J. L. B. Smith Quotes

Plus, publishing's inherent conservatism, means that what little did get through was weighted towards the commercial end of the scale, which is not the kind of writing that excites me.

Our first-year list is Sangeeta Bandyopadhyay (translated by Arunava Sinha), Hwang Jung-eun (translated by Jung Yewon), and Khairani Barokka.

I don't get insomnia, but I do get the odd night when I can't unwind.

A message to the best football supporters in the world. We need a 12th man here. Where are you? Where are you? Let's be having you. Come on!

I don't actually get recognised. I only have my hair done and make-up put on when I am on TV. The rest of the time, I go out without make-up on, so people don't recognise me.

I cheated at school. I remember on one occasion I wrote some history dates in pen on my leg. So when there was a question like 'What year did that happen?', I'd lift my skirt up and have a look.

I do believe you can be attracted by somebody at first sight. We have all done it.

The real love for somebody comes from getting to know them very well.

Remember, it's very simple to have an oven tested professionally, and it only takes about five minutes.

The journey of prayer is nothing more or less than a gradual awakening to the reality of recognizing what is already there.

I've never done any advertising because I feel I am in a position of trust, and that has been very liberating

...I have noticed that when things happen in one's imaginings, they never happen in one's life, so I am curbing myself.

Was I the only woman in the world who, at my age - and after a lifetime of quite rampant independence - still did not quite feel grown up?

I was wandering around as usual, in my unpleasantly populated sub-conscious.

Only the margin left to write on now. I love you, I love you, I love you.

If you love people, you take them on trust.

Death is too much to ask of the living.

It's odd how different a house feels when one is alone in it. It makes it easier to think rather private thoughts.

Wakings are the worst times--almost before my eyes are open a great weight seems to roll on my heart.

The one Bach piece I learnt made me feel I was being repeatedly hit on the head with a teaspoon.

I wanted to know more about the young ... strange that though they laughed so loud, they so seldom smiled. Perhaps laughter was involuntary whereas smiling was part of an attitude to life.

Ah, but you're the insidious type--Jane Eyre with of touch of Becky Sharp. A thoroughly dangerous girl.

Americans do seem to say things which make the English notice England.

Oh, comfortable cocoa!

...With stories even a page can take me hours, but the truth seems to flow out as fast as I can get it down.

I found it quite easy to carry on a casual conversation it was as if my real feelings were down fathoms deep in my mind and what we said was just a feathery surface spray.

How can a young man like to wear a beard?

I have noticed that rooms which are extra clean feel extra cold

I should rather like to tear these last pages out of the book. Shall I? No-a journal ought not to cheat.

I have really sinned. I am going to pause now, and sit here on the mound repenting in deepest shame.

I think it [religion] is an art, the greatest one; an extension of the communion all the other arts attempt.

I'm convinced England's overflowing with eccentric people, places, happenings. Indeed, you might say eccentricity's normal in England.

... for I know I shall be interrupted-- I shall want to be, really, because life is too exciting to sit still for long.

Sometimes [the expression] old age has a kind of harrowing beauty. But elderly - ugh!

Perhaps what you call conventionality, I call decency.

There was a wonderful atmosphere of gentle age, a smell of flowers and beeswax, sweet yet faintly sour and musty; a smell that makes you feel very tender towards the past.

Perhaps it would really be rather dull to be married and settled for life. Liar! It would be heaven.

Well, my paper has asked me to do a series: Lives of the Great Musicians, reading time 2 minutes.

Oh, it is wonderful to wake up in the morning with things to look forward to!

Oh, wise young judge.

...surely I could give him--a sort of contentment... That isn't enough to give. Not for the giver.

So many of the loveliest things in England are melancholy.

The tea was a comfort - and by that time I more than needed comfort.

I know all about the facts of life, and I don't think much of them.

How I wish I lived in a Jane Austen novel!

One of the distinguishing characteristics of the true work of art is that it is able to both contain and express different meanings - meanings which may in fact contradict each other.

Today, because photography exercises such a profound influence upon the study of art, we tend to disregard the way in which prints continue to function as information.

We are making gods out of global celebrities.

How few women have any history after the age of thirty!

Spain- a great whale stranded on the shores of Europe.