Lillian Quotes & Sayings

Faith and doubt both are needed - not as antagonists, but working side by side to take us around the unknown curve. — Lillian Smith

Good God-is there nothing you won't stoop to?"
"If there is," Lillian replied smartly, "I haven't discovered it yet. — Lisa Kleypas

I soon realized that no journey carries one far unless, as it extends into the world around us, it goes an equal distance into the world within. — Lillian E. Smith

Take every opportunity that comes your way. You should never, never see an opportunity in the eye and pass by. Never! — Lillian Frank

Lillian is one of those disagreeable people who yet have some redeeming qualities, so that you can't write them off entirely - but you sure wish you could. — Charlaine Harris

Westcliff thinks that St. Vincent is in love with you."
Evie choked a little and didn't dare look up from her tea. "Wh-why does he think that?"
"He's known St. Vincent from childhood, and can read him fairly well. And Westcliff sees an odd sort of logic in why you would finally be the one to win St. Vincent's heart. He says a girl like you would appeal to ... hmm, how did he put it? ... I can't remember the exact words, but it was something like ... you would appeal to St. Vincent's deepest, most secret fantasy."
Evie felt her cheeks flushing while a skirmish of pain and hope took place in the tired confines of her chest. She tried to respond sardonically. "I should think his fantasy is to consort with as many women as possible."
A grin crossed Lillian's lips. "Dear, that is not St. Vincent's fantasy, it's his reality. And you're probably the first sweet, decent girl he's ever had anything to do with. — Lisa Kleypas

I broke every barrier I could to see things as they are. — Lillian Smith

Well, there are people who eat the earth and eat all the people on it like in the Bible with the locusts. Then there are people who stand around and watch them eat it. (Softly) Sometimes I think it ain't right to stand and watch them do it. — Lillian Hellman

I don't need to be married to Georgia O'Keeffe or Lillian Hellman, but I like being with a woman I can look up to. — Alec Baldwin

Was it always my nature to take a bad time and block out the good times, until any success became an accident and failure seemed the only truth? — Lillian Hellman

Lillian looked around the room.
"Where are the others? The Prescott girl and the good-looking one?"
"Baby," said Rusty, "I'm right here. — Sarah Rees Brennan

If a girl is pretty she will be tempted. — Lillian Russell

Frowning, Lillian stared at her sister's small ivory face, with its intelligent dark eyes and brows that were a shade too strongly marked. Not for the first time, she wondered how it was that the person most willing to join her reckless adventures was also the one who could most easily recall her to reason. Many people were often deceived by Daisy's frequent moments of whimsy, never suspecting the bedrock of ruthless common sense beneath the elfin facade. — Lisa Kleypas

My lord," she whispered, "have you gone mad?"
"Yes. Yes. — Lisa Kleypas

Statisticians do it with confidence, frequency and variation — Lillian Hellman

Don't you think people often say other people are tough when they do not know how to cheat them? — Lillian Hellman

I don't usually wear perfume," Annabelle said. "Mr. Hunt likes the smell of clean skin."
"He may prefer Lady of the Night."
Annabelle looked appalled. "Is that what this is called?"
"It's named after a night-blooming orchid," Lillian explained.
"Oh, good," Annabelle said sardonically. "I was afraid that it was named after a harlot. — Lisa Kleypas

Westcliff sees an odd sort of logic in why you would finally be the one to win St. Vincent's heart. He says a girl like you would appeal to ... hmm, how did he put it? ... I can't remember the exact words, but it was something like ... you would appeal to St. Vincent's deepest, most secret fantasy."
Evie felt her cheeks flushing while a skirmish of pain and hope took place in the tired confines of her chest. She tried to respond sardonically. "I should think his fantasy is to consort with as many women as possible."
A grin crossed Lillian's lips. "Dear, that is not St. Vincent's fantasy, it's his reality. And you're probably the first sweet, decent girl he's ever had anything to do with."
"He spent quite a lot of time with you and Daisy in Hampshire," Evie countered.
That seemed to amuse Lillian further. "I'm not at all sweet, dear. And neither is my sister. Don't say you have been laboring under that misconception all this time? — Lisa Kleypas

