Winifred Holtby

Everybody's tragedy is somebody's nuisance.

— Winifred Holtby

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

— Winifred Holtby

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

— Winifred Holtby

Youth knows no remedy for grief but death.

— Winifred Holtby

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

— Winifred Holtby

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

— Winifred Holtby

Those who prepare for war get it.

— Winifred Holtby

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

— Winifred Holtby

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

— 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

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

— Winifred Holtby

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

— Winifred Holtby

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

— 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

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

— Winifred Holtby

These are they whose youth was violently severed by war and death; a word on the telephone, a scribbled line on paper,…

— Winifred Holtby

If you are rich, you have lovely cars, and jars full of flowers, and books in rows, and a wireless, and the…

— Winifred Holtby

I like a bit of color myself, I must say. At my time of life, if you wear nothing but black, people…

— Winifred Holtby

All adventuring is rash, and all innovations dangerous. But not nearly so dangerous as stagnation and dry rot. From grooves, cliques, clichés…

— Winifred Holtby

we are so little, so ignorant, so feeble an infant race crawling on a planet between immensities we haven't even begun to…

— Winifred Holtby

The world, with all its beauty and adventure, its richness and variety, is darkened by cruelty. Death, if it ends the loveliness,…

— Winifred Holtby

I would, if I could, always feed to music. The singularly graceless action of thus filling one's body with roots and dead…

— 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

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

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

— Winifred Holtby

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

— 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

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

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

— Winifred Holtby

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

— Winifred Holtby

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

— Winifred Holtby

The things that one most wants to do are the things that are probably most worth doing.

— Winifred Holtby

The crown of life is neither happiness nor annihilation; it is understanding.

— Winifred Holtby

Love needs the stiffening of respect, the give and take of equality.

— Winifred Holtby

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

— 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

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

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

— Winifred Holtby