76 Quotes by Ivy Compton-Burnett

We are always children to our mothers.

The plot is not very important to me, though a novel must have one, of course. It's just a line to hang the washing on.

To young people the future is still long.

Civilized life exacts its toll.

If I were not a child with my parents, they would be more unloving toward me ...

It is not for us to hold ourselves above the position of grateful people. We have to be able to accept. Anything else shows an unwillingness to grant someone else the superior place.

[On writing:] What a difficult kind of work to choose! But of course one did not choose it. There was no choice.

We must use words as they are used, or stand aside from life.

People's weaker side is not necessarily their truer self.