10 Quotes by Olive Senior

Normal is a universe that is predictable and trustworthy.

At least I knew all about falling in love. It was the falling out that I couldn't manage.

For she acted exactly as she pleased, laughed at his strictures against her behaviour, her friends, his lectures on 'respectability'. She was the first woman in his existence who had a life of her own, who did things simply because they pleased her, who argued, who asserted herself. There was only one role he was equipped to play which was to resist, to the bitter end, this encroachment as he saw it on his authority, his manhood. And bitter it became.

But how could he have, when women themselves had suddenly gone insane, were rejecting the direction, the protection, that their menfolk offered them, were recklessly plunging off on their own into unknown and unspeakable depths?

I forced myself to think rationally, something that is conveniently omitted from the upbringing of us women (otherwise my God how we would change the world!)

I do not apologise for baring my soul (though I did not intend to)

For it is only in other people's gaze that we see ourselves, isn't it?

For it is only in other people’s gaze that we see ourselves, isn’t it?

At least I knew all about falling in love. It was the falling out that I couldn’t manage.