and it crashed head-first into the river - I could hear it threshing about in the darkness. I picked up a big stone - poor brute, I hated to do it but I had to finish it off. It gave just one groan as the stone hit it and then went down. I held the lantern high; I could see the bubbles coming up. And then I saw the dark bulk of it under the water, being carried along by the current.'
'But you didn't have a lantern,' I said.
'He didn't have a bear,' said Topaz. — Dodie Smith

Things you let yourself imagine happening, never do happen. — Dodie Smith

For I know I shall be interrupted
I shall want to be, really, because life is too exciting to sit still for long. — Dodie Smith

Surely I could give him
a sort of contentment ...
That isn't enough to give. Not for the giver. — 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

Dogs can never speak the language of humans, and humans can never speak the language of dogs. But many dogs can understand almost every word humans say, while humans seldom learn to recognize more than half a dozen barks, if that. And barks are only a small part of the dog language. A wagging tail can mean so many things. Humans know that it means a dog is pleased, but not what a dog is saying about his pleasedness. (Really, it is very clever of humans to understand a wagging tail at all, as they have no tails of their own.) Then there are the snufflings and sniffings, the pricking of ears - all meaning different things. And many, many words are expressed by a dog's eyes. — Dodie Smith

It was wonderful, of course
ham with mustard is a meal of glory. — Dodie Smith

It is odd how different a house feels when one is alone in it. — Dodie Smith

Mr. Dearly wasn't exactly handsome but he had the kind of face you don't get tired of. — Dodie Smith

As long as I live I shall remember that silent minute. — Dodie Smith

The Devil's out of fashion. — Dodie Smith

She is a famous artists' model who claims to have been christened Topaz - even if this is true there is no law to make a woman stick to a name like that. — Dodie Smith

A loss of sensibility follows a loss of innocence, at once a penalty and a compensation. — Dodie Smith

People do look different with their eyes closed, their features seem so much more sculptured. — Dodie Smith

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

How can a young man like to wear a beard? — Dodie Smith

The pictures are postcard reproductions of Old Masters. She has lots of metal animals about an inch long, little wooden shoes, painted boxes only big enough to hold stamps. — Dodie Smith

Extreme happiness invites religion almost as much as extreme misery. — Dodie Smith

I have noticed that rooms which are extra clean feel extra cold — Dodie Smith

But during the many happy hours that Cadpig was to sit watching it in the warm kitchen she never liked it quite so much as that other television, that still silent television she had seen on Christmas Eve when the puppies had rested so peacefully in that strange lofty building. She often remembered that building and wondered who owned it. Someone very kind she was sure for in front of every one of the many seats there had been a little carpet-eared puppy-sized dog-bed. — Dodie Smith

There used to be two of us always on the look-out for life, talking to Miss Blossom at night, wondering, hoping; two Bronte-Jane Austen girls, poor but spirited, two Girls of Godsend Castle. — Dodie Smith

The way one's mind can dash about just while one opens a window. — Dodie Smith

I was wandering around as usual, in my unpleasantly populated sub-conscious ... — Dodie Smith

Topaz is beautiful - largely because of the strangeness of her face. — Dodie Smith

had. But most of the time, I just thought. And what I thought about most was luxury. I had never realized before that it is more than just having things; it makes the very air feel different. And I felt different, breathing that air: relaxed, lazy, still sad but with the edge taken off the sadness. Perhaps the effect wears off in time, or perhaps you don't notice it if you are born to it, but it does seem to me that the climate of richness must always be a little dulling to the senses. Perhaps it takes the edge off joy as well as off sorrow. And — Dodie Smith

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

The tea was a comfort - and by that time I more than needed comfort. — Dodie Smith

Feeling like what, Cassandra Mortmain? Flat? Depressed? Empty? If so, why, pray?
I thought if I made myself write I should find out what is wrong with me, but I haven't, so far. Unless - could I possibly be jealous of Rose?
I will pause and search my innermost soul ...
I have searched it for a solid five minutes. And I swear I am not jealous of Rose; [..] — Dodie Smith

When things mean a very great deal to you, exciting anticipation just isn't safe. — Dodie Smith

And what I thought most about was luxury. I had never realised before that it is more than just having things; it makes the very air feel different. And I felt different, breathing the air: relaxed, lazy, still sad but with the edge taken off the sadness. Perhaps the effect wears off in time, or perhaps you don't notice it if you are born to it, but it does seem to me that the climate of richness must always be a little dulling to the senses. Perhaps it takes the edge off joy as well as off sorrow. — Dodie Smith

Still, looking through the old volumes was soothing, because thinking of the past made the present seem a little less real. — Dodie Smith

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

It seemed an awful waste that we weren't in love with each other. — Dodie Smith

I stood there ringing the bell and banging on the door, feeling I could make someone be there, knowing all the time that I couldn't. — Dodie Smith

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

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

Not in the least," I said. "I understand everything you've said. But - oh, Simon, I feel so resentful! Why should father make things so difficult? Why can't he say what he means plainly?" "Because there's so much that just can't be said plainly. Try describing what beauty is - plainly - and you'll see what I mean." Then he said that art could state very little - that its whole business was to evoke responses. And that without innovations and experiments - such as father's - all art would stagnate. "That's why one ought not to let oneself resent them - though I believe it's a normal instinct, probably due to subconscious fear of what we don't understand. — Dodie Smith

