Winifred Holtby

Youth knows no remedy for grief but death.

— Winifred Holtby

I am fierce for work. Without work I am nothing.

— Winifred Holtby

why haven't we seventy lives? One is no use.

— Winifred Holtby

Everybody's tragedy is somebody's nuisance.

— Winifred Holtby

[On golf:] One of the most distressing defects of civilization.

— Winifred Holtby

no truth is strong enough to defeat a well-established legend.

— Winifred Holtby

Those who prepare for war get it.

— Winifred Holtby

The more I see of dogs, the more I like children.

— Winifred Holtby

“Oh, lovely world,' thought Sarah, in love with life and all its varied richness.”

— Winifred Holtby

It's the things you don't do, not the things you do, you feel most sorry for.

— Winifred Holtby

If we haven't a grouch against Fortune, we seem unable to avoid one against ourselves.

— Winifred Holtby

A sense of humor is so handy, isn't it? It lets you see both sides of a question so that you never…

— Winifred Holtby

Is this the final treachery of time, that the old become a burden upon the young?

— Winifred Holtby

the ruder lecturers are, and the louder their voices, the more converts they make to their opinions.

— Winifred Holtby

But questioning does not mean the end of loving, and loving does not mean the abnegation of intelligence

— Winifred Holtby

I advise nobody to drown sorrow in cocoa. It is bad for the figure and it does not alleviate the sorrow.

— Winifred Holtby

Teachers have power. We may cripple them by petty economics; by Government regulations, by the foolish criticism of an uninformed press; but…

— Winifred Holtby

Surely, if life is good, it is good throughout its substance; we cannot separate men's activities from women's and say, these are…

— Winifred Holtby

I find you in all small and lovely things; in the little fishes like flames in the green water, in the furred…

— Winifred Holtby

Life flows on over death as water closes over a stone dropped into a pool. ... Fate is certain; death is certain;…

— Winifred Holtby

What with the reviews of critics, the sarcasms of one's friends, the reproaches of one's own taste, there's precious little peace after…

— Winifred Holtby

public work brings a vicarious but assured sense of immortality. We may be poor, weak, timid, in debt to our landlady, bullied…

— Winifred Holtby

Sorrow and frustration have their power. The world is moved by people with great discontents. Happiness is a drug. It can make…

— Winifred Holtby

But to write - that is grief and labor; and to read what one has written - how unlike the story as…

— Winifred Holtby

You are quite, quite wrong if you think that ... I find your happiness painful. What matters is that happiness - the…

— Winifred Holtby

“Their language was an old wild language. They had known incredible loves and dark adventures and the twisted streets of alien cities.…

— Winifred Holtby

Question everyone in authority, and see that you get sensible answers to your questions ... questioning does not mean the end of…

— Winifred Holtby

“For she was clever. It had not been a lie then, that ecstasy which had visited her when she read A Midsummer…

— Winifred Holtby

We're so busy resigning ourselves to the inevitable that we don't even ask if it is inevitable. We've got to have courage,…

— Winifred Holtby

it is better to take experience, to suffer, to love, and to remember than to walk unscathed between the fires. I've had…

— Winifred Holtby

“I am a feminist because I dislike everything that feminism implies. I desire an end to the whole business, the demands for…

— Winifred Holtby

Oh, time betrays us. Time is the great enemy.

— Winifred Holtby

Really, trees are nearly as important as men, and much better behaved.

— Winifred Holtby

Remorse ... is one of the many afflictions for which time finds a cure.

— Winifred Holtby

The only difficulty is to know what bits to choose and what to leave out. Novel-writing is not creation, it is selection.

— Winifred Holtby

There's never been a lack of men willing to die bravely. The trouble is to find a few able to live sensibly.

— Winifred Holtby

it is the brevity of life which makes it tolerable; its experiences have value because they have an end.

— Winifred Holtby

“And not there, not there, not there, Your laughing face and your wind-blown hair Leave not even a ghost in the garden.”

— Winifred Holtby

Progress. There's a good deal too much o' this progress about nowadays, an', what's more, it'll have to stop.

— Winifred Holtby

What a strange distance there is between ill people and well ones.

— Winifred Holtby