Margaret Kennedy > Quotes

“It's better to break one's heart than to do nothing with it.”
― Margaret Kennedy

“What kind of books do you like?'
'I like books about nice people. And a story where it all comes out right in the end.'
'But Nancibel, that's not true to life.'
'I daresay not. Why should it be?'
'You're an escapist.'
'Pardon?'
'You don't want the face facts.'
'Not in story books, I don't. I face plenty between Monday and Saturday without reading about them.'
Bruce sighed.
'I don't think a book ought to be sad,' said Nancibel, 'unless it's a great classical book, like 'Wuthering Heights.'
'Oh! You've read 'Wuthering Heights'. Did you like it?'
'Yes, but I didn't think it was the right part for Merle Oberon. Running about with bare feet, well she was hobbling most of the time. You could see she wasn't used to it.'
'Oh... you mean the film.”
― Margaret Kennedy, The Feast

“He became so gloomy that she asked him, at last, if he was worried about anything. He assured her, instantly, that he was the happiest man in the world.
And he was. At times he was almost bewildered by his own bliss in being there, with Tony, so terribly dear, beside him; really his own for the rest of his life. It was not her fault if the insatiable sorrows of an unequal love tormented him, the hungry demand for more, for a fuller return, for a feeling which it was not in her nature to give. As she leaned forward, absorbed in the passions staged beneath her, he felt suddenly that their box contained just himself and a wraith, a ghost; as if the real Antonia, whom he loved, was an imagined woman living only in his sad fancy.”
― Margaret Kennedy, The Constant Nymph

“Each guest had retired, as an animal retires with a bone to the back of its cage, to chew over some single obsession.”
― Margaret Kennedy, The Feast

“Having renounced his native land, Sanger adopted no other. He roved about from one European capital to another, never settling anywhere for long, driven forwards by his strange, restless fancy. Usually he quartered himself upon his friends, who were accustomed to endure a great deal from him. He would stay with them for weeks, composing third acts in their spare bedrooms, producing operas which always failed financially, falling in love with their wives, conducting their symphonies, and borrowing money from hem. His preposterous family generally accompanied him. Few people could recollect quite how many children Sanger was supposed to have got, but there always seemed to be a good many and they were most shockingly brought up.”
― Margaret Kennedy, The Constant Nymph

“A child's questions ought always to be answered honestly and sincerely or else it gets a compress.'
'Complex. I am answering you honestly.'
'Am I a bastard?'
Sir Henry was startled, but after a moment's thought said, 'Yes. But that's not a word you should use. Where did you learn it?'
'Shakespeare.”
― Margaret Kennedy, The Feast

“MYSELF: You have never understood. My integrity means more to me than happiness.

CHRISTINA: You have none. There is no such thing. You are not a whole person. Nobody is. We are members one of another. An arm has no integrity if it is amputated. It is nothing unless it is part of a body, with a heart to pump the blood through it and a brain to guide it. You have no more integrity than a severed arm might have.”
― Margaret Kennedy, The Feast

“She writes this biographical fiction, or fictional biography, whichever you like to call it. She takes some juicy scandal from the life of a famous person, and writes a novel round it. Any facts that don't suit her go out. Any details she wants to invent come in. She's saved the trouble of creating plot and characters, and she doesn't have to be accurate because it's only a novel, you know.”
― Margaret Kennedy, The Feast

“Lewis! Stop throwing stones! I don't believe you've listened to a single word I've been saying!"
"Yes, I have. You were talking about jugs. I'm listening. I'm listening to you and a dozen other things as well."
"There aren't a dozen other things. There's only the chapel bell, and some men shouting in the boats down on the quay... and a dog barking, and some ducks in the garden below."
"Not bad! You've missed about fifty larks in the sky, and the grasshoppers all round us, and a car changing gear on the hill, and the oars in the rowlocks of that boat putting out, and the children playing, and the goat bells away on the hill behind us, and I think I can hear a smity."
"What a babel it sounds! I'd have said it was a quiet evening."
"So it is. It's so quiet that you can hear every sound in it.”
― Margaret Kennedy, The Constant Nymph

“When they got to their hotel she went straight up to bed, but he paused to get a drink. There was, in the vestibule, a flower stall and he bought a handful of roses, stiffly wired into a bouquet, before proceeding to the oppressive gorgeousness of their bridal suite. The lift was lined with looking glass, so that as he shot upwards he got an endlessly duplicated version of himself, stout and nervous, a light cloak flung over his shoulder and flowers in his hand: an infinitely long row of gentlemen carrying offerings to an unforgiving past.”
― Margaret Kennedy

“[W]hen she was dying she asked me to promise never to leave Father. I couldn't refuse. It was the last thing she said. She was worried over what would happen to him. So you see!'
'How could she condemn you to such a life?'
'Well, you see, she had a rather gloomy idea of life. She thought we are all born to suffer and the more we suffer now the less we shall hereafter. She thought it was wrong to be happy. I expect she worked all that out because she was married to Father.' (116)”
― Margaret Kennedy, The Feast