A plot is like the bones of a person, not interesting like expression, or signs of experience, but the support of the whole.

A leopard does not change his spots, or change his feeling that spots are rather a credit.

Anyone who picks up a Compton-Burnett finds it very hard not to put it down.

There are different kinds of wrong. The people sinned against are not always the best.

My youth is escaping without giving me anything it owes me.

We can build upon foundations anywhere if they are well and firmly laid.

As regards plot I find real life no help at all. Real life seems to have no plots. And as I think a plot desirable and almost necessary, I have this extra grudge against life.

Real life seems to have no plots.

I never know why self-sacrifice is noble. Why is it better to sacrifice oneself than someone else?

Many people misjudge the permanent effect of sorrow, and their capacity to live in the past.

Appearances are not held to be a clue to the truth,' said his cousin. 'But we seem to have no other.

People do not know how what is at variance agrees with itself. It is an attunement of opposite tensions, like that of the bow and the lyre.

People keep asking me ...How to instantly become a better writer? It’s simple: Use "power words" and see for yourself.

I don’t always do what I say but if you want to follow my actions, be my guest. You can do what I do and fail, or you can do what I say and move on with your life. It’s your choice.

Isaac Rothe, Matthias

At first a woman doesn't want anything but a husband, but as soon as gets one, she wants everything else in the world.

Books are but waste paper unless we spend in action the wisdom we get from thought.

In man (as the only rational creature on earth) those natural capacities which are directed to the use of his reason are to be fully developed only in the race, not in the individual.

That's stupid." "That's people.

You can't have many exclamation points left,' thought Anne, 'but no doubt the supply of italics is inexhaustible.

If there'd been a better-balanced society, where there were other ways of making a decent living, I think it might have been different. That's not the way this setup work.