75 Quotes by Penelope Fitzgerald

He said, aloud, 'The external world is the world of shadows. It throws its shadows into the kingdom of light. How different they will appear when this darkness is gone and the shadow-body has passed away. The universe, after all, is within us. The way leads inward, always inwards.

A good book is the precious life-blood of a master-spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life, and as such it must surely be a necessary commodity.

. . . in every created thing, whether it is alive or whether is what we usually call inanimate, there is an attempt to communicate, even among the totally silent. There is a question being asked, a different question for every entity, which for the most part will never be put into words, even by those who can speak.

Gentleness is not kindness. His fluid personality tested and stole into the weak places of others until it found it could settle down to its own advantage.

Surely if one doesn’t find sex tiresome in life, it won’t be tiresome in fiction,’ said the Junior Dean. ‘I do find it tiresome in life,’ Dr Matthews replied. ‘Or rather, I find other people’s concern with it tiresome. One is told about it and told and told!

Hannah wanted to put the next day's work on the blackboard. This would mean that she needn't turn her back on the class first thing, which is as unwise in junior teaching as in lion-taming.

Sink, he told his hopes, with a kind of satisfaction, sink like a corpse dropped into the river. I am rejected, not for being unwelcome, not even for being ridiculous, but for being nothing.

Behind their dark glass, the mad own nothing.

En ese momento se dio la vuelta, como movida por una ráfaga de viento.