Life Quotes by Rebecca West

Sex, which ought to be an incident of life, is the obsession of the well-fed world.

— Rebecca West

You must always believe that life is as extraordinary as music says it is.

— Rebecca West

“she repaid us by giving life the quality that but for her was only to be found in music ”

— Rebecca West

Life ought to be a struggle of desire toward adventures whose nobility will fertilize the soul.

— Rebecca West

The memory, experiencing and re-experiencing, has such power over one's mere personal life, that one has merely lived.

— Rebecca West

Existence in itself, taken at its least miraculous, is a miracle.

— Rebecca West

“There is, of course, no reason for the existence of the male sex except that sometimes one needs help with moving the…

— Rebecca West

There is, of course, no reason for the existence of the male sex except that one sometimes needs help with moving the…

— Rebecca West

The happy marriage, which is the only proper nursery, is indissoluble. The unhappy marriage, which perpetually tells the child a bogey-man story…

— Rebecca West

Art is not a plaything, but a necessity, and its essence, form, is not a decorative adjustment, but a cup into which…

— Rebecca West

In these pages your imaginations, your desires, your passions are given life; Thoughts take shape that turn into dreams and our aspirations…

— Rebecca West

There is a point, and it is reached more easily than is supposed, where interference with freedom of the arts and literature…

— Rebecca West

It isn't only living people who die, it is great stretches of living, which can die even when the people who lived…

— Rebecca West

It is a great pity that every human being does not, at an early stage of his life, have to write a…

— Rebecca West

She did not suddenly start being disagreeable this afternoon, she was so good at it, she had evidently practised whatever are the…

— Rebecca West

A strong hatred is the best lamp to bear in our hands as we go over the dark places of life, cutting…

— Rebecca West

Neurotics, who cause less distress to themselves and their neighbours than those in the other category, are at war with their own…

— Rebecca West

Only part of us is sane: only part of us loves pleasure and the longer day of happiness, wants to live to…

— Rebecca West

Mozart eliminates the idea of haste from life. His airs could not lag as they make their journey through the listener's attention;…

— Rebecca West

Destiny is another name for humanity's half-hearted yet persistent search for death. Again and again peoples have had the chance to live…

— Rebecca West

I've never gone anywhere where the men have come up to my infantile expectations. I always have gone through life constantly being…

— Rebecca West

If there is to be any romance in marriage woman must be given every chance to earn a decent living at other…

— Rebecca West

Yes,” said Mamma, “this is the worst of life, that love does not give us common sense but is a sure way…

— Rebecca West

“It was his hopeless hope that some time he would have an experience that would act on his life like alchemy, turning…

— Rebecca West

“What is art? It is not decoration. It is the re-living of experience. The artist says, 'I will make that event happen…

— Rebecca West

“A great empire cannot bring freedom by its own decay to those corners in it where a subject people are prevented from…

— Rebecca West

But just as it sometimes happens that the most temperate people, who have never acquired the habit of drinking alcohol, or even…

— Rebecca West

I see the main problem of my life, and indeed anybody's life, as the balancing of competitive freedoms ... a sense of…

— Rebecca West

Bad art is maintained by the neurotic, who is deadly afraid of authentic art because it inspires him to go on living,…

— Rebecca West

The delight we find in art amounts to recognition of a saving grace, to an acknowledgment that the problem of life has…

— Rebecca West

“I hate the corpses of empires, they stink as nothing else. They stink so badly that I cannot believe that even in…

— Rebecca West

All good biography, as all good fiction, comes down to the study of original sin, of our inherent disposition to choose death…

— Rebecca West

If ever peace is to be imposed on the world it will only be because a large number of men who could…

— Rebecca West

Music is part of human life and partakes of the human tragedy. There is much more music in the world than is…

— Rebecca West

The French use cooking as a means of self-expression, and this meal perfectly represented the personality of a cook who had spent…

— Rebecca West

“Art is not a plaything, but a necessity, and its essence, form, is not a decorative adjustment, but a cup into which…

— Rebecca West

“I am writing all this down in full knowledge that it will not now seem important, for the reason that that is…

— Rebecca West

One perceives that again and again she has destroyed her life when it was forming into shapes of happiness because of her…

— Rebecca West