Vita Sackville-West Quotes

There's no beginning to the farmer's year, / Only recurrent patterns on a scroll / Unwinding...

One must be businesslike, although the glass is falling.

Among the many problems which beset the novelist, not the least weighty is the choice of the moment at which to begin his novel.

[On writing:] The most egotistic of occupations, and the most gratifying while it lasts.

Nothing shows up the difference between the things said or read, so much as the daily experience of it.

Women, like men, ought to have their years so glutted with freedom that they hate the very idea of freedom.

The wise traveler is he who is perpetually surprised.

Things were not tragic for us then, because although we cared passionately we didn't care deeply.

Travel is the most private of pleasures. There is no greater bore than the travel bore. We do not in the least want to hear what he has seen in Hong Kong.

Ambition old as mankind the immemorial weakness of the strong.

So prodigal was I of youth Forgetting I was young I worshipped dead men for their strength Forgetting I was strong.