357 Quotes by Elizabeth Bowen

Expectations are the most perilous form of dream, and when dreams do realise themselves it is in the waking world: the difference is subtly but often painfully felt.

But surely love wouldn't get so much talked about if there were not something in it?

fashion seems to exist for an abstract person who is not you or me.

...there must be something she wanted; and that therefore she was no lady.

Wariness had driven away poetry; from hesitating to feel came the moment when you no longer could.

the slight sense of degeneracy induced by reading novels before luncheon

Forgiveness should be an act, but this is a state with him.

But to be quite oneself one must first waste a little time.

in my experience one thing you don't learn from is anything anyone set up to be a lesson; what you are to know you pick up as you go along.