Margery Quotes & Sayings

But truth, that dangerous commodity, has a way of sticking ... — Margery Sharp

It is always a great pleasure, and surprise, when you happen on just the perfect place in which to plant some special treasure. — Margery Fish

You mustn't rely on your flowers to make your garden attractive. A good bone structure must come first, with an intelligent use of evergreen plants so that the garden is always clothed, no matter what time of year. Flowers are an added delight, but a good garden is the garden you enjoy looking at even in the depths of winter. — Margery Fish

Firmness in all aspects is a most important quality when gardening, not only in planting but in pruning, dividing and tying up. Plants are like babies, they know when an amateur is handling them. — Margery Fish

It is the gift of all poets to find the commonplace astonishing, and the astonishing quite natural. — Margery Sharp

They're the sort of people one invites to lunch or tea, but never to dinner. — Margery Wilson

You can never be free from limitation until you are willing to recognize that you and you alone are responsible for what you are. After you have passed infancy you are not a victim of anything but your own thinking. — Margery Wilson

Most oddly he was not frightened. That alone he had learned from experience. With the danger would come the courage. — Margery Allingham

When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real. — Margery Williams

Weal on his face. 'I'm inclined to agree with you,' he — Margery Allingham

The nicest people fall in love indiscriminately ... while under the influence of that pre-eminently selfish lunacy they may make the most outrageous demands upon their friends with no other excuse than their painful need. — Margery Allingham

Infatuation is one of those slightly comic illnesses which are at once so undignified and so painful that a nice-minded world does its best to ignore their existence altogether, referring to them only under provocation and then with apology, but, like its more material brother, this boil on the neck of the spirit can hardly be forgotten either by the sufferer or anyone else in his vicinity. The malady is ludicrous, sad, excruciating and, above all, instantly diagnosable. — Margery Allingham

In common with most writers, he had evolved his own technique for making bearable the drudgery of his abominable trade, — Margery Allingham

Women are terribly shocking to men, my dear. Don't understand them. Like them. It saves such a lot of hurting one way and the other. — Margery Allingham

Any woman who dares to make her own destiny will always put herself in danger. — Philippa Gregory

However carefully a judge is protected by the experience and the logic of the law, there must be times -not many, I know, or we should have no judges- when the same frightful question must be answered. Not faced, you see, but answered. Every now and again he must have to say to himself, in effect, Everyone agrees that this colour is black, and my reason tells me it is so, but on my soul, do I know? — Margery Allingham

I could go on and on. But that is just what gardening is, going on and on. My philistine of a husband often told with amusement how a cousin when asked when he expected to finish his garden replied 'Never, I hope'. And that, I think, applies to all true gardeners. — Margery Fish

But the thing that ... that I touched ... " I cried. "It was furry! It-" I stopped short, taken with a shudder. "I know," said Herrick. — Margery Williams

It's pitch, sex is. Once you touch it, it clings to you. — Margery Allingham

Love so seldom means happiness. — Margery Allingham

Meanwhile Crumb Street, never a place of beauty, that afternoon was at its worst. The fog slopped over its low houses like a bucketful of cold soup over a row of dirty stoves. The — Margery Allingham

People don't alter. They may with enormous difficulty modify themselves, but they never really change. — Margery Allingham

It doesn't happen all at once. You become. It takes a long time. — Margery Williams

Any fair-minded person will agree that humanity hasn't the faintest inkling, at this time, of the powers and laws that will, sometime, be known and used. — Margery Wilson

Flirting is a cheap, dangerous shortcut to get something you can't hold after you get it. — Margery Wilson

I believe that an author who cannot control her characters is, like a mother who cannot control her children, not really fit to look after them. — Margery Allingham

It is always difficult to escape from youth; its hopefulness, its optimistic belief in the privileges of desire, its despair, and its sense of outrage and injustice at disappointment, all these spring on a man inflicting indelicate agony when he is no longer prepared. — Margery Allingham

as might have been expected, in the dinner-jacket he had worn on the previous evening. His explanation was characteristic. 'Most extraordinary,' he said, in his slightly high-pitched voice. — Margery Allingham

