Dodie Smith Quotes

My imagination longs to dash ahead and plan developments; but I have noticed that when things happen in one's imagination, they never happen in one's life.

There is something revolting about the way girls' minds so often jump to marriage long before they jump to love.

Once I really looked at the sky, I wanted to go on looking; it seemed to draw me towards it and make me listen hard, though there was nothing to listen to, not so much as a twig was stirring.

The Devil's out of fashion.

Did you think of anything when Miss Marcy said Scoatney Hall was being re-opened? I thought of the beginning of Pride and Prejudice – where Mrs. Bennet says 'Netherfield Park is let a last.' And then Mr. Bennet goes over to call on the rich new owner.

Cruel blows of fate call for extreme kindness in the family circle.

Just to be in love seemed the most blissful luxury I had ever known. The thought came to me that perhaps it is the loving that counts, not the being loved in return - that perhaps true loving can never know anything but true happiness.

I have found that sitting in a place where you have never sat before can be inspiring.

And who says you always have to understand things? You can like them without understanding them -- like 'em better sometimes.

I couldn't make it out - why you ever let me, I mean. I understand now. Things like that happen when you're in love with the wrong person. Worse things. Things you never forgive yourself for.

I go backwards and forwards, recapturing the past, wondering about the future—and, most unreasonably, I find myself longing for the past more than for the future.

Father says hot water can be as stimulating as an alcoholic drink and though I never come by one...I can well believe it.

I wanted so terribly to be good to him.

Am I really admitting that my sister is determined to marry a man she has only seen once and doesn't much like the look of? It is half real and half pretense - and I have an idea that it is a game most girls play when they meet an eligible young men. They just...wonder.

Noble deeds and hot baths are the best cures for depression.

When I imagine changing places with her I get the feeling I do on finishing a novel with a brick-wall happy ending---I mean the kind of ending when you never think any more about the characters.

It is rather exciting to write by moonlight.