35 Quotes by Alice Thomas Ellis

Claudia's the sort of girl who goes through life holding onto the sides.

There is a hint of despair in the cry of 'I told you so,' an element of disappointment in the apparent satisfaction when idols turn out to have clay feet. The human race, when it thinks it has proved that no one is superior, is partly gratified and partly depressed.

There seems to be a peculiar and particular tie between men who have been drunk together.

Phrase books seem to be a universal and eternal source of hilarity and I think I know why. Their authors go mad in the course of compiling them.

I like money. That is, it is my preferred means of completing pecuniary transactions. I'm not particularly keen on handing over wads of currency of the realm, but at least one knows where one is, whereas the chequebook is a snare and a delusion, containing misleading numbers of blank cheques when none of the money that the bank contains is rightfully one's own. ... I think banks owe their customers a lot by way of compensation for the aggravation they cause them.

things are never so indescribably ghastly that they can't get worse.

Men were made for war. Without it they wandered greyly about, getting under the feet of the women, who were trying to organize the really important things of life.

Optimism is the last resort of those in deep despair. There can’t be any optimists in heaven.

Men love women, women love children; children love hamsters– it’s quite hopeless.