Only the most pleasant characters in this book are portraits of living people and the events here recorded unfortunately never took place. — Margery Allingham

Real isn't how you are made,' said the Skin Horse. 'It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.'
'Does it hurt?' asked the Rabbit.
'Sometimes,' said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. 'When you are Real you don't mind being hurt.'
'Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,' he asked, 'or bit by bit?'
'It doesn't happen all at once,' said the Skin Horse. 'You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand. — Margery Williams

One does not dislike the half of everything. You bore me, you young people, when you talk about one sex or the other, as if they were separate things. There is only one human entity and that is a man and a woman. The man is the silhouette, the woman is the detail. The one often spoils or makes the other. But apart they are so much material. Don't be a fool. — Margery Allingham

Beware of anger. It is the most difficult to remove of all the hindrances. But it is the alcohol of the body, you know, and the devil of it is that it deadens the perceptions. — Margery Allingham

Can't you clerk in a store?'
'No.'
'Can't you be a waitress?'
'Would you be anything like you're suggesting to me? Then why, if you're too good, is it all right for me?'
'It's not a question of superiority, Dora. Come on, be a telephone operator and get paid while you work. Or how about ushering in a theater? I have it. You'll get a job in a flower shop. They always do.'
He looked at her so sharply that she knew she must make some answer, and she began to speak as if her words came from another mind, another mouth. 'I am beyond this plane of animal existence. I'm made of different stuff. I lived all this ages ago and I'm through with it for good. — Margery Latimer

The relationship between the two men was something of a miracle in itself. It was a cordiality based, apparently, on complete non-comprehension cemented by a deep mutual respect for the utterly unknown. No two men saw less eye to eye and the result was unexpected harmony, as if a dog and a fish had mysteriously become friends and were proud each of the other's remarkable dissimilarity to himself. — Margery Allingham

Miss Huntingforest beamed at them. 'If you can eat cakes at eleven o'clock in the morning you're all right,' she said. 'It's an acid test, in my opinion. If a man can eat two cookies before noon and enjoy them there's not much wrong with him. — Margery Allingham

When one kicks over a tea table and smashes everything but the sugar bowl, one may as well pick that up and drop it on the bricks, don't you think? — Margery Allingham

He longed to become Real, to know what it felt like; and yet the idea of growing shabby and losing his eyes and whiskers was rather sad. He wished that he could become it without these — Margery Williams

When you are Real you don't mind being hurt. — Margery Williams Bianco

Time is a friend - perhaps the best one we shall ever have ... Time is a now - and there is only now. Memories look backward. Hope looks ahead. But there is in reality only now. — Margery Wilson

Outrage, combining as it does shock, anger, reproach, and helplessness, is perhaps the most unmanageable, the most demoralizing of all the emotions. — Margery Allingham

If he's a poet, why's he in jail?" demanded a suspicious voice.
Madam Chairwoman shrugged velvet shoulders.
"Perhaps he writes free verse," she suggested cunningly.
A stir of approval answered her. Mice are all for people being free, so that they too can be freed form their eternal task of cheering prisoners--so that they can stay snug at home, nibbling the family cheese, instead of sleeping out in damp straw on a diet of stale bread. — Margery Sharp

Speaking of opinions, the charming woman does not air hers very freely. The crude woman is eager to let you know what she thinks of every matter, person or object that bobs up. She comments on every passing item - even in public, as you may have noticed. Not only is it bad taste for her to be so desperately interested in her own reactions and opinions - but she throws away the precious aura of reserve and mystery that makes a woman attractive. — Margery Wilson

No one could have been more surprised than I at my successes, and yet deep within me there was acknowledgment that had I not succeeded, I would have been equally surprised. — Margery Wilson

The very thing that seems to impede your progress can often be turned to account for you. — Margery Wilson

If Democracy should fail, it would be because we had been so lacking in self-discipline that our personal problems had taken all our substance and energies, leaving us nothing of value to contribute to the commonwealth. — Margery Wilson

There is nothing more tedious than a constant round of gaiety. — Margery Sharp

Youth is always a little offended to find itself not preferred: it cannot help feeling that when it admits the old to its society, it confers a benefit. — Margery Sharp

