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 Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
Really, trees are nearly as important as men, and much better behaved. — Winifred Holtby Copy Share Image
Sorrow and frustration have their power. The world is moved by people with great discontents. Happiness is a drug. It can make… — Winifred Holtby Blind Copy Share Image
“You said that death was not the end; most true. Death was not stronger than my love for you. But since sweet… — Winifred Holtby Death Copy Share Image
Most gay, conversational, careless, lovely city ... where one drinks golden Tokay until one feels most beautiful, and warm and loved -… — Winifred Holtby Beautiful Copy Share Image
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 Copy Share Image
Teachers have power. We may cripple them by petty economics; by Government regulations, by the foolish criticism of an uninformed press; but… — Winifred Holtby Copy Share Image
I find you in all small and lovely things; in the little fishes like flames in the green water, in the furred… — Winifred Holtby Bees Copy Share Image
public work brings a vicarious but assured sense of immortality. We may be poor, weak, timid, in debt to our landlady, bullied… — Winifred Holtby Activism Copy Share Image
Life flows on over death as water closes over a stone dropped into a pool. ... Fate is certain; death is certain;… — Winifred Holtby Copy Share Image
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 Book Copy Share Image
Nature is not silent, and never was a name more derisively inappropriate than when we speak of these non-human creatures who hoot… — Winifred Holtby Animal Copy Share Image
We each live in a private, distorted, individual world - stars turning in space, warmed for a moment by each other's light,… — Winifred Holtby Astronomy Copy Share Image
Progress? It ought to be stopped, that's what I say. If the Lord meant chickens to come out of incubators he'd never… — Winifred Holtby Change Copy Share Image
“Fill your tall goblets with white wine and red, And sing brave songs of gallant love and true, Wearing soft robes of… — Winifred Holtby Love Copy Share Image
I am much perturbed by this business of sickness. Our bodies seem so easily to leap into the saddle where our minds… — Winifred Holtby Body Copy Share Image
When a person that one loves is in the world and alive and well, and pleased to be in the world, then… — Winifred Holtby Alive Copy Share Image
I can't think why I was cursed with this inordinate desire to write, if the high gods weren't going to give me… — Winifred Holtby Copy Share Image
This alone is to be feared - the closed mind, the sleeping imagination, the death of the spirit. The death of the… — Winifred Holtby Body Copy Share Image
the damned book I am writing is like the driveling of a weak-kneed sea calf. If I were sufficiently strong minded, I… — Winifred Holtby Book Copy Share Image
Why, why, when one writes, does a sort of shackle bind one's imagination? I become conscious of a deadening mediocrity, perhaps a… — Winifred Holtby Copy Share Image
“Lydia delighted her. The girl's roughness, her ability, her exuberance, were qualities desired by Sarah for her children. You could make something… — Winifred Holtby Children Copy Share Image
The greatest mercy, I have often thought, of the Mediterranean coast lies in its mosquitoes. Did we not suffer from their unwelcome… — Winifred Holtby Attention Copy Share Image
