58 Quotes by Hope Mirrlees

It was not so much a modification of the darkness, as a sigh of relief, a slight relaxing of tension, so that one felt, rather than saw, that the night had suddenly lost a shade of its density... ah! yes; there! between these two shoulders of the hills she is bleeding to death.

He sprang to his feet, and cried roughly, ‘I’ll give you a handful of Yeses and Noes, Jessamine, and it’ll keep you amused for the rest of the evening sorting them out, and sticking them on to your questions. I’m going out.

The man who remains calm inevitably takes command of a situation.

And, judging from Dame Jessamine's serene and smiling face, he had succeeded in removing completely the terrible impression produced by her husband's parting words, and in restoring to what she was pleased to call her mind its normal condition, namely that of a kettle that contains just enough water to simmer comfortably over a low fire.

Why is Melancholy like Honey? Because it is very sweet, and it is culled from Flowers.

But the other tribe — the passionate, tragic, rootless tree — man? Alas! He is a creature whose highest privileges are a curse. In his mouth is ever the bitter-sweet taste of life and death, unknown to the trees. Without respite he is dragged by the two wild horses, memory and hope; and he is tormented by a secret that he can never tell. For every man worthy of the name is an initiate; but each one into different Mysteries.

Lud-in-the-Mist had all the things that make an old town pleasant. It had an ancient Guild Hall, built of mellow golden bricks and covered with ivy and, when the sun shone on it, it looked like a rotten apricot; it had a harbour in which rode vessels with white and red tawny sails; it had flat brick houses - not the mere carapace of human beings, but ancient living creatures, renewing and modifying themselves with each generation under their changeless antique roofs.

And then the disquieting thought would come to him that perhaps after all epitaphs are not altogether to be trusted.

Arme, oude maan,' grinnikte Nathaniel, die helemaal in zijn sas was. 'Hij eigent zich eindeloos kleuren toe om er zijn bleke gezicht mee te beschilderen, en het blijft vergeefs!