Charm lies in complete forgetfulness of self. — Margery Wilson

There were at least four people who realized that Inspector Stanislaus Oates, only lately promoted to the Big Five, was being followed down High Holborn by the short, squat, shabby man who yet bore the elusive air of a forgotten culture about him. — Margery Allingham

One of the most delightful things about gardening is the freemasonry it gives with other gardeners, and the interest and pleasure all gardeners get by visiting other people's gardens. We all have a lot to learn and in every new garden there is a chance of finding inspiration - new flowers, different arrangement or fresh treatment for old subjects. Even if it is a garden you know by heart there are twelve months in the year and every month means a different garden, and the discovery of things unexpected all the rest of the year. — Margery Fish

Conversation is much like a tennis game except that in tennis you try to put the ball in the most difficult position for the one who must hit it - while in conversation you must try to put it where it will be easy to hit. — Margery Wilson

The old fellow seemed to spot deceit as if it reeked like a goat. — Margery Allingham

There is nothing so intractable as a calendar. — Margery Sharp

It's easy enough to make the truth look silly. A man never seems more foolish-like than he does when he's speaking his whole mind and heart. — Margery Allingham

Up the well known creek — Margery Allingham

This estate is called a Phoenix. It's not a municipal venture, it's a social rebirth, a statement of a sincere belief that decent conditions make a decent community, and I'm — Margery Allingham

Gardening is like everything else in life, you get out of it as much as you put in. No one can make a garden by buying a few packets of seeds or doing an afternoon's weeding. You must love it, and then your love will be repaid a thousandfold, as every gardener knows. — Margery Fish

All about him stretched the lush green countryside in which there were to every acre a thousand hiding-places, deep and wide and quiet enough to hold so small and worthless a thing as a single unit of mortal clay. I — Margery Allingham

I have never regretted our foolhardiness. Of course, we made mistakes, endless mistakes, but at least they were our own, just as the garden was our own. — Margery Fish

There are, fortunately, very few people who can say that they have actually attended a murder. — Margery Allingham

No.' He spoke with a tenderness unexpected in him. 'No, lady, no. Put that clean out of your mind. That dear chap and his dog have gone, gone where the dear chaps do go, gone with a few I knew. You've got your own life and you go and live it and make a do of it, as no doubt he'd like you to. Now — Margery Allingham

He didn't mind how he looked to other people, because the nursery magic had made him Real, and when you are Real shabbiness doesn't matter. — Margery Williams

Real isn't how you are made. It's a thing that happens to you," said the Skin Horse. " When you are real you don't mind being hurt.
It doesn't happen all at once. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen to people who break easily, or who have sharp corners. Generally, by the time you are real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out, and you get loose and very shabby. But these don't matter at all, because once you are Real, you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand.
Once you are Real, you can't unreal. It last forever — Margery Williams

Sometimes you cannot help what you hear, you cannot help what you see. — Philippa Gregory

If one cannot command attention by one's admirable qualities one can at least be a nuisance. — Margery Allingham

Lying wastes more time than anything else in the modern world. — Margery Allingham

It was a little skirmish across a century. — Margery Allingham

I could never, I knew then, lose myself "in love." Margery had accused me of coldness, and she was right, but she was also wrong: For me, for always, the paramount organ of passion was the mind. Unnatural, unbalanced, perhaps, but it was true: Without intellect, there could be no love. — Laurie R. King

When the habitually even-tempered suddenly fly into a passion, that explosion is apt to be more impressive than the outburst of the most violent amongst us. — Margery Allingham

Once sex rears its ugly 'ead it's time to steer clear. — Margery Allingham

Probably one of the reasons why gushing is so unattractive is that it leaves nothing for the listener to do. — Margery Wilson

I am one of those people who are blessed, or cursed, with a nature which has to interfere. If I see a thing that needs doing I do it. — Margery Allingham

Mourning is not forgetting ... It is an undoing. Every minute tie has to be untied and something permanent and valuable recovered and assimilated from the dust. — Margery Allingham

[O]nce you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand. - The Skin Horse from The Velveteen Rabbit — Margery Williams

