76 Quotes by Ivy Compton-Burnett

It will be a beautiful family talk, mean and worried and full of sorrow and spite and excitement.

Dear, dear, the miniature world of the family! All the emotions of mankind seem to find a place in it.

Magnifying a matter is not the way to mend it.

Duty is seldom liked either by the doer or the object ... And why should it be? It is not often of advantage to either.

When I die, people will say it is the best thing for me. It is because they know it is the worst. They want to avoid the feeling of pity. As though they were the people most concerned!

charm should be on the surface. It has no hidden use.

Most of the pleasure of making a book would go if it held nothing to be shared by other people. I would write for a few dozen people, and sometimes it seems that I do so, but I would not write for no-one.

some people always have a touch of youth about them.

Well, Buttermere, this is a day that is good to live and breathe in, that makes a man feel in his prime. Standing here in front of my house, I feel as young as when I moved into it thirty years ago, in the year eighteen hundred and fifty-nine. What aged man would you take me to be, as I step as it were casually into your view?