232 Quotes by Dodie Smith

Doing things for others gives you a lovely glow.” “So does port,” I said cynically.

We used to manage quite well when she was away sitting for artists, because in those days we lived mostly on bread, vegetables and eggs; but now that we can afford some meat or even chickens, I keep coming to grief. I scrubbed some rather dirty-looking chops with soap which proved very lingering, and I did not take certain things out of a chicken that I ought to have done. Even.

At least we’re companions in misfortune.

People’s clothes ought to be buried with them.

Our Clare doesn’t much care for real life,′ Drew told Jane. ‘What she needs is to live in a book– the kind that no longer gets written.

Everything in the least connected with him has value for me; if someone even mentions his name it is like a little present to me-and I long to mention it myself.

When things mean a very great deal to you, exciting anticipation just isn’t safe.

Perhaps he found beauty saddening – I do myself sometimes. Once when I was quite little I asked father why this was and he explained that it was due to our knowledge of beauty’s evanescence, which reminds us that we ourselves shall die.

The Vicar isn’t High Church enough for confessions, and certainly most of me would have loathed to tell him or anybody else one word; but I did have a feeling that a person as wretched as I was ought to be able to get some sort of help from the Church. Then I told myself that as I never gave the Church a thought when I was feeling happy, I could hardly expect it to do anything for me when I wasn’t. You can’t get insurance money without paying in premiums.