Elizabeth Bowen Quotes

Looking back at a repetition of empty days, one sees that monuments have sprung up. Habit is not mere subjugation, it is a tender tie: when one remembers habit it seems to have been happiness.

A romantic man often feels more uplifted with two women than with one: his love seems to hit the ideal mark somewhere between two different faces.

She posed as being more indolent than she felt, for fear of finding herself less able than she could wish.

Livvy noted there seemed some communal feeling between the married: any wife could be faintly rude to anyone else's husband.

But Miss Pym gave an impression, somehow, of having been attacked from within.

He feels spikes everywhere and rushes to impale himself.

One's sentiments - call them that - one's fidelities are so instinctive that one hardly knows they exist: only when they are betrayed or, worse still, when one betrays them does one realize their power.