Winifred Holtby > Quotes

“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, to take our future into our hands. If the law is oppressive, we must change the law. If tradition is obstructive, we must break tradition. If the system is unjust, we must reform the system.”
― Winifred Holtby, South Riding

“But questioning does not mean the end of loving, and loving does not mean the abnegation of intelligence”
― Winifred Holtby, South Riding

“I am a feminist because I dislike everything that feminism implies. I desire an end to the whole business, the demands for equality, the suggestion of sex warfare, the very name feminist. I want to be about the work in which my real interests like, the writing of novels and so forth. But while inequality exists, while injustice is done and opportunity denied to the great majority of women, I shall have to be a feminist. And I shan't be happy till I get . . . a society in which there is no distinction of persons either male or female, but a supreme regard for the importance of the human being. And when that dream is a reality, I will say farewell to feminism, as to any disbanded but victorious army, with honour for its heroes, gratitude for its sacrifice, and profound relief that the hour for its necessity has passed.”
― Winifred Holtby

“I was born to be a spinster, and, by God, I'm going to spin.”
― Winifred Holtby

“And not there, not there, not there,
Your laughing face and your wind-blown hair
Leave not even a ghost in the garden.”
― Winifred Holtby

“The things that one most wants to do are the things that are probably most worth doing”
― Winifred Holtby

“Clever? who said that we all had to be clever? But we have to have courage. The whole position of women is what it is to-day, because so many of us have followed the line of least resistance, and have sat down placidly in a little provincial town, waiting to get married. No wonder that the men have thought that this is all that we are good for.”
― Winifred Holtby, The Crowded Street

“Their language was an old wild language. They had known incredible loves and dark adventures and the twisted streets of alien cities. They had known the green breaking waves of the sea, and the green aisles of the silent forests. They had known war and death and fierce, cruel elation.”
― Winifred Holtby, The Land of Green Ginger

“Oh, lovely world,' thought Sarah, in love with life and all its varied richness.”
― Winifred Holtby, South Riding

“Why was it, she wondered, that men always seemed to want so much advice? They never took it unless it was a confirmation of their own desires, but they liked to have it. They liked to march fortified by feminine approval as well as by masculine initiative. Would women, she mused while in the kitchen, opening paper bags, laying out plates and knives and spoons on trays, cutting tomatoes, grating cheese, and scraping the remnants of ham from a knuckle bone, would women have done better through life if they had more consistently demanded from men the toll of daily council? If, instead of merely doing things, they had waylaid friends, lovers, husbands, and brothers, and set before them this plan and the other, crying dramatically, “This step will make or mar me!” Or, “If I go wrong here, I’m done!” Or, “But in spite of God and the devil, I’ll do it yet,” Women, reflected Jean, too often knew that, as likely as not, they would never be done till dead.”
― Winifred Holtby, Mandoa, Mandoa!: A Comedy of Irrelevance

“Go therefore, and do that which is within you to do. Take no heed of gestures that beckon you aside. Ask of no man permission to perform.”
― Winifred Holtby, South Riding

“The crown of life is neither happiness nor annihilation; it is understanding.”
― Winifred Holtby

“Lydia delighted her. The girl's roughness, her ability, her exuberance, were qualities desired by Sarah for her children. You could make something out of a girl like that. She had power.”
― Winifred Holtby, South Riding

“HIs slower mind could not keep pace with her swift reactions; his emotions, not easily aroused, were still less easily subdued. Always he felt himself left far behind her, dull, clumsy, insensitive, too fond, too gross, too awkward.”
― Winifred Holtby

“For she was clever. It had not been a lie then, that ecstasy which had visited her when she read A Midsummer Night's Dream on top of the railway coach last summer. It had meant something. She had understood something. She was drunk with an intoxicating wine of gladness.”
― Winifred Holtby, South Riding

“This is the end
For all our skill we have not conquered death
Our spirit leaves our bodies within our final breath.
We lay our instrument of flesh aside
When hurt beyond all mortal hope to end
This is the end”
― Winifred Holtby

“Look here,' she began, 'you can't go on like that, you know. If you are really keen on a thing, and it's a good thing, you ought to go and do it. It is no use waiting till people tell you that you may go. Asking permission is a coward's way of shifting responsibility on to some one else.”
― Winifred Holtby

“As I come through the garden,
Suddenly all birds seem to cease their singing:
The tight-curled buds like birds on the branches swinging
Silently shrink and harden
On the naked trees that were once green fountains springing.
And you are not there, not there, not there,
Your laughing face and your windblown hair
Leave not even a ghost in the garden.”
― Winifred Holtby

“You said that death was not the end; most true.
Death was not stronger than my love for you.
But since sweet love so lightly gives, my friend,
We are not dead, and yet - this is the end.”
― Winifred Holtby

“To choose, to take, with clear judgement and open eyes; to count the cost and pay it; to regret nothing; to go forward, cutting losses, refusing to complain, accepting complete responsibility for their own decisions - this was the code which she attempted to impress upon the children who came under her influence - the code on which she set herself to act.”
― Winifred Holtby, South Riding

“Ah, surely the short story should end with tragedy, for only sorrow swoops upon you with a sudden blow. But happiness is built up from long years of small delightful things. You can't put them into a short story.”
― Winifred Holtby, The Crowded Street

“Fill your tall goblets with white wine and red,
And sing brave songs of gallant love and true,
Wearing soft robes of emerald and blue,
And dance, as I your dances oft have led,
And laugh, as I have often laughed with you -
And be most merry - after I am dead.”
― Winifred Holtby

“...You can't wriggle out of responsibility by a metaphor. Your life is your own, Muriel, nobody can take it from you. You may choose to look after your mother; you may choose to pursue a so-called career, or you may choose to marry. You may choose right and you may choose wrong. But the thing that matters is to take your life into you own hands and live it, accepting responsibility for failure or success. The really fatal thing is to let other people make your choices for you, and then to blame them if your schemes should fail and they despise you for the failure.”
― Winifred Holtby, The Crowded Street

“I believe that service lies in this--that each of us should use in the highest way, to the very widest possible extent, the abilities and powers they have been given. I believe that to be content with humbler service, when one is able to stand greater responsibility, is only cowardice.”
― Winifred Holtby

“But I'm not one to condemn you. Because for years I've thought far more of Carne than was good for me - or Jim. Mind you, I don't say I loved him the way you did. More as a son. I'm an old woman. But when you're seventy you don't always feel old. I know I don't. There are times when you find yourself thinking of yourself as a girl.”
― Winifred Holtby, South Riding

“Thus they had harvested at Anderby since those far off years when the Danes broke in across the headland and dyed with blood the trampled barley. Thus and thus had the workers passed, and the children waved their garlands following the last load home. Thus had Mary and other Mary Robsons before her welcomed the master of the harvest.”
― Winifred Holtby, Anderby Wold