One policeman may be a friend, but two are the Law. — Margery Allingham

Consider, o consider the lowly mole. His small hands are sore and his snout bleedeth. — Margery Allingham

Life pulls at bewildered humanity in so many ways! Blessed is the woman who makes her life a career of stimulating the courage of others. — Margery Wilson

The optimism of a healthy mind is indefatigable. — Margery Allingham

Try to think of your thoughts as boomerangs - that is actually what they are - except that our thoughts multiply and each returns to us with a brood like itself. — Margery Wilson

She rose and followed her bust from the room. — Margery Allingham

When Mr. William Faraday sat down to write his memoirs after fifty-eight years of blameless inactivity he found the work of inscribing the history of his life almost as tedious as living it had been, and so, possessing a natural invention coupled with a gift for locating the easier path, he began to prevaricate a little upon the second page, working his way up to downright lying on the sixth and subsequent folios. — Margery Allingham

This is not even the stuff dictators are made of, but this is the kind of madness which is often not found out until it is too late.' Campion — Margery Allingham

There are only two kinds of men who become dentists. The ones who love it and ones who get miserable. Think round and you'll see I'm right. — Margery Allingham

It's for Carson. (Margery)
And I repeat what I said. Just what I need, a bunch of drunk fucks working on me. Remind me not to do anything stupid tonight. Oh wait, I'm here. Too late for that warning, huh? (Fury) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

Well, you know, it's an evil thing, this attempt to reverse the process of mourning.' The Canon stepped back on to his own territory and became a different being. 'Mourning is not forgetting,' he said gently, his helplessness vanishing and his voice becoming wise. 'It is an undoing. Every minute tie has to be untied and something permanent and valuable recovered and assimilated from the knot. The end is gain, of course. Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be made strong, in fact. But the process is like all other human births, painful and long and dangerous. This attempt to reverse it when the thing is practically achieved, that is wicked, an attempt to kill the spirit. The — Margery Allingham

Good doctors get a mechanic's pleasure in making you tick over. — Margery Allingham

People will invite you and seek you constantly if you learn how to give them the extreme pleasure of being clever. People adore the one who encourages them to display their conversational wares and admires the display. — Margery Wilson

Once you are real you can't become unreal again. It lasts for always. — Margery Williams

All life is a delusion of the senses. — Margery Wilson

To be alive is sufficient evidence that we are needed in the world. Otherwise we wouldn't be here. — Margery Wilson

A diplomat ... is not worthy of the name unless he can say 'no' and make the other person like it - or at least not be offended by it. — Margery Wilson

Waiting is one of the great arts. — Margery Allingham

He said, " You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."
-The Velveteen Rabbit — Margery Williams

As I see it, the word "private" is going plumb out of date. It's goin' to be an ole-fashioned concep', mark my words. That's a prophecy. — Margery Allingham

But there are roughly two sorts of informed people, aren't there? People who start off right by observing the pitfalls and mistakes and going round them, and the people who fall into them and get out and know they're there because of that. They both come to the same conclusions but they don't have quite the same point of view. — Margery Allingham

Of what use was it to be loved and lose one's beauty and become Real if it all ended like this? And a tear, a real tear, trickled down his little shabby velvet nose and fell to the ground. — Margery Williams

So few people can think and talk at the same time. — Margery Wilson

Women will not, for many a year, perhaps never, descend again to the status of toys. — Margery Wilson

He did not arrive at this conclusion by the decent process of quiet, logical deduction, nor yet by the blinding flash of glorious intuition, but by the shoddy, untidy process halfway between the two by which one usually gets to know things. — Margery Allingham

Mike stood in-line, waiting for the mealtime muck that passed for lunch at his school canteen. He knew he was getting close to the front now, as he tightly held his tray. Not just because he could see this as you might expect, but because he could smell Margery the school cook's body odour. The children at the front were already holding their breath. You could see a line of pink faces close to him, to red, then purple closest to Margery. Only when they left at the end did they breathe for air and turn back to their normal colour again, like a deep sea diver after a long plunge.

"Margery the Meal Murderer" was her name for most school kids. — L.P. Donnelli