C. Elizabeth Quotes

Topography displays no favorites; North's as near as West. More delicate than the historians' are the map-makers' colors.

Ports are necessities, like postage stamps or soap, but they seldom seem to care what impressions they make.

The art of losing isn't hard to master.

In a novel, I could submerge my ego in a characters and let his perceptions take over.

I see by the papers that you have once more stirred that pool of intellectual stagnation, the educational convention.

I can become very emotional about math, although I'm not that good at it.

My personal feeling about science fiction is that it's always in some way connected to the real world, to our everyday world.

I've never written the things I'd like to write that I've admired all my life. Maybe one never does.

All the best things are seen first of all at a far distance.

But in fantasy, you can make a complete break, and you can put people in a situation where they are confronted with things that they would not confront in the real world.

No, but a cello is the perfect string bass for an accordion. Works with it beautifully.

Now my mother, interestingly enough, was not a feminist in her own mind.

Time to plant tears, says the almanac. The grandmother sings to the marvelous stove and the child draws another inscrutable house.

Fantasy allows you to get past defenses.

Our relationship now thoroughly ruined, with even civility destroyed between us, all I wanted anymore was the door.

Always that tyrannical love reaches out. Soft words shrivel me like quicklime. She will not allow me to be cold, hungry. She will insist that I take her own coat, her own food.

I am overrun, infested with a menagerie of desires.

I don't have a story about an epiphany in which I suddenly realised I wanted to be an actor. It was much more a case of the idea dawning on me gradually.

Generation after generation of women have pledged to raise their daughters differently, only to find that their daughters grow up and fervently pledge the same thing.

Skip your brain and go right to the gut.

The next generation of women will enter a world in which they are perceived to have more opportunities for creating fulfilling lives than women have ever had before.

It's easy enough to pray when you're in distress but continuing to pray even when your crisis has passed is like a sealing process, helping your soul hold tight to its good attainment.

In seeking success you must also seek fulfillment. Ask yourself not only what you want to be but who you want to be.

Had they known at these moments to be quietly joyful? Most likely not. People mostly did not know enough when they were living life that they were living it.

You surely know that in the course of a long marriage it is not unusual for a husband or a wife to develop a crush on someone else.

We have hands; we can stand on them if we want to. That's our privilege. That's the joy of a mortal body. And that's why God needs us. Because God loves to feel things through our hands.

The great law of denial belongs to the powerful forces of life, whether the case be one of coolish baked beans, or an unrequited affection.

A perfect marriage is like a pure heart ... those who have it are fit to see God.

Let your conscience be your guide.

Surely it is one of the simplest laws of taste in dress, that it shall not attract undue attention from the wearer to the worn.

Girls are so often pitted against each other as enemies or adversaries. We even see it in 'Us' magazine: Who wore it better?

I don't love acting; I love chocolate.

You have to be a little crazy to be a dancer.

Addiction is the hallmark of every infatuation-based love story.

...in my head, a person who was out walking and walking in the dark comes to a little house with a light on. Waits at the door for a moment, and then goes in finds such a welcome that she stays.

I think I ended up being the scarlet woman partly because of my rather puritannical upbringing and beliefs. I always chose to think I was in love and that love was synonymous with marriage.

Only the deepest love will persuade me into matrimony, which is why I shall end up an old maid.

I really don't remember much about Cleopatra. There were a lot of other things going on.

Maggie the cat is alive. I'm alive.

I don't think President Bush is doing anything at all about Aids. In fact, I'm not sure he even knows how to spell Aids.

I always wanted to have a fragrance, and I always wanted to be able to connect with people in ways other than through film.

[On Antony's death] Strange, there has never been... such a silence.

Teach your heart that this is destiny

It's amazing the gymnastics you can do when you don't want to do something. How you can force yourself against all the forces of nature. I threw myself backward.

It takes two to write a letter as much as it takes two to make a quarrel.

I don't pretend to be an ordinary housewife.

I thought of the priest who'd told me that many religions hold that it is easier to be closely connected to people we love after death than before.

I've never thought of my jewelry as trophies. I'm here to take care of it and to love it, for we are only temporary custodians of beauty.

So miss him. Send him some love and light every time you think about him, then drop it.

I'm not a big Austen reader. I wouldn't say I dislike her, but if I had to choose between her and Eliot to bring to a desert island, it would definitely be Eliot.