Angela Thirkell > Quotes

“I have been very, very happy. Mamma always said that even if there wasn't any happiness one must try to be happy without it.”
― Angela Thirkell, Love Among the Ruins

“I suppose everybody has a mental picture of the days of the week, some seeing them as a circle, some as an endless line, and others again, for all I know, as triangles and cubes. Mine is a wavy line proceeding to infinity, dipping to Wednesday which is the colour of old silver dark with polishing and rising again to a pale gold Sunday. This day has a feeling in my picture of warmth and light breezes and sunshine and afternoons that stretch to infinity and mornings full of far-off bells.”
― Angela Thirkell, Three Houses

“At this moment the headmaster found Master Wesendonck's tall pile of books slipping from his grasp. He juggled frantically with them for a moment and then, to the infinite joy of the boarders and day boys, they crashed to the ground in all directions. A bevy of form masters rushed forward to the rescue. Master Wesendonck, realising with immense presence of mind that his natural enemies were for once in their proper place, grovelling on the floor, stood still and did nothing.”
― Angela Thirkell, High Rising

“People who say Jane or talk about Janeites revolt me. The sort that can walk with kings and not lose that common touch. 'Miss Austen to you' is what I feel inclined to say.”
― Angela Thirkell, August Folly

“The historical sequence is quite simple, really," she continued, warming to her theme. "The first catastrophe was the Reformation. The Reformation led to the Industrial Revolution. The Industrial Revolution created the British Empire. The British Empire necessitated the Public Schools. The Public Schools engendered the Class System. The Class System made Socialism inevitable. And Socialism - which by bad luck arrived just as it couldn't be afforded - brought about the collapse of the economy."
"I shall vote Liberal next time," said Angela virtuously.”
― Angela Thirkell, High Rising

“Tell Aunt Louise to boil her head," said Robin.”
― Angela Thirkell, August Folly

“Perhaps as one gets older one takes one's joys altruistically,"said John, in turn thinking aloud. "I must say though I sometimes wish I could get it selfishly, just for myself, as Gay used to give me, when I was young."

Lady Emily found nothing to say. John's last words fell dead on her heart. It terrified her that he could speak of his youth as a perished thing.”
― Angela Thirkell, Wild Strawberries

“There are some names that one can't even say in a normal voice because they lay open some nerve. I was frightfully in love with a woman once. Her name was Susan and she came from Norwich and she lived with her husband in Ovington Square. I fell out of love with her, and I haven't seen her or heard of her for years, but if I read or hear the words Susan, or Norwich, or Ovington, I go all queer.”
― Angela Thirkell, O, These Men, These Men

“Now that," said Mrs. Morland, up in arms for seeing things straight, "is just rubbish. There isn't any good or bad taste about what books you read: it's what you like or don't like.”
― Angela Thirkell, Love at All Ages

“Good,’ said Mr Carton. ‘Why children, a loathsome breed who should be kept under hatches or in monasteries till they have acquired some rudiments of manners and consideration for others, should be encouraged to think themselves of importance now, I do not know. The English as a race have always been sentimental about dogs, and draught horses in Italy where most of them have never been, but this wave of sentiment about children is a new and revolting outburst.”
― Angela Thirkell, The Headmistress

“Later in the week Mr Knox's Annie bicycled over to see Stoker and ask her to waive the lien which she had on her sister's services, as they would be required for the weekend.
'She's having dinner at half-past eight on Saturday,' said Annie, when seated with her sister and Stoker in the warm kitchen... Stoker was only too delighted to get a spy into the enemy's camp, and the kitchen had a long, delightful conversation about 'Madam', as Annie called Miss Grey, with a very poor imitation of her accent.”
― Angela Thirkell, High Rising

“and Bill broke a cheerful silence for the first time to say he wished he hadn’t lost his ocarina with his kit, because he had never had a better one.”
― Angela Thirkell, Cheerfulness Breaks In

“It need hardly be said that the qualities which filled Martin with the pangs of hero-worship were not altogether those which David’s parents would have most desired. If he had had to earn his living, David would have been a serious problem. But, owing to the ill-judged partiality of an aunt, he had been independent for some years. So he lived in town and had hankerings for the stage and the cinema and broadcasting, and every now and then his looks and his easy manners and his independent income landed him in a job, though not for long. And, as Martin had dimly surmised, heaps of girls had been in love with him. When the Leslies wished that David would settle down to a job and stick to it, they never failed to remind each other that the house would not be the same if David were not there so often.”
― Angela Thirkell, Wild Strawberries

“The Admiral had the intense pleasure of welcoming Bill and Tubby again as his guests when they returned from a cheerful violation of Norway’s highly un-neutral waters, with their rescued fellow-seamen; and when Mrs. Birkett heard that Bill had had the ocarina with him on that glorious occasion she felt that she had in no small measure contributed to the victory and the rescue and became quite bloated with pride. Two”
― Angela Thirkell, Cheerfulness Breaks In

“I'm sorry to disturb you, madam,' said Nurse, 'but I thought I'd better speak to you. It's about Miss Delia's knickers' she continued, after a glance at the Vicar and a rapid decision that his cloth protected him. 'She really hasn't a pair fit to wear...”
― Angela Thirkell, The Brandons