She will want things to stay just as they are. She will never have the fun of hoping something wonderful and exiting may be just around the corner. — Dodie Smith

said, "because he was at the British Museum. — Dodie Smith

I decided that it was like the difference between the beautiful old Godsend graves and the new ones open to receive coffins (which I never can bear to look at); that time takes the ugliness and horror out of death and turns it into beauty. — Dodie Smith

Well, my paper has asked me to do a series: Lives of the Great Musicians, reading time 2 minutes. — Dodie Smith

Is that branch worrying you?" Simon asked her. "Would you like to change places? I hope you wouldn't because your hair looks so nice against the leaves — Dodie Smith

Truthfulness so often goes with ruthlessness. — Dodie Smith

I heard Molly say, 'Our Mouse is a hundred miles away.' But I wasn't as far away as that; I was in a dimly lit street somewhere in Hampstead. — Dodie Smith

I could look at stationers' shops forever and ever. — Dodie Smith

He laughed a little, in an odd, nervous kind of way. Because if I don't get going soon, the whole impetus may die
and if that happens, well, I really shall consider a long, restful plunge into insanity. Sometimes the abyss yawns very attractively. — Dodie Smith

What is this insurmountable barrier round him? What's it made of? Where did it come from? — Dodie Smith

There is a connection between Dal mations and gipsies. Many people believe that it was the gipsies who first brought Dalmatians to England, long, long ago. And nothing like as long ago as that, there were gipsies who travelled round England with Dalmatians trained to do tricks. And these performing dogs earned money for the gipsies. — Dodie Smith

Ham with mustard is a meal of glory — Dodie Smith

The table was a pool of candlelight -- so bright that the rest of the room seemed almost black, with the faces of the family portraits floating in the darkness. — Dodie Smith

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

I'm convinced England's overflowing with eccentric people, places, happenings. Indeed, you might say eccentricity's normal in England. — Dodie Smith

But the happiness you hoped to win for me will never be mine. — Dodie Smith

We used to manage quite well when she was away sitting for artists, because in those days we lived mostly on bread, vegetables and eggs; but now that we can afford some meat or even chickens, I keep coming to grief. I scrubbed some rather dirty-looking chops with soap which proved very lingering, and I did not take certain things out of a chicken that I ought to have done. Even — Dodie Smith

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

I really am just as discontented, but I don't seem to notice it so much. — Dodie Smith

Never have I felt so separate from her. And I regret to say that there were moments when my deep and loving pity for her merged into a desire to kick her fairly hard. — Dodie Smith

Oh, comfortable cocoa! — Dodie Smith

And they are like a drug, one needs them oftener and oftener and has to make them more and more exciting - until at last one's imagination won't work at all. — Dodie Smith

And though I cannot honestly say I would ever turn my back on any luxury that I could come by, I do feel there is something a bit wrong in it. Perhaps that makes it all the more enjoyable. — Dodie Smith

Why is summer mist romantic and autumn mist just sad? — Dodie Smith

And yet as my eyes turned to Stephen facing the sunrise from Simon in the darkness of my mind, it was as if Simon had been the living face and Stephen's the one I was imagining - or a photograph, a painting, something beautiful but not really alive for me. My whole heart was so full of Simon that even my pity for Stephen wasn't quite real - it was only something I felt I ought to feel, more from my head than from my heart. And I knew I ought to pity him all the more because I could pity him so little. — Dodie Smith

Long prayers are like nagging. — Dodie Smith

Oh, it is wonderful to wake up in the morning with things to look forward to! — Dodie Smith

I shouldn't think even millionaires could eat anything nicer than new bread and real butter and honey for tea. — Dodie Smith

As she only cries about once a year I really ought to have gone over and comforted her, but I wanted to set it all down here. I begin to see that writers are liable to become callous. — Dodie Smith

The vague expression was gone from his eyes - I had a feeling it was gone forever. — Dodie Smith

I was so happy that I wanted to be kind to everyone in the world. — Dodie Smith

Then I told myself that as I never gave the Church a thought when I was feeling happy, I could hardly expect it to do anything for me when I wasn't. You can't get insurance money without paying in premiums. — Dodie Smith

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

And I suspect that, to the eyes of love, love shows. I knew about you as well as about myself, almost from the beginning. — Dodie Smith

Miserable people cannot afford to dislike each other — Dodie Smith

I still didn't believe him. And for the moment, I didn't much care one way or the other. My whole mind had swung back to Simon. — Dodie Smith

Now, carols are always beautiful, but if you are sad they can make you feel sadder. (There are some people who always find beauty makes them feel sadder, which is a very mysterious thing.) — Dodie Smith

Incidentally, I never felt less brisk in my life, because being looked at like that makes a person feel dizzy. — Dodie Smith

As we drove I remembered how I had told myself I would make Simon happy. I didn't feel the same person. For I now knew that I had been stuffing myself up with a silly fairy tale, that I could never mean to him what Rose had meant. I think I knew it first as I watched his face while he listened to her singing, and then more and more, as he talked about the whole wretched business - not angrily or bitterly, but quietly and without ever saying a word against Rose. But most of all I knew it because a change in myself. Perhaps watching someone you love suffer can teach you more than suffering yourself can.
Long before we got back to the castle, with all my heart and for my own heart's ease as well as his, I would have given her back to him if I could. — Dodie Smith