Sylvia Townsend Warner Quotes

Quotes about:

• To think of losing is to lose already.

  Sylvia Townsend Warner

  Thinking, Losing, Loses

  Sylvia Townsend Warner, William Maxwell (1982). “Letters”

  46 Copy quote

• It is best as one grows older to strip oneself of possessions, to shed oneself downward like a tree, to be almost wholly earth before one dies.

  Sylvia Townsend Warner

  Tree, Earth, Possession

  Sylvia Townsend Warner (1978). “Lolly Willowes: or, The loving huntsman”, Charles River Books

  43 Copy quote

• The fatal flaw of gravity; when you are down, everything falls down on you.

  Sylvia Townsend Warner

  Fall, Flaws, Gravity

  19 Copy quote

• There are not enough poems in praise of bed.

  Sylvia Townsend Warner

  Bed, Praise, Enough

  Sylvia Townsend Warner, William Maxwell (1982). “Letters”

  8 Copy quote

• When I die, I hope to think I have annoyed a great many people.

  Sylvia Townsend Warner

  Thinking, People, Annoyed

  Sylvia Townsend Warner, Claire Harman (1994). “The diaries of Sylvia Townsend Warner”, Virago Pr

  9 Copy quote

• Truth has beauty, power, and necessity.

  Sylvia Townsend Warner

  Truth

  12 Copy quote

• Total grief is like a minefield. No knowing when one will touch the tripwire.

  Sylvia Townsend Warner

  Love, Grief, Knowing

  Sylvia Townsend Warner, Claire Harman (1994). “The diaries of Sylvia Townsend Warner”, Virago Pr

  7 Copy quote

• Nine people out of ten (in Germany and England, perhaps ten people) would rather wait for their rights than fight for their rights.

  Sylvia Townsend Warner

  Change, Fighting, Rights

  9 Copy quote

• Slowly, with a look of intense concentration, he got up and advanced on me ... put out a front paw, and stroked my cheek as I used to stoke his chops. A human caress from a cat. I felt very meagre and ill-educated that I could not purr.

  Sylvia Townsend Warner

  Cat, Looks, Paws

  13 Copy quote

• There is a period in one's life - perhaps not longer than six months - when one lives in two worlds at once ... It is the time when one has freshly learned to read. The Word, till then a denominating aspect of the Thing, has suddenly become detached from it and is perceived as a glittering entity, transparent and unseizable as a jellyfish, yet able to create an independent world that is both more recondite and more instantaneously convincing than the world one knew before.

  Sylvia Townsend Warner

  Reading, Independent, Two

  54 Copy quote

• You are only young once. At the time it seems endless, and is gone in a flash; and then for a very long time you are old.

  Sylvia Townsend Warner

  Long, Gone, Flash

  Sylvia Townsend Warner (1966). “Swans on an Autumn River: Stories”

  6 Copy quote

• One cannot overestimate the power of a good rancorous hatred on the part of the stupid. The stupid have so much more industry and energy to expend on hating. They build it up like coral insects.

  Sylvia Townsend Warner

  Hate, Stupid, Hatred

  Sylvia Townsend Warner, Claire Harman (1994). “The diaries of Sylvia Townsend Warner”, Virago Pr

  13 Copy quote

• Happy is the day whose history is not written down.

  Sylvia Townsend Warner

  Written

  Sylvia Townsend Warner, Claire Harman (1994). “The diaries of Sylvia Townsend Warner”, Virago Pr

  5 Copy quote

• Anticipation of pleasure is a pleasure in itself.

  Sylvia Townsend Warner

  Expectations, Anticipation, Pleasure

  6 Copy quote

• noise is a pollution.

  Sylvia Townsend Warner

  Noise, Pollution

  Sylvia Townsend Warner, Claire Harman (1994). “The diaries of Sylvia Townsend Warner”, Virago Pr

  5 Copy quote

• once, when I was a young lady and on a night express ... I was awakened by a man coming in from the corridor and taking hold of my leg ... Quite as much to my own astonishment as his, I uttered the most appalling growl that ever came out of a tigress. He fled, poor man, without a word: and I lay there, trembling slightly, not at my escape but at my potentialities.

  Sylvia Townsend Warner

  Confidence, Night, Men

  12 Copy quote

• Happiness is an immunity.

  Sylvia Townsend Warner

  Happiness, Immunity

  Sylvia Townsend Warner (1988). “Selected stories of Sylvia Townsend Warner”, Vintage

  8 Copy quote

• [John Craske] painted like a man giving witness under oath to a wild story.

  Sylvia Townsend Warner

  Artist, Men, Giving

  11 Copy quote

• I wish you could see the two cats drowsing side by side in a Victorian nursing chair, their paws, their ears, their tails complementarily adjusted, their blue eyes blinking open on a single thought of when I shall remember it's their supper time. They might have been composed by Bach for two flutes.

  Sylvia Townsend Warner

  Cat, Eye, Nursing

  6 Copy quote

• Love is the only real patriation, and without one's dear one sits in a dreary and boring exile.

  Sylvia Townsend Warner

  Real, Love Is, Dear Ones

  Sylvia Townsend Warner, Valentine Ackland, Susanna Pinney (1998). “I'll stand by you: selected letters of Sylvia Townsend Warner and Valentine Ackland : with narrative by Sylvia Townsend Warner”, Random House (UK)

  8 Copy quote

• Idleness is righteous if it is comfortable. Uncomfortable idleness is sin & sinful waste.

  Sylvia Townsend Warner

  Leisure, Waste, Sin

  Sylvia Townsend Warner, Claire Harman (1994). “The diaries of Sylvia Townsend Warner”, Virago Pr

  10 Copy quote

• I wasn't educated. I was very lucky.

  Sylvia Townsend Warner

  Lucky, Educated

  Sylvia Townsend Warner, Claire Harman (1982). “Collected poems”, Carcanet New Press ; New York : Viking Press

  6 Copy quote

• Only two things are real to me: my love and my death. In between them, I merely exist as a scatter of senses.

  Sylvia Townsend Warner

  Real, Two, Two Things

  Sylvia Townsend Warner, Claire Harman (1994). “The diaries of Sylvia Townsend Warner”, Virago Pr

  8 Copy quote

• The night was at her disposal. She might walk back to Great Mop and arrive very late; or she might sleep out and not trouble to arrive till to-morrow. Whichever she did Mrs Leak would not mind. That was one of the advantages of dealing with witches; they do not mind if you are a little odd in your ways, frown if you are late for meals, fret if you are out all night, pry and commiserate when at length you return. Lovely to be with people who prefer their thoughts to yours, lovely to live at your own sweet will, lovely to sleep out all night!

  Sylvia Townsend Warner

  Love, Sweet, Sleep

  Sylvia Townsend Warner (1978). “Lolly Willowes: or, The loving huntsman”, Charles River Books

  10 Copy quote

• And another day is tucked under my wing.

  Sylvia Townsend Warner

  Night, Wings, Another Day

  Sylvia Townsend Warner, Claire Harman (1994). “The diaries of Sylvia Townsend Warner”, Virago Pr

  9 Copy quote

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