Joan Smith > Quotes

“Life is short, have dessert first.”
― Joan Smith

“... to have a lover and friend in one was the best love of all.”
― Joan Smith, Blossom Time

“One of the chief paradoxes of our culture [is] that the welfare of its children, its _future_, is placed almost exclusively in the hands of people of low status, a class it holds in contempt.”
― Joan Smith, Misogynies: Reflections on Myths and Malice

“Talk of "witch-hunts" conceals an inconvenient fact: men charged with rape stand a better chance of walking free than other defendants. The conviction rate in rape trials – 63 per cent in 2012/13 – is quite a lot lower. Prosecutors are taking a bigger risk when they bring rape cases to court, especially when the alleged offences happened decades ago, leaving no forensic evidence.
The Independent, 9 February 2014”
― Joan Smith

“She preferred keeping her mouth shut and appearing a fool to opening it and removing the doubt.”
― Joan Smith

“It is infatuation that is blind. Love sees the flaws only too clearly, but goes on caring just the same, in spite of all”
― Joan Smith, Lady Madeline's Folly

“Roache's statement after his acquittal was dignified but his supporters were angry. They demanded to know why the case was ever brought, claiming that the actor was a victim of the "hysteria" created by revelations about Jimmy Savile. It's a curious conclusion to draw from a "not guilty" verdict; there are courtrooms where the conviction rate is 100 per cent but they tend to be in totalitarian states. In serious criminal cases in England and Wales, the rate is around 82 per cent, and I would be seriously worried if every defendant were to be found guilty.
The Independent, 9 February 2014”
― Joan Smith

“It has long been clear that women who leave violent partners are at risk of death or
serious injury. What hasn't sufficiently been recognised until now is that abusers
who can no longer hurt members of their own families, might, in a small number of cases
pose a lethal threat to total strangers. Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel, Rachid Redouane and
Darren Osborne had all been thrown out by their partners in the weeks or months before
they committed a terrorist attack”
― Joan Smith

“Unlike Sophie, I don't keep every worn-out rag about the house. I can't vouch for the holes. Those old woolen liveries make a feast for moths. It only encourages pests to hang around if you feed them.'
'Do you suppose that is why he has given us no more than a cup of cocoa after our night's labor?' Claudia asked Loo in a loudish voice.
'Would you care for a biscuit, Miss Milmont?' Thoreau asked.”
― Joan Smith, Aunt Sophie's Diamonds

“In a short space of time, she had become indispensable, rather like a comfortable grey gown in which one always appears respectable and can wear anywhere.”
― Joan Smith, Lovers' Vows

“Odious people will always talk and make a to-do over nothing. It is always like that.”
― Joan Smith, Rose Trelawney

“Some folks called Dewar a dilettante; he did not consider it an appropriate term, indicating as it did a lack of seriousness, a trifling sort of interest.”
― Joan Smith, Lovers' Vows

“The issue which faced the jury was this: was Sutcliffe a clever criminal, aware of what he was doing and determined to avoid capture?
... In a sense, it was the wrong question. The battle that was fought out in court - the mad/bad dichotomy - both substitutes for and obscures the real dilemma raised by the Yorkshire Ripper case: is Sutcliffe a one-off, su generis as I have heard one psychiatrist describe him, someone who stands outside our culture and has no relation to it? Those who assert that Sutcliffe is mad are in essence saying yes to this question; madness is a closed category, one over which we have no control and for which we bear no responsibility. The deranged stand apart from us; we cannot be blamed for their insanity. Thus the urge to characterize Sutcliffe as mad has powerful emotional origins; it has as much to do with how we see ourselves and the society in which we live... It is a distancing mechanism, a way of establishing a comforting gulf between ourselves and a particularly unacceptable criminal.”
― Joan Smith

“He looked as if he had been weaned on a lemon.”
― Joan Smith, Kissing Cousins

“That's all right. We may say what we daren't write." “And sing what is too foolish to say”
― Joan Smith, Imprudent Lady

“there is some sweet seduction in feeling another admires us—a notion so flattering that some return of esteem takes place without our quite being aware”
― Joan Smith, Escapade

“Then, when I was nice and safe and warm, I dissolved into tears. Suddenly the fear returned. I found myself trembling in front of the fire, with the woman’s arms around me, cradling me as though I were a baby. I wanted to stay forever safe and warm in her small arms that didn’t go half way around me. I also wanted to run away, and break into sobs, and do I hardly knew what.”
― Joan Smith, Rose Trelawney

“I have the irrational habit of not listening to people who tell me what to do”
― Joan Smith, Escapade