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The House in Paris QUOTES

The House in Paris QUOTES

1 " Karen, her elbows folded on the deck-rail, wanted to share with someone her pleasure in being alone: this is the paradox of any happy solitude. "

― Elizabeth Bowen , The House in Paris

2 " Jealousy is no more than feeling alone against smiling enemies. "

― Elizabeth Bowen , The House in Paris

3 " Spezia offered Leopold almost nothing: his precocity devoured itself there, rejecting the steep sunny coast and nibbling blue edge of the sea that had drowned Shelley. His spirit became crustacean under douches of culture and mild philosophic chat from his Uncle Dee, who was cultured rather than erudite. "

― Elizabeth Bowen , The House in Paris

4 " At Spezia when I am angry I go full of smoke inside, but when you make me angry I see everything. "

― Elizabeth Bowen , The House in Paris

5 " Never to lie is to have no lock to your door, you are never wholly alone "

― Elizabeth Bowen , The House in Paris

6 " You could see that her tremendous inside life, its solitary fears and fires, was out of accord with her humble view of herself; to hide or excuse what she felt was her first wish. "

― Elizabeth Bowen , The House in Paris

7 " Meeting people unlike oneself does not enlarge one's outlook; it only confirms one's idea that one is unique. "

― Elizabeth Bowen , The House in Paris

8 " ...there must be something she wanted; and that therefore she was no lady. "

― Elizabeth Bowen , The House in Paris

9 " Someone soon to start on a journey is always a little holy. "

― Elizabeth Bowen , The House in Paris

10 " People must hope so much when they tear streets up and fight at barricades. But, whoever wins, the streets are laid again and the trams start running again. One hopes too much of destroying things. If revolutions do not fail, they fail you. "

― Elizabeth Bowen , The House in Paris

11 " She was in that flagging mood when to go on living seems only to load more unmeaning moments on to your memory. "

― Elizabeth Bowen , The House in Paris

12 " You must show him your monkey: I am sure he will like that. "

― Elizabeth Bowen , The House in Paris

13 " It is a wary business, walking about a strange house you know you are to know well. Only cats and dogs with their more expressive bodies enact the tension we share with them at such times. The you inside gathers up defensively; something is stealing upon you every moment; you will never be the same again. "

― Elizabeth Bowen , The House in Paris

14 " Their hands, swinging, touched lightly now and then; their nearness was as natural as the June day. "

― Elizabeth Bowen , The House in Paris

15 " First love, with its frantic haughty imagination, swings its object clear of the everyday, over the rut of living, making him all looks, silences, gestures, attitudes, a burning phrase with no context. This isolation, young love and hero worship accomplish without remorse; they hardly know tenderness. "

― Elizabeth Bowen , The House in Paris

16 " You know, even grown-up people cannot do what they want most"
"Then why grow up? "

― Elizabeth Bowen , The House in Paris

17 " Young girls like the excess of any quality. Without knowing, they want to suffer, to suffer they must exaggerate; they like to have loud chords struck upon them. Loving art better than life they need men to be actors; only an actor moves them, with his telling smile, undomestic, out of touch with the everyday that they dread. They love to enjoy love as a system of doubts and shocks. They are right; not seeking husbands yet, they have no reason to see love socially. "

― Elizabeth Bowen , The House in Paris

18 " Grown-up people seem to be busy by clockwork: even when someone is not ill, when there has been no telegram, they run their unswerving course from object to object, directed by some mysterious inner needle that points all the time to what they must do next. You can only marvel at such misuse of time. "

― Elizabeth Bowen