125 Quotes by Elizabeth von Arnim

How glad I am I need not hurry. What a waste of life, just getting and spending.

That evening was the evening of the full moon. The garden was an enchanted place where all the flowers seemed white. The lilies, the daphnes, the orange-blossom, the white stocks, the white pinks, the white roses – you could see these as plainly as in the daytime; but the coloured flowers existed only as fragrance.

They left off talking. They ceased to mention heaven. They were just cups of acceptance.

It is a beautiful spot, endless forest stretching along the shore as far as the eye can reach ; and after driving through it for miles you come suddenly, at the end of an avenue of arching trees, upon the glistening, oily sea, with the orange-coloured sails of distant fishing-smacks shining in the sunlight.

And the more he treated her as though she were really very nice, the more Lotty expanded and became really very nice, and the more he, affected in his turn, became really very nice himself; so that they went round and round, not in a vicious but in a highly virtuous circle.

But of what use is it to be whitewashed and trim outside, to have pleasant creepers and tidy shutters, when inside one’s soul wanders through empty rooms, mournfully shivers in damp and darkness, is hungry and no one brings it food, is cold and no one lights a fire, is miserable and tired and there’s no chair to sit on?

True she was old, true she was unbeautiful, true she therefore had no reason to smile, but kind ladies smiled, reason or no. They smiled not because they were happy but because they wished to make happy.

Her great dead friends did not seem worth reading that night. They always said the same things now – over and over again they said the same things, and nothing new was to be got out of them any more for ever. No doubt they were greater than any one was now, but they had this immense disadvantage, that they were dead. Nothing further was to be expected of them; while of the living, what might one not still expect?

You mustn’t long in heaven,” said Mrs. Wilkins. “You’re supposed to be quite complete there. And it is heaven, isn’t it, Rose? See how everything has been let in together – the dandelions and the irises, the vulgar and the superior, me and Mrs. Fisher – all welcome, all mixed up anyhow, and all so visibly happy and enjoying ourselves.