20 Quotes by Naomi Mitchison

VICTRIX CAVSA DIIS PLACVIT SED VICTA PVELLIS

Occasionally, and for everyone's good, mankind were instructed to offer a fresh and juicy princess to their own particular dragon. It was said that the princesses enjoyed the experience.Certainly the dragons did.

If he could sleep, she thought, sleep through the unhappy months, the heart's hunger, the months of death and cold and not having what you most want, and wake with time gone past and blurred and a new year coming. But perhaps it is too early in the year, she thought after that, and besides, he is not a bear.

Keep it light so you can say a lot more, especially if it's something you care about.

It was all coming out from somewhere, and I just had the job of writing it down. I was, however, determined that the central characters would have a happy ending, but it was quite difficult sometimes to get them out of trouble.

After you've written about something once, though, it's very dangerous to try and do it again. The original story was very good indeed, but the more he wrote the less good it became.

It was as though there was a film going on inside my head, and I was watching it as it went by. I was completely immersed in this. I didn't know what was coming, but it just came.

Of course there were areas of safety; nothing could get at me if I curled up on my father's lap, holding his ear with one thumb tucked into it... All about him was safe.

The lesser evil is also evil.