“How is Mrs. Rivers doing?' asked the agent, a very tall and large man, well-dressed, bald and depressing, with a manner of gliding into his office from a side door without perceptibly moving his feet which had struck terror into many young writers and caused them to accept the lowest terms Mr. Hobb could offer.”
― Angela Thirkell

“Henry, you mustn’t mind. It is really a kindness to have him.’ ‘Well, I do mind, Emily,’ said Mr Leslie, getting up. ‘Kindness is one thing and your family is another. You treat this house as if it were the Ark, Emily, inviting everyone in.’ ‘At least she doesn’t ask them in couples, sir,’ said David. ‘A female Holt would be appalling.’ ‘That’s enough,’ said his father. ‘If Mr Holt comes into this house, I go out of it.’ He took a cigar from the sideboard and went out, almost slamming the door.”
― Angela Thirkell, Wild Strawberries

“Like most healthy men he thought that any illness was death”
― Angela Thirkell, Wild Strawberries

“Mrs. Parkinson, always ready to help in a good cause, took possession of the Ambassadress, who, to put it vulgarly, never got a look in. Mrs. Parkinson, with the kindest manner, tanked right over Her Excellency, and gave her a great deal of practical and useful information about organized life in a small urban community and whenever Gradka showed signs of wishing to speak, paid no attention at all. And as Mrs. Parkinson had a pleasant voice and an air of effortless authority, we think that the Mixo-Lydian Ambassadress began to realize, for almost the first time, the immense power behind the throne in English country life as organized today— and also its value.”
― Angela Thirkell, Close Quarters: A Novel

“Much as he loved his many daughters and his two sons, now all married, all with children, he sometimes, and especially at Christmas and during school holidays when his wife’s exuberant grandmotherhood filled the Deanery with children and nurses and odd parents, echoed from his heart the cry, “Oh, for an hour of Herod.”
― Angela Thirkell, Miss Bunting

“Mr. Fanshawe, who like most of his sex would enthusiastically neglect any woman, however charming, to talk to any man, however dull, at once engaged Mr. Tebben in conversation. It”
― Angela Thirkell, August Folly

“At first the baby was so transported with wrath, that it shrieked more loudly than before, but after a while nature asserted itself against imbecility and with one great heave and spasm of fury it suddenly became like the jelly smoother than the creamy curd, its vengeful limbs relaxed, and with long shuddering breaths it began to suck its bottle, both hands clutching the beloved object and an angry suspicious eye roving the nursery against the possible approach of milk-thieves.”
― Angela Thirkell, Growing Up

“One is a young untried creature and then one day looks back and sees that young creature very far behind one; so distant that one can barely believe that one has journeyed so far.”
― Angela Thirkell, Happy Returns

“He was a gentleman of considerable property in the Woolram Valley and believed that anything he dug up was a Roman remain. He was succeeded in the presidency by Sir Walpole Pridham, whose descendant Sir Edmund Pridham is still a hard-working servant of the county. Sir Walpole believed with fervour equal to Mr. Horatio Palmer’s that whatever he dug up was British, and since then the presidentship had been divided pretty evenly between the Roman and the British enthusiasts, and had gradually become the blue ribbon of Barsetshire, having been held by the Duke of Omnium, an Earl de Courcy, an Earl of Pomfret, Dean Arabin, Mr. Frank Gresham (little Frank’s great-grandfather who married a fortune), and in fact by all the county’s most noted peers, landed proprietors and spiritual leaders.”
― Angela Thirkell, Miss Bunting

“Mrs. Leslie did not at all want to look at anyone’s feet, for grown-up feet are seldom a really pleasant sight. It is one of life’s little tragedies that the divine feet of babies, so soft and exquisitely rounded, “les pieds ronds” as our peculiar neighbours the Gauls say when they mean someone is tiddly or has had one over the eight, inevitably turn into the average human foot with all the knobs, corns, whelks, and bubukles that civilization brings.”
― Angela Thirkell, Close Quarters

“If it were in his destiny, which he felt it never would be, to love and be loved, he could imagine a way of love quite different from what he had just seen.”
― Angela Thirkell, Before Lunch

“I’m not anything-phil, David,’ said his sister-in-law, ‘but Geoffrey Harvey was most interesting about the Russians the other day at the Middletons. He is with John at the Regional Commissioner’s Office. He says they are wonderful.”
― Angela Thirkell, Marling Hall

“Doctors!” said Mr. Leslie, wiping the whole of the Royal College of Physicians off the face of the world with this withering remark.”
― Angela Thirkell, Wild Strawberries

“Nice," said Mrs Spender emphatically, "is hardly the word, if you see what I mean. I mean a man who does such wonderful good by his mere influence, though mind you I don't mean like an Indian by simply sitting and thinking of nothing.”
― Angela Thirkell , Growing Up

“At the same moment old Propett, who had only been reassembling his wits and his strength, opened his eyes and said quite distinctly, “Don’t give her no gin, sir. She’s an old sinner. Calls herself Mrs. Propett, she does, but I never married her. More nor sixty years we’ve been living together, but the parson didn’t have nothing to do with it. Old Mr. Benson he never meddled with me, nor me with him. Don’t you give her gin, sir. You bring another nice bottle of port like you did before and old Propett’ll drink your health and your good lady’s.”
― Angela Thirkell, Private Enterprise