274 Quotes by Rebecca West

When those of our army whose voices are likely to coo tell us that the day of sex antagonism is over and that henceforth we only have to advance hand in hand with the male, I do not believe it.

There is a point, and it is reached more easily than is supposed, where interference with freedom of the arts and literature becomes an attack on the life of society.

All disgrace smells alike. Differences in ruin are only matters of degree.

I find to my astonishment that an unhappy marriage goes on being unhappy when it is over.

Writers on the subject of August Strindberg have hitherto omitted to mention that he could not write. ... Strindberg, who was neither a good nor a wise man, had a stroke of luck. He went mad. He lost the power of inhibition. Everything down to the pettiest suspicion that the dog had been given the leanest mutton chop, poured out of his lips. Men of his weakness and sensuality are usually, from their sheer brutishness, unable to express themselves. But Strindberg was mad and articulate. That is what makes him immortal.

I cannot see that art is anything less than a way of making joys perpetual.

his smile bore the same relation to a real smile as false teeth do to real teeth ...

The earth itself is slightly resistant to routine.

There is nothing more frightening than the faces of people whom one does not know but who seem to know one, and be amused by one.