Charlotte Armstrong > Quotes

“A truth is what it is. A lie, a thought out deception more brutal than a truth could ever be.”
― Charlotte Armstrong

“A stupid man is a very dangerous man, she thought.”
― Charlotte Armstrong, The Turret Room

“None of us have ever known why we do what we do. We only have the illusion of knowing, the illusion of choice.”
― Charlotte Armstrong, A Dram of Poison

“In modern days, in the United States of America, no corpse lies on the street slain by destitution. There were charities and public institutions. There was social succor.”
― Charlotte Armstrong, A Dram of Poison

“How curiously we are made. … The needle of life writes in the wax of the brain, and the record is our memories. Does the needle lift from the wax and leave no record? Or does a fog come down? What can we say? Do you know, I think the miracle is not that we sometimes can forget, but that we remember so much, so well. [Luther Grandison]”
― Charlotte Armstrong, The Unsuspected

“People can, too, help each other,” said Rosemary. She was sitting on his lap yet turned in facing him. “And I’m the living proof. You helped me because you wanted to, Kenneth. There wasn’t any other reason.”
― Charlotte Armstrong, A Dram of Poison

“Afraid of death? So very much afraid of death that you long to die?”
― Charlotte Armstrong, Dream Of Fair Woman

“Everyone walks carrying a hoop of his own horizons, large or small (since scales differ) and more or less illuminated by his own understanding. What resemblance or relationship his world has to the real one, none can know. But the one sure-thing bet is this: The world "I really believe in" does not, it cannot, it never will coincide with reality.”
― Charlotte Armstrong, The Protégé

“We are strangers,” Peter said darkly. “Whom do we know? One—if you’re lucky. Not many more. Looks like we’ve got to learn how we can trust each other. How we can tell … How can we dare … Everything rests on trust between strangers. Everything else is a house of cards.”
― Charlotte Armstrong, Mischief