274 Quotes by Rebecca West

We think in youth that our bodies are identical to ourselves and have the same interests, but discover later in life that they are heartless companions who have been accidentally yoked with us, and who are as likely as not, in our extreme sickness or old age, to treat us with less mercy than we would have received at the hands of the worst bandits.

A good cause has to be careful of the company it keeps.

Literature must be an analysis of experience and a synthesis of the findings into a unity.

Christianity must be regarded not as a final revelation but as a phase of revelation.

Men must be capable of imagining and executing and insisting on social change if they are to reform or even maintain civilization, and capable too of furnishing the rebellion which is sometimes necessary if society is not to perish of immobility.

Any writer worth his salt knows that only a small proportion of literature does nore than partly compensate people for the damage they have suffered in learning to read.

Economists are like Aeolian harps, and the sounds that issue from them are determined by the winds that blow.

Were it possible for us to wait for ourselves to come into the room, not many of us would find our hearts breaking into flower as we heard the door handle turn.

Fiction and poetry are the only way one can stop time and give an account of an experience and nail it down so that it lasts for ever.