Mary Westmacott Quotes

“Better to wear out than to rust out!”
― Mary Westmacott, Absent in the Spring

“Las mujeres tienen suerte, aunque el noventa y nueve por ciento no lo sabe. ¿A qué edad se lanzó Santa Teresa a reformar monasterios? A los cincuenta. Y podría citar muchos casos más. De los veinte a los cuarenta las mujeres se hallan absortas biológicamente... y con toda razón. Se preocupan de los niños, los maridos, los amantes... Las relaciones personales. O subliman todas estas cosas y se lanzan a una carrera, de forma típicamente femenina y emocional. Pero la segunda flora­ción natural es de la mente y el espíritu y su edad cuando una alcanza la madurez. Según van envejeciendo, las mujeres se interesan más en cosas impersonales. Los in­tereses masculinos se reducen, los de las mujeres se am­plían. A los sesenta un hombre se repite, por lo general, como un gramófono. A la misma edad, una mujer, si tiene cierto individualismo, es un ser interesante.”
― Mary Westmacott, A Daughter's a Daughter

“There was a wait, filled with chattering and laughter—then the lights wavered and sank.”
― Mary Westmacott, Giant's Bread

“The prologue had represented Stone—Man’s infancy.”
― Mary Westmacott, Giant's Bread

“There was an Episode of Skyscrapers—New York seen upside down as from a circling aeroplane in the early dawn of morning. And the strange inharmonious rhythm beat ever more insistently—with increasing menacing monotony.”
― Mary Westmacott, Giant's Bread

“And on the top immense pinnacle a little figure—facing away from the audience towards the insufferable glare that represented the rising of the sun”
― Mary Westmacott, Giant's Bread

“I am an old man. There are things in which I take pleasure—there are other things—such as the music of today—which do not give me pleasure. But all the same I know Genius when I meet it. There are a hundred charlatans—a hundred breakers down of tradition who think that by doing so they have accomplished something wonderful. And there is the hundred and first—a creator, a man who steps boldly into the future—’ He paused, then went on. ‘Yes, I know genius when I meet it. I may not like it—but I recognize it. Groen, whoever he is, has genius . . . The music of tomorrow . . .”
― Mary Westmacott, Giant's Bread

“A faint smile showed on his face. ‘The Giant! You and Groen have your little joke all to yourselves, I fancy. Everyone takes it for granted the Giant is the Moloch of Machinery—They don’t see that the real Giant is that pigmy figure—man. The individualist who endures through Stone and Iron and who though civilizations crumble and die, fights his way through yet another Glacial Age to rise in a new civilization of which we do not dream . . .’ His smile broadened. ‘As I grow older I am more and more convinced that there is nothing so pathetic, so ridiculous, so absurd, and so absolutely wonderful as Man—”
― Mary Westmacott, Giant's Bread

“Vernon was, perhaps, a lonely little boy, but he never knew it. Because, you see, he had Mr Green and Poodle, Squirrel and Tree to play with.”
― Mary Westmacott, Giant's Bread

“Looking across the room one day, just after a scene like the above, he saw his father standing by the nursery door with sardonic eyes, watching him. Their eyes met. Something seemed to pass between them—comprehension—a sense of kinship.”
― Mary Westmacott, Giant's Bread

“Against that background Vernon saw his mother—saw her for the first time—a magnificent woman with white skin and red gold hair—a being like the pictures in his fairy book, saw her suddenly as something wonderful and beautiful. He was never to forget that strange moment. She was his mother and she was beautiful and he loved her. Something hurt him inside, like a pain—only it wasn’t a pain. And there was a queer booming noise inside his head—a thundering noise that ended up high and sweet like a bird’s note. Altogether a very wonderful moment.”
― Mary Westmacott, Giant's Bread

“Winnie, Vernon knew, was going away because of Father. He accepted that fact without any particular interest or curiosity. Nursemaids did sometimes go away because of Father.”
― Mary Westmacott, Giant's Bread

“Little boys going on asking foolish questions,’ said Nurse, with the deftness of a long professional career behind her.”
― Mary Westmacott, Giant's Bread

“There was a sudden interruption. His mother stood in the doorway. Her eyes were swollen with crying. She dabbed them with a handkerchief. She stood there theatrically miserable. ‘He’s gone,’ she cried. ‘Without a word to me. Without a word. Oh, my little son. My little son.”
― Mary Westmacott, Giant's Bread

“A new nursemaid came, a thin white girl with protruding eyes. Her name was Isabel, but she was called Susan as being ‘more suitable’. This puzzled Vernon very much. He asked Nurse for an explanation. ‘There are names that are suitable to the gentry, Master Vernon, and names that are suitable for servants. That’s all there is to it.”
― Mary Westmacott, Giant's Bread

“He had heard her say to other ladies, ‘He asks me the quaintest questions. Just listen to this. Aren’t children funny and adorable?’ But Vernon couldn’t see that he was funny or adorable at all. He just wanted to know. You’d got to know. That was part of growing up.”
― Mary Westmacott, Giant's Bread

“Aunt Nina, Father’s sister, was quite different. She smelt nice, like the garden on a summer’s day, and she had a soft voice that Vernon liked. She had other virtues—she didn’t kiss you when you didn’t want to be kissed, and she didn’t insist on making jokes. But she didn’t come very often to Abbots Puissants.”
― Mary Westmacott, Giant's Bread