Rebecca Quotes

... it is nearly impossible to understand those who are beyond our sight, who are not explained to us by ties of birth or the contact of the flesh.

Most magazines have that look of being predestined to be left which one sees on the faces of the women whose troubles bring them to the Law Courts.

... there has never been a period in history when there have been necessary killings which has not been instantly followed by a period when there have been unnecessary killings.

Hatred of domestic work is a natural and admirable result of civilization.

I believe if people are looking for the truth, the truth of the Christian religion will come out and meet them.

The childhood of the individual and the race is full of fears, and panic-stricken attempts to avert what is feared by placating the gods with painful sacrifices.

The unsuccessful bully can always become the father of a family.

Reason's a thing we dimly see in sleep.

When anything important has to be written ... I think your hand concentrates for you.

I've never been able to do just one draft. That seems a wonderful thing. Do you know anyone who can?

There was too much hatred in the world; it was manifestly as dangerous as gunpowder, yet people let it lie about, in the way of ignition.

Here lies the real terror in the international war of ideologies; that a city knows not whom it entertains.

The aged are terrible - mere heaps of cinders on the grass from which none can tell how tall the flames once were or what company gathered round them.

Of Virginia Woolf: The talent of this generation which is most certain of survival.

music is a missionary effort to colonize earth for imperialistic heaven.

If there is a God, I don't think He would demand that anyone bow down or stand up to Him. I often have a suspicion that God is still trying to work things out and hasn't finished.

To those who fall and hurt themselves one runs with comfort; by those who lie dangerously stricken by a disease one sits and waits.

The Portrait of a Lady is entirely successful in giving one the sense of having met somebody far too radiantly good for this world.

Like all bad drivers, he [Henry Andrews] thought he was the best driver in the world...

[Evelyn Waugh] made drunkenness cute and chic, and then took to religion, simply to have the most expensive carpet of all to be sick on.

whatever a work of art may be, the artist certainly cannot dare to be simple. He must have a nature as complicated and as violent, as totally unsuggestive of the word innocence, as a modern war.

Bad art is maintained by the neurotic, who is deadly afraid of authentic art because it inspires him to go on living, and he is terrified of life.

Mr. James Joyce is a great man who is entirely without taste.

... it matters not what natural endowment a race may have if it prostitutes itself to the service of death.

As Plato: What is play and delightful one kind of child is coercion and torture for another, and will not take no matter how much coercion is applied.

And what is it, according to Plato, that philosophy is supposed to do? Nothing less than to render violence to our sense of ourselves and our world, our sense of ourselves in the world. (p. 40)

Paraphrasing Plato's Republic: "Only people who have allowed themselves to be reformed by reality have it in themselves to reform their polis for the better.

Kleos is sometimes translated as "acoustic renown" the spreading renown you get from people talking about your exploits. It's a bit like having a large Twitter following.

I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is: I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat, or a prostitute.

Well, it's simple to love someone, " she said. "But it's hard to know when you need to say it out loud.

It’s life. You don’t figure it out. You just climb up on the beast and ride.

Either you go to America with Mrs. Van Hopper or you come home to Manderley with me.""Do you mean you want a secretary or something?""No, I'm asking you to marry me, you little fool.

Sowing seeds of kindness always reaps a crop of heavenly blessings.

Tears are God's way of cleansing the heart.

Have fun life is better that way.

We've got a bond in common, you and I. We are both alone in the world.

You picked the wrong girl to dominate, Dracula.

Hope is not a door, but a sense that there might be a door at some point, some way out of the problems of the present moment even before that way is found or followed.

The naively cynical measure a piece of legislation, a victory, a milestone not against the past or the limits of the possible, but against their ideas of perfection...

I wonder sometimes what would happen if victory was imagined not just as the elimination of evil but the establishment of good...

How do you mourn something that never really belonged to you?

Life and death- what paltry words, what tarnished bookends, what unjust summation for drawing breath one moment and failing to release it the next.

That kind of imagination is why we're not dead.

The ability to tell your own story, in words or images, is already a victory, already a revolt.

...you do not have too many boogeymen for me. You have just the right number.

Sidda can't help herself. She just loves books. Loves the way they feel, the way they smell, loves the black letters marching across the white pages...

Be the light you want to attract, and darkness will have no spell over you. Darkness is dispelled by light.

Friends are supposed to act like harbor boats—let you know if you’re off course. But it ain’t always possible…

There seem to be two main types of people in the world, crosswords and sudokus.

I climbed into bed, wide awake and full of dreams.