Rumer Godden Quotes & Sayings

Why do religions have edges?" asked Teresa ...
"God is here," said the printed text on the wall. "Yes," said Sophie. "But," she asked, "isn't He everywhere? Then why do they make Him little?" And she thought of those edges, pressing against each other, hurting, jarring, offending, barring one human being from another, shutting away their understanding and their souls.
Yet if you have no edges, thought Sophie, how lonely, how drifting, you must consent to be. — Rumer Godden

For an author nothing is as dead as a book once it is written. — Rumer Godden

A writer who has never explored words, who has never searched, seeded, sieved, sifted through his knowledge and memory ... dictiona ries, thesaurus, poems, favorite paragraphs, to find the right word, is like someone owning a gold mine who has never mined it. — Rumer Godden

Drink very good tea out of a thin Wocester cup of colour between apricot and pink ... — Rumer Godden

A garden isn't meant to be useful. It's for joy.
Rumer Godden found in Power of Simple Living by Ellyn Sanna — Rumer Godden

When I was a child I remember days that stretched into infinity with the certainty of other infinite days; certain, unhurried and brimmingly full. — Rumer Godden

She made a creche outside the Inn. The natives thought it was wonderful, and Sister Honey was gratified by their numbers.
Why have the devils with wings come to mock at the poor baby?' asked the children, pointing to the angels.
The baby is the Number One Lord Jesus Christ,' Ayah told them.
But he hasn't any clothes on! Aren't they going to give Him anything? Not a little red robe? Not a bit of melted butter?'
This is His Mother,' said Ayah, showing them the little porcelain Virgin in blue and white and pink. 'He is her child.'
That isn't true,' said the women, measuring the baby with their eyes. 'He's too big to be possible. Probably He's a dragon, an evil spirit in the shape of a child, and presently He'll eat up the woman. — Rumer Godden

I wish I knew when I was going to die,' ninety-six-year-old Dame Frances Anne often said, 'I wish I knew.'
'Why, Dame?'
'Then I should know what to read next. — Rumer Godden

Funny,' said Harriet to herself. 'The world goes on turning, and it has all these troubles in it. — Rumer Godden

If you think you know, you don't ask questions, or if you ask, you don't listen to the answers. Everyone, everything, each thing, is different, so that it isn't safe to know. You - you have to grope. — Rumer Godden

Every piece of writing ... starts from what I call a grit ... a sight or sound, a sentence or a happening that does not pass away ... but quite inexplicably lodges in the mind. — Rumer Godden

On and off, all that hot French August, we made ourselves ill from eating the greengages. Joss and I felt guilty; we were still at the age when we thought being greedy was a childish fault and this gave our guilt a tinge of hopelessness because, up to then, we had believed that as we grew older our faults would disappear, and none of them did. — Rumer Godden

One of the good things about a Catholic church is that it isn't respectable," she had told Richard. "You can find anyone in it, from duchesses to whores, from tramps to kings. — Rumer Godden

To wake for the first time in a new place can be like another birth. — Rumer Godden

People don't know the consolations of being unsuccessful ... If I had been successful I should have had no peace or time. — Rumer Godden

Nabir came out to drive the children away, but she stopped him. "I like to be friendly she said."
"But they are not your friends," said Nabir. "You don't know them."
"Respect first," Nabir would have said if he could have explained, "friendship after. — Rumer Godden

Harriet was silent, thinking, and then she said, "It is too hard to be a person. You don't only have to go on and on. You have to be
" she looked for the word she needed and could not find it. Then, "You have to be tall as well," said Harriet. — Rumer Godden

Harriet told her, 'Captain John was so brave. He stayed there in the battle until his leg was shot off.' Victoria's brown eyes rested thoughtfully on Captain John. Why didn't he stay until the other leg was shot off?' she asked. But he still seemed to like Victoria best. — Rumer Godden

The motto was 'Pax', but the word was set in a circle of thorns. — Rumer Godden

Is it easier to be than to do? — Rumer Godden

It is right," said the abbess. "It isn't kind ... What else did our Lord show us, Sister?" she asked, "in this Paschal time? I expect, like you, after all the suffering, betrayal, desertion, intolerable disappointment, and being hurt, he would have liked to have taken refuge with his Father, but he stayed on earth and what did he do> He didn't try then to teach us, bring us up
that was left to the Holy Spirit. He did simple ordinary loving things: loving things, Sister, like consoling Mary Magdalene, walking and talking with the disciples, breaking bread with them, cooking their breakfast. Didn't you," asked the Abbess Catherine, "come here to try and follow him? — Rumer Godden

I don't know if I believe in God, but I know I believe in the devil. I have met him. — Rumer Godden

You are born, you are a he or a she, and you live until you die ... Willy-nilly. — Rumer Godden

To me and my kind life itself is a story and we have to tell it in stories - that is the way it falls. — Rumer Godden

