The public, as a whole, finds reassurance in longevity, and, after the necessary interlude of reaction, is disposed to recognize extreme old age as a sign of excellence. The long-liver has triumphed over at least one of man's initial handicaps:… — Vita Sackville-West Copy Share Image
a letter, by its arrival, defrauds us of a whole secret region of our existence, the only region indeed in which the true pleasure of life may be tasted, the region of imagination, creative and protean, the clouds and beautiful… — Vita Sackville-West Copy Share Image
For a young man to start his career with a love affair with an older woman was quite de rigueur ... Of course, it… — Vita Sackville-West Copy Share Image
I cannot bear that you / Should think me faithful, when I am untrue. — Vita Sackville-West Copy Share Image
“This is how you must imagine your letters arriving, and me carrying them off to read in peace, and saying 'oh darling Virginia', and… — Vita Sackville-West Copy Share Image
“There had been no moments when she could differentiate and say: Then, at such a moment, I love him; and again, Then, at such another, I loved him not. The stress had been constant. her love for him had been a straight black line drawn right through her life. It had hurt her, it had damaged her, it had diminished… — Vita Sackville-West Copy Share
Women, like men, ought to have their youth so glutted with freedom they hate the very idea of freedom. — Vita Sackville-West Copy Share Image
The farmer and the gardener are both busy, the gardener perhaps the more excitable of the two, for he is more of the amateur,… — Vita Sackville-West Copy Share Image
For the last 40 years of my life I have broken my back, my fingernails, and sometimes my heart, in the practical pursuit of… — Vita Sackville-West Copy Share Image
Successful gardening is not necessarily a question of wealth, it is a question of love, taste, and knowledge. — Vita Sackville-West Copy Share Image
What is beautiful is good, and who is good will soon be beautiful. — Vita Sackville-West Copy Share Image
My garden all is overblown with roses,/ My spirit all is overblown with rhyme, — Vita Sackville-West Copy Share Image
Nothing shows up the difference between the things said or read, so much as the daily experience of it. — Vita Sackville-West Copy Share Image
how poor and disheartening a thing is experience compared with hope! — Vita Sackville-West Copy Share Image