Time to open up a new chapter in life, and to explore a larger centre. — Lillian Russell

Young man, if God had wanted you to see me that way, he would have put your eyes in your bellybutton. — Lillian Gish

There are people who eat the earth and eat all the people on it like in the Bible with the locusts. And other people who stand around and watch them eat. — Lillian Hellman

Drinking makes uninteresting people matter less and late at night, matter not at all. — Lillian Hellman

Childhood is less clear to me than to many people: when it ended I turned my face away from it for no reason that I know about, certainly without the usual reason of unhappy memories. For many years that worried me, but then I discovered that the tales of former children are seldom to be trusted. Some people supply too many past victories or pleasures with which to comfort themselves, and other people cling to pains, real and imagined, to excuse what they have become. — Lillian Hellman

Most people coming out of war feel lost and resentful. What had been a minute-to-minute confrontation with yourself, your struggle with what courage you have against discomfort, at the least, and death at the other end, ties you to the people you have known in the war and makes for a time others seem alien and frivolous. — Lillian Hellman

How did you persuade the countess to confess so quickly?" she asked. "I would have thought she would have held out for days. I would have thought she would rather die than admit anything - "
"I'm afraid that was the choice I gave her."
Her eyes widened. "Oh," she whispered.
-Lillian & Marcus — Lisa Kleypas

[The truth] is what actually happens. Not what you want to happen. Not what you're afraid will happen. We make up stories when we want things to happen or are afraid they may happen. And sometimes we do it for fun-or to scare people or make them do our way or to hurt them. And sometimes we do it because it's a pretty story and we tell it just as we fly a kite or send balloons floating. — Lillian Smith

Does he behave in rude or improper ways?"
"He's a Bowman. We don't know any better. — Lisa Kleypas

I shall leave you to your Sisyphean task."
"What does that mean?" he heard Daisy ask.
Lillian replied while her smiling gaze remained locked with Marcus's. "It seems you avoided one too many Greek mythology lessons, dear. Sisyphus was a soul in Hades who was damned to perform an eternal task... rolling a huge boulder up a hill, only to have it roll down again just before he reached the top."
"Then if the countess is Sisyphus," Daisy concluded, "I suppose we're..."
"The boulder," Lady Westcliff said succinctly, causing both girls to laugh.
"Do continue with our instruction, my lady," Lillian said, giving her full attention to the elderly woman as Marcus left the room. "We'll try not to flatten you on the way down. — Lisa Kleypas

The only good thing about [aging] is you're not dead. — Lillian Hellman

Always have some project under way...an ongoing project that goes from day to day and thus makes each day a small unit of time. — Lillian Troll

Maybe money is unreal for most of us, easier to give away than things we want. — Lillian Hellman

I can't get it out," she said.
"Just pull at it."
"It hurts. It's throbbing."
"Pull harder."
"I can't! It's truly stuck. I need something to make it slippery. Do you have some sort of lubricant nearby?"
"No."
"Not anything?"
"Much as it may surprise you, we've never needed lubricant in the library before now. — Lisa Kleypas

They exited the French doors at the back of the entrance hall and walked out onto the empty flagstone terrace. Daisy turned to shake a finger waggishly at Lillian. "If you're gone for longer than a quarter hour, Evie and I will come looking for you."
Lillian responded with a low laugh. "I won't tarry." She winked and smiled into Evie's worried face. "I'll be fine, dear. And just think of all the interesting things I'll be able to tell you when I return!"
"That's what I'm afr-fraid of," Evie replied. — Lisa Kleypas

It was sexually a very different thing when [the models] worked with men. They felt a charge ... I caught them when they were relaxed, natural, and I spent a lot of time talking to them about their husbands, their lovers, their babies. — Lillian Bassman