The stitch of a book is its words. — Rumer Godden

Wanting is the beginning of getting. — Rumer Godden

I suppose the more you have to do, the more you learn to organize and concentrate-or else get fragmented into bits. I have learned to use my 'ten minutes'. I once thought it was not worth sitting down for a time as short as that; now I know differently and, if I have ten minutes, I use them, even if they bring only two lines, and it keeps the book alive. — Rumer Godden

If books were Persian carpets, one would not look only at the outer side. because it is the stitch that makes a carpet wear, gives it its life and bloom. — Rumer Godden

He had always disliked what he could easily have; he had a passion for the untouched. — Rumer Godden

Every time a child, any child, is born, it is new - and different; that is the wonder. — Rumer Godden

I loved Mr. Darcy far more than any of my own husbands. — Rumer Godden

Of course one never knows in draft if it's going to turn out, even with my age and experience. — Rumer Godden

For a dyed-in-the-wool author, nothing is as dead as a book once it is written. She is rather like a cat whose kittens have grown up. — Rumer Godden

Cleverness is a disease. — Rumer Godden

As one gets older being sad and miserable can become a bit of a habit. To counteract this, she suggests making a point of savoring such things as the tastiness of a piece of fruit, or other small things we might have been prone to overlook during our younger, busier days. — Rumer Godden

When you learn to read you will be born again ... and you will never be quite so alone again. — Rumer Godden

My nation, as all nations, is becoming a land without peace, without thought, without mind, Madam Abbess. We are suffocating our spirits in commercial and material things. This is not envy," said Mr. Konishi earnestly. "I am a rich man, with much business, so I have succeeded in all these things, but I know that they are empty. — Rumer Godden

The best would be to have friends who came and went away; but if I had to choose between their never coming or never going away, I think I would choose that they do not come. — Rumer Godden

...and as she stood on the Ashford platform waiting for the small train to come in, she seemed already separated from the people around her. Tomorrow I shall not be among you anymore; not of you but mysteriously still with you, thought Philippa. As Lady Abbess of Brede had said, "People think we renounce the world. We don't. We renounce its ways but we are still very much in it and it is very much in us. — Rumer Godden

I have never understood why "hard work" is supposed to be pitiable. True, some work is soul destroying when it is done against the grain, but when it is part of "making" how can you grudge it? You get tired, of course, but the struggle, the challenge, the feeling of being extended as you never thought you could be is fulfilling and deeply, deeply satisfying. — Rumer Godden

It is an anxious, sometimes a dangerous thing to be a doll. Dolls cannot choose; they can only be chosen; they cannot 'do'; they can only be done by. — Rumer Godden

You can be a nuisance to your family. You mustn't be a nuisance to your friends. — Rumer Godden

Memory is the only friend of grief. — Rumer Godden

It's only by being obstinate that anything is got, or done. — Rumer Godden

Sometimes it seemed to him that the house had a bad wild life of its own; the impression of its evil lingered, in its name, in its atmosphere ... — Rumer Godden

If you love the wrong people it's still love, isn't it, no matter what kind of love ... — Rumer Godden

The human heart
Is unknowable.
But in my birthplace
The flowers still smell
The same as always. — Rumer Godden

So many grown-up people seem to be nothing very much. — Rumer Godden

I know now it is children who accept life; grown people cover it up and pretend it is different with drinks. — Rumer Godden

With everything that happens to you, with everyone you meet who is important to you, you either die a little or are born. — Rumer Godden

You must remember garden catalogues are as big liars as house-agents. — Rumer Godden

When one came to know them it was surprising how childish grown people could be. — Rumer Godden

Sometimes,' she said, remembering that morning, 'I write poems that are taller than I am — Rumer Godden

There is an Indian proverb that says that everyone is a house with four rooms, a physical, a mental, an emtional, and a spiritual . Most of us tend to live in one room most of the time but unless we go into every room every day, even if only to keep it aired, we are not a complete person. — Rumer Godden

remember that people need only be told as much of the truth as they are entitled to know, — Rumer Godden

You have to be very strong to live close to God or a mountain, or you'll turn a little mad. — Rumer Godden

In California I began to think that, except on the beaches, no-one had the use of their legs. — Rumer Godden

Most grown people are like icebergs, three-tenths showing, seven-tenths submerged - that is why a collision with one of them is unexpectedly hurtful ... — Rumer Godden

We would rather not play with you," said Anne.
"Because you're a little rotter," said Tom. — Rumer Godden

Once you have felt the Indian dust, you will never be free of it. — Rumer Godden

In good company your thoughts run, in solitude your thought is still; it goes deeper and makes for itself a deeper groove, delves. Delve meansa 'dig with a spade'; it means hard work. In talk your mind can be stretched, widened, exhilarated to heights but it cannot be deepened; you have to deepen it yourself.
It needs sturdiness. You will be lonely, you will be depressed; you must expect it; if you were training your body it would ache and be tired. It is worth it. There is a Hindu proverb which says: 'You only grow when you are alone'. — Rumer Godden

Eliot always said, "I'm sorry. I had to do that." If you are all right really, really all right, you don't do things that are sorry. — Rumer Godden