Dawn Powell Quotes

• Hold fast to whatever fragments of love that exist, for sometimes a mosaic is more beautiful than an unbroken pattern.

  Dawn Powell

  Love, Beautiful, Mosaics

  49 Copy quote

• All Americans come from Ohio originally, if only briefly.

  Dawn Powell

  Ohio, Ifs

  22 Copy quote

• I cannot exist without the oxygen of laughter.

  Dawn Powell

  Laughter, Oxygen

  Dawn Powell (1998). “The Diaries of Dawn Powell: 1931-1965”, Zoland Books

  13 Copy quote

• A capacity for going overboard is a requisite for a full-grown mind.

  Dawn Powell

  Mind, Overboard, Capacity

  Dawn Powell (1998). “The Diaries of Dawn Powell: 1931-1965”, Zoland Books

  14 Copy quote

• I realize more and more how instinctively pessimistic I am of all human kindness -- since I am always so bowled over by it -- and am never surprised by injustice, malice or personal attack.

  Dawn Powell

  Kindness, Pessimistic, Injustice

  Dawn Powell (1998). “The Diaries of Dawn Powell: 1931-1965”, Zoland Books

  10 Copy quote

• A writer's business is minding other people's business ... all the vices of the village gossip are the virtues of the writer.

  Dawn Powell

  People, Gossip, Vices

  Dawn Powell (1998). “The Diaries of Dawn Powell: 1931-1965”, Zoland Books

  7 Copy quote

• Satire is people as they are; romanticism, people as they would like to be; realism, people as they seem with their insides left out.

  Dawn Powell

  Writing, People, Satire

  Dawn Powell (1995). “The Diaries of Dawn Powell, 1931-1965”

  24 Copy quote

• There is something more annoying than pleasant in finding neighbors from back home chiselling in on your own exclusive New York. It mitigates your triumph in having conquered the great city and brings home the ungratifying truth that anyone can do it.

  Dawn Powell

  New York, Home, Cities

  Dawn Powell (2001). “Novels, 1930-1942”

  10 Copy quote

• A novel must be a rich forest known at the start only by instinct.

  Dawn Powell

  Forests, Rich, Instinct

  Dawn Powell (2001). “Novels, 1930-1942”

  5 Copy quote

• The basis of tragedy is man's helplessness against disease, war and death; the basis of comedy is man's helplessness against vanity (the vanity of love, greed, lust, power).

  Dawn Powell

  War, Men, Vanity

  Dawn Powell (1998). “The Diaries of Dawn Powell: 1931-1965”, Zoland Books

  7 Copy quote

• Rage swept over her at being young, young and little, as if some evil fairy had put that spell on her. Why must you be locked up in this dreadful cage of childhood for twenty or a hundred years? Nothing in life was possible unless you were old and rich, until then you were only small and futile before your tormentors, desperately waiting for the release that only years could bring.

  Dawn Powell

  Years, Evil, Childhood

  Dawn Powell (1994). “Dawn Powell at Her Best”

  7 Copy quote

• The artist who really loves people loves them so well the way they are he sees no need to disguise their characteristics-he loves them whole, without retouching. Yet the word used for this unqualifying affection is 'cynicism'.

  Dawn Powell

  Artist, People, Needs

  Dawn Powell (1998). “The Diaries of Dawn Powell: 1931-1965”, Zoland Books

  11 Copy quote

• An evening up on the Empire State roof-the strangest experience. The huge tomb in steel and glass, the ride to the 84th floor and there, under the clouds, a Hawaiian string quartet, lounge, concessions and, a thousand feet below, New York-a garden of golden lights winking on and off, automobiles, trucks winding in and out, and not a sound. All as silent as a dead city-and it looks adagio down there.

  Dawn Powell

  New York, Garden, Cities

  Dawn Powell (1998). “The Diaries of Dawn Powell: 1931-1965”, Zoland Books

  7 Copy quote

• You woke in the morning with the weight of doom on your head. You lay with eyes shut wondering why you dreaded the day; was it a debt, was it a lost love? -and then you remembered the nightmare....This was no time for beauty, for love, or private future....There was no future; everyone waited, marked time, waited. For what?

  Dawn Powell

  Morning, Lost Love, Eye

  6 Copy quote

• For a genius to be a genius, he must have a selfless slave between himself and the world.

  Dawn Powell

  Genius, World, Selfless

  6 Copy quote

• I think we will have a boy baby and he will be born on the 20th of August. Everyone else has a girl baby and at times I don't believe I should mind having a little Phyllis Dawn but Dearest wants a boy and I do.

  Dawn Powell

  Girl, Baby, Believe

  Dawn Powell (1998). “The Diaries of Dawn Powell: 1931-1965”, Zoland Books

  7 Copy quote

• Yet better for one of my nature to have it that way than to have life a peaceful, placid flow of quiet contentment. I must have days of rushing excitement.

  Dawn Powell

  Love, Peace, Rushing

  Dawn Powell (1998). “The Diaries of Dawn Powell: 1931-1965”, Zoland Books

  9 Copy quote

• I want so much for my lover. At night when our beds are drawn close together I waken and see his dear yellow head on the pillow - sometimes his arm thrown over on my bed - and I kiss his hand, very softly so that it will not waken him.

  Dawn Powell

  Kissing, Night, Hands

  Dawn Powell (1998). “The Diaries of Dawn Powell: 1931-1965”, Zoland Books

  8 Copy quote

• The human comedy is always tragic, but since its ingredients are always the same - dupe, fox, straight, like burlesque skits - the repetition through the ages is comedy.

  Dawn Powell

  Age, Ingredients, Dupes

  Dawn Powell (1998). “The Diaries of Dawn Powell: 1931-1965”, Zoland Books

  88 Copy quote

• A novel is like a gland pill - it nips off the cream of my hysterics and gets them running on track in a book where they belong instead of rioting all over my person.

  Dawn Powell

  Running, Book, Writing

  Dawn Powell (1998). “The Diaries of Dawn Powell: 1931-1965”, Zoland Books

  8 Copy quote

• Joe and Jojo and I had lovely day together. I love Joe so much - more and more.

  Dawn Powell

  Lovely, Together, Lovely Day

  Dawn Powell (1995). “The Diaries of Dawn Powell, 1931-1965”

  9 Copy quote

• There is really one city for everyone just as there is one major love.

  Dawn Powell

  Cities, Majors

  Dawn Powell (1998). “The Diaries of Dawn Powell: 1931-1965”, Zoland Books

  4 Copy quote

You May Also Like:

Edmund Wilson

Dorothy Parker

Maxwell Perkins

Donald Kagan

Blanche Wiesen Cook

Gore Vidal

Mark Dunn

Clare Boothe Luce