Home > Author > Penelope Fitzgerald
1 " A good book is the precious life-blood of a master-spirit, embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life, and as such it must surely be a necessary commodity. "
― Penelope Fitzgerald , The Bookshop
2 " What’s to become of us? We can’t go on like this.”“Yes, we can go on like this,” said Cesare. “We can go on exactly like this for the rest of our lives. "
― Penelope Fitzgerald
3 " Opportunity, after all, is only another word for temptation. "
― Penelope Fitzgerald , The Blue Flower
4 " Behind their dark glass, the mad own nothing. "
― Penelope Fitzgerald , Charlotte Mew And Her Friends
5 " On the whole, I think you should write biographies of those you admire and respect, and novels about human beings who you think are sadly mistaken. "
6 " To every separate person a thing is what he thinks it is – in other words, not a thing, but a think. "
― Penelope Fitzgerald , The Gate of Angels
7 " Duty is what no-one else will do at the moment. "
― Penelope Fitzgerald , Offshore
8 " Morality is seldom a safe guide for human conduct. "
9 " Helping other people is a drug so dangerous that there is no cure short of total abstention. "
― Penelope Fitzgerald , Human Voices
10 " She had a kind heart, though that is not of much use when it comes to the matter of self-preservation. "
11 " There isn’t one kind of happiness, there’s all kinds. Decision is torment for anyone with imagination. When you decide, you multiply the things you might have done and now never can. "
12 " Courage and endurance are useless if they are never tested. "
13 " She did not know that morality is seldom a safe guide for human conduct. "
14 " More than that, I believe that the grass is green because green is restful to the human eye, that the sky is blue to give us an idea of the infinite. And that blood is red so that murder will be more easily detected and criminals will be brought to justice. Yes, and I believe that I shall live forever, but I shall live without reason. "
15 " ... human beings interested her so much that it must always be an advantage to meet another one. "
― Penelope Fitzgerald , At Freddie's
16 " What seemed delicacy in him was usually a way of avoiding trouble; what seemed like sympathy was the instinct to prevent trouble before it started. It was hard to see what growing older would mean to such a person. His emotions, from lack of exercise, had disappeared almost altogether. Adaptability and curiosity, he had found, did just as well. "
17 " Tilda cared nothing for the future, and had, as a result, a great capacity for happiness. "
18 " Florence had noticed one or two eccentricities in herself lately, which might be the result of hard work, or of age, or of living alone. When the letters came, for example, she often found herself wasting time in looking at the postmarks and wondering whoever they could be from, instead of opening them in a sensible manner and finding out at once. "
19 " There’s two ways to be selfish. You can think too much about yourself, or you can think too little about others. You’re selfish both ways. "
20 " If there's even one person who might be hurt by a decision, you should never make it. "
