274 Quotes by Rebecca West

I am not so repelled by Communism: an element of Communism in politics is necessary and inevitable. In any involved society there must be a feeling that something must be done about poverty - which is the basis of communism.

The mind is its own enemy, that fights itself with the innumerable pliant and ineluctable arms of the octopus.

An audience proves its discipline by its capacity for stillness. Those who have never practiced continuous application to an exacting process cannot settle down to simple watching; they must chew gum, they must dig the peel off their oranges, they must shift from foot to foot, from buttock to buttock.

If I do not do sensible things about investments I shall spend my old age in a workhouse, where nobody will understand my jokes.

Art and propaganda have this much connection, that if a propaganda makes art impossible, it is clearly damned.

To those who fall and hurt themselves one runs with comfort; by those who lie dangerously stricken by a disease one sits and waits.

Why must you always try to be omnipotent, and shove things about? Tragic things happen sometimes that we just have to submit to.

Music is part of human life and partakes of the human tragedy. There is much more music in the world than is allowed to change into heard sounds and prove its point.

the reward for total abstinence from alcohol seems, illogically enough, to be the capacity for becoming intoxicated without it.