A breathless laugh escaped her, and she let her head rest back on his arm as his mouth traveled to the side of her neck. "When shall we negotiate?" she asked, surprised by the throatiness of her own voice.
"Tonight. You'll come to my room."
She gave him a skeptical glance. "This wouldn't be a ruse to lure me into a situation in which you would take unscrupulous advantage of me?"
Drawing back to look at her, Marcus answered gravely. "Of course not. I intend to have a meaningful discussion that will put to rest any doubts you may have about marrying me."
"Oh."
"And then I'm going to take unscrupulous advantage of you."
-Lillian & Marcus — Lisa Kleypas

Women more than men can strip war of its glamour and its out-of-date heroisms and patriotisms, and see it as a demon of destruction and hideous wrong. — Lillian Wald

Beginning to feel that her brother was being rather too harsh on Lillian Bowman, Livia frowned. "She's a very pretty girl, Marcus."
"A pretty facade isn't enough to make up for the flaws in her character."
"Which are?"
Marcus made a faint scoffing sound, as if Miss Bowman's faults were too obvious to require enumeration. "She's manipulative."
"So are you, dear," Livia murmured.
He ignored that. "She's domineering."
"As are you."
"She's arrogant."
"Also you," Livia said brightly.
Marcus glowered at her. "I thought we were discussing Miss Bowman's faults, not mine."
"But you seem to have so much in common," Livia protested, rather too innocently. — Lisa Kleypas

He looked at me like Lillian Gish coming out of a swoon.
"Is this Bertie Wooster talking?" he said, pained.
"Yes, it jolly well is!"
"Bertie, old man," said Bingo, patting me gently here and there, "reflect! We were at school - "
"Oh, all right! — P.G. Wodehouse

Lillian frowned up at him. "Before you start to criticize, Wes'cliff, I should like to point out that I am not the first person ever to get her finger stuck in a bottle. It happens to people all the time."
"Does it? You must be referring to Americans. Because I've never seen an Englishman with a bottle stuck on his finger. Even a foxed one."
"I'm not foxed, I'm only - where are you going?"
"Stay there," Marcus muttered, striding from the room. — Lisa Kleypas

Writers are interesting people, but often mean and petty. — Lillian Hellman

Love is willing to become to villain so that the one who you love can stay a hero. — Josephine Angelini

Church is a school for sinners, not a club of saints. — Lillian Daniel

For men tied fast to the absolute, bled of their differences, drained of their dreams by authoritarian leeches until nothing but pulp is left, become a massive, sick Thing whose sheer weight is used ruthlessly by ambitious men. Here is the real enemy of the people: our own selves dehumanized into the masses. And where is the David who can slay this giant? — Lillian Smith

Mowrer and his family made it safely to Tokyo. His wife, Lillian, recalled her great sorrow at having to leave Berlin. "Nowhere have I had such lovely friends as in Germany," she wrote. "Looking back on it all is like seeing someone you love go mad - and do horrible things. — Erik Larson

Don't try to be all things to all people. Concentrate on selling something unique that you know there is a need for, offer competitive pricing and good customer service. — Lillian Vernon

Anyone with any real blood in his or her veins cannot help being a fan. Being a true American and being a fan are synonymous. — Lillian Glaser

I am completely tied up with softness, fragility, and the problems of a feminine world. — Lillian Bassman

Daisy Bowman, Lillian's young sister, had an out-sized personality that belied her small, slight frame. Idealistic and possessed of a decidedly whimsical bent, she devoured romantic novels populated with rogues and villains. However, Daisy's elfin facade concealed a shrewd intelligence that most people tended to overlook. She was fair-skinned and dark-haired, with eyes the color of spiced gingerbread... mischievous eyes with long, spiky lashes. — Lisa Kleypas

No revolution creates a wholly new universe. Rather, it reflects the history and culture that spawned it. — Lillian B. Rubin

Sexual freedom is about choice. It's the freedom to say no as well as yes. — Lillian B. Rubin

What would you think about us doing the ceremony together?"

"The Crying Pools ceremony?" Kami asked. "The one Lillian said was dangerous?"

"Yeah," Ash said. "I mean, we both know it's a big decision. But it's something to think over. It might make all the difference to the town. Look, do you want to come in?" He stepped a little aside. The night air was pulling frost-tipped fingers through Kami's hair, but she stayed where she was.

"Did Jared say that? That it was a big decision?"

"And we both needed to think it through," Ash said.

"Think it through?" Kami repeated, above the sound of the wind. "Jared? Don't you know him at all? If he sounds reasonable, or sensible, or capable of any sort of rational thought, it means he's lying through his teeth! What did you tell him about the ceremony?"

They stared at each other for a moment of horrified silence. "I told him how to do it," — Sarah Rees Brennan

You can get through life with bad manners, but it's easier with good manners. — Lillian Gish

Let the clean air blow the cobwebs from your body. Air is medicine. — Lillian Russell

You're both perfectly all right," she informed them. "And we will get Aurimere back, and our magic back, and our town back, and then we will have everything we need."

"We have some important stuff already," Ash offered tentatively.

Lillian frowned. "What do you mean?"

Jared surrendered himself to the strangeness of this situation, sank back onto the pillows himself with his head near Lillian's hip, and sighed heavily to attract his aunt's attention. "He wants to know you love him more than that stupid house."

"It is a very nice house," Aunt Lillian said, sounding offended. "Your ancestors are buried in the crypt of that house."

"Sure. Okay. We'll get our lovely creepy house back. When they bury me in that crypt, I want 'Jared, very inbred, deeply uncomfortable about it' on my tombstone. — Sarah Rees Brennan

Everyone's weird, I'm just a bit bizarre. — Pennie Lillian

What was your greatest challenge? Staying alive as a business, staying ahead of the game, and melding my business life with my personal life. — Lillian Vernon

I would have so loved to learn about the Vikings."
Lillian snorted. "Since when have you been interested in warlike pagans with silly-looking headgear?"
Daisy looked up from her book again. "Are we talking about Grandmother again? — Lisa Kleypas

Close your eyes," Marcus said, his hand moving to her bottom in a circling caress. He brushed his mouth over her forehead and her fragile eyelids. "Rest. You'll need to regain your strength ... because once we're married, I won't be able to leave you alone. I'll want to love you every hour, every minute of the day." He nestled her more closely against him. "There is nothing on earth more beautiful to me than your smile ... no sound sweeter than your laughter ... no pleasure greater than holding you in my arms. I realized today that I could never live without you, stubborn little hellion that you are. In this life and the next, you're my only hope of happiness. Tell me, Lillian, dearest love ... how can you have reached so far inside my heart?" He paused to kiss her damp silken skin ... and smiled as the wisp of a feminine snore broke the peaceful silence. — Lisa Kleypas

It will be a very short tryst," Lillian assured her. "A quarter hour at most. What could happen in that amount of time?"
"From what Annabelle s-says," Evie said darkly, "a lot. — Lisa Kleypas

A happy life is one spent in learning, earning, and yearning. — Lillian Gish

Rich folks always talk hard times. — Lillian Smith

Every time I think that I am getting old, and gradually going to the grave, something else happens. — Lillian Gordy Carter

The stage was our school, our home, our life. — Lillian Gish

In our minds lives the madonna image
the all-embracing, all- giving tranquil mother of a Raphael painting, one child at her breast, another at her feet; a woman fulfilled, one who asks nothing more than to nurture and nourish. This creature of fantasy, this myth, is the model
the unattainable ideal against which women measure, not only their performance, but their feelings about being mothers. — Lillian B. Rubin

I suppose when you say you slept with him, it was more than just a nap?"
Lillian shot her a withering glance. "Daisy, don't be a pea wit. — Lisa Kleypas

Have you noticed how few men in the peerage are young and nice-looking?" Lillian asked wryly. "Most of them are dull-witted, ancient, or possess the kind of face that should have a hook in its mouth. — Lisa Kleypas

Intimacy. We hunger for it, but we also fear it. — Lillian B. Rubin

Indignation caused Mercedes to puff out her cheeks temporarily, causing her narrow face to resemble a set of inflated fireplace bellows. "You don't like Mr. Swift any more than I do," she retorted.
"No," Lillian said frankly. "But much as I hate to admit it, that puts us in a minority. Swift is liked by everyone in the northern hemisphere, including Westcliff and his friends, my friends, the servants, the neighbors - "
"You are exaggerating - "
" - children, animals and the higher order of plants," Lillian finished sardonically. "If root vegetables could talk, I've no doubt they would say they like him, too."
Daisy, who was sitting by the window with a book, looked up with a sudden grin. "His charm doesn't extend to poultry," she said. — Lisa Kleypas

You know, when I first went into the movies Lionel Barrymore played my grandfather. Later he played my father and finally he played my husband. If he had lived I'm sure I would have played his mother. That's the way it is in Hollywood. The men get younger and the women get older. — Lillian Gish

You ought to try eating raw oysters in a restaurant with every eye focused upon you - it makes you feel as if the creatures were whales, your fork a derrick and your mouth Mammouth Cave. — Lillian Russell

I never approved of talkies. Silent movies were well on their way to developing an entirely new art form. It was not just pantomine, but something wonderfully expressive. — Lillian Gish

But there was no way to know, and no way to go back. I could not revise. I had been who I had been, and so I largely remained. — Kathleen Rooney

In the meantime, Lillian was looking speculatively at the mural. Kami saw her lift her hand. With sorcery, the mural could be done in ten minutes.

"I see you, Linnaea," Jon called over his shoulder. "Don't even think it. I have eyes in the back of my head, and all my eyes have artistic vision."

" 'Linnaea' is not a name," grumbled Lillian, but she lowered her hand.

"It is a name," said Jon. "I looked it up. — Sarah Rees Brennan

Taking a step forward, I stood in the light, tilted my head back and closed my eyes. It held my face and wrapped its arms around my shoulders, and for the very first time, I let hope in. (Lillian Hunt) — Jennifer DeLucy

It is best to act with confidence, no matter how little right you have to it. — Lillian Hellman

My lord," she asked softly, "have you ever wanted someone you couldn't have?"
"Not yet. But one can always hope."
She responded with a puzzled smile. "You hope to fall in love someday with someone you can't have? Why?"
"It would be an interesting experience."
"So would falling off a cliff," she said sardonically. "But I think one would rather learn about it from secondhand knowledge."
-Lillian & Sebastian St. Vincent — Lisa Kleypas

The older I get, the more I believe in what I can't explain or understand, even more than the things that are explainable and understandable. — Lillian Gish

Avery?" she whispered.
He gathered her closer, his eyes still closed.
"Avery?"
"Shh." His voice was low and infinitely sad. "Hush. Tomorrow's waiting outside this door. It's crouching there in an ocean of words and uncertainties. But it's not here yet and we are. Lily. Lillian. Love. I'm begging you. Let me love you again. Let me love you all night long." She answered with a kiss. — Connie Brockway

Lillian Hellman wrote a play called The Little Foxes. In it a young girl tells her mother that some people eat the earth, like locusts, and others stand around and watch them do it. — Sylvain Reynard

Gather up your loins, daughter. You named Lillian Florence Jones after my mother. A toughter lady never lived. Find your talent and drive it. — Toni Morrison

People change and forget to tell each other. — Lillian Hellman

I like holding it at the base."
It's too long for you," he insisted, "which is why you pull your swing just before you hit the ball - "
"I like a long bat," Lillian argued, even as he adjusted her hands on the willow handle. "The longer the better, as a matter of fact."
A distant snicker from one of the stable boys caught her attention, and she glanced at him suspiciously before turning to face Westcliff. His face was expressionless, but there was a glitter of laughter in his eyes. "Why is that amusing?" she asked.
"I have no idea," Westcliff said blandly, and turned her toward the pitcher again. — Lisa Kleypas

The gates were doing something to him already, because as he raised his hand to wave back at his parents, Mitchell felt ten years old again, tearing up, choked with feeling for these two human beings who, like figures from myth, had possessed the ability throughout his life to blend into the background, to turn to stone or wood, only to come alive again, at key moments like this, to witness his hero's journey. Lillian — Jeffrey Eugenides

Nowadays people write English as if a rat were caught in the typewriter and they were trying to hit the keys which wouldn't disturb it. — Lillian Hellman

The women who intrigued me [as models] had the most beautiful necks and the most responsive hand movements. At one point, I found El Greco, and that elongated look became my way of seeing. — Lillian Bassman

You can always spot clothes made in a good place. — Lillian Hellman

Let me tell you about customs, James," said Lillian. "I am not accustomed to being summoned to someone else's home. You're very fortunate that I came."
"I am indeed blessed," Dad told her. "I am also, by the way, called Jon."
Lillian looked faintly surprised. "Are you?"
"Really?" Dad asked. "Really? I was the only Asian guy who went to our school. I kind of stood out. While you are an identical twin, and I still managed to know your name. — Sarah Rees Brennan

Women find ways to give sense and meaning to daily life
ways to be useful in the community, to keep mind active and soul growingeven while they change diapers and cook vegetables. — Lillian B. Rubin

Sometimes a person has to accept who they are before they can share it with someone else. — Lillian Feisty

Starting on February 1, 2010, and running through until May 30, I will be Toronto Public Library's Writer in Residence, working out of the Merril Collection of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Speculation at the Lillian H. Smith branch at College and Spadina. — Karl Schroeder

Courtesy is breeding. Breeding is an excellent thing. Always remember that. — Lillian Hellman

Well ... " Annabelle looked from one expectant face to another, unable to keep from grinning. "If the three of you are willing, then so am I. But if we're to make a pact, shouldn't we sign it in blood or something?"
"Heavens, no," Lillian said. "I should think we can all agree to something without having to open a vein over it. — Lisa Kleypas

I think that sometimes not giving someone all the information is nearly the same as a lie. You've started on a slippery path, dear. Beware your next step. Lillian — Lisa Kleypas

Failure in the theater is more public, more brilliant, more unreal than in any other field. — Lillian Hellman

Toughness is a good thing, yet it is considered good only in men. When a woman is tough, men can't stand it. I like being tough and smart. — Lillian Vernon

After he got back to his apartment that evening, Arthur remembered how completely he'd thought he'd solved the problem of his own childhood once he'd claimed Lillian and enveloped her in his dream
no one idle, no one beset by solitude, everyone laughing. The problem he had not solved, or even known existed, was how quickly it passed, every joke, every embrace, every babyhood and childhood, every moment of thinking that he had things figured out for good. — Jane Smiley

So many pleasing episodes of one's life are spoiled by shouting. You never heard of an unhappy marriage unless the neighbors have heard it first. — Lillian Russell

You don't always know how to do things when they're happening. — Lillian Hellman

One sits uncomfortably on a too comfortable cushion. — Lillian Hellman

A rare orchid that gives off its scent only at night," Nettle replied. "The petals are pure white, far more delicate even than jasmine. One cannot obtain the essence by heating the blossoms- they are too fragile."
"Cold enfleurage, then?" Lillian murmured, referring to the process of soaking the precious petals in sheets of fat until it was saturated with their fragrance, then using an alcohol-based solvent to draw out the pure essence.
"Yes."
She took another breath of the exquisite essence. "What is the orchid's name?"
"Lady of the Night."
That elicited a delighted chuckle from Daisy. "That sounds like the title of one of the novels my mother has forbidden me to read. — Lisa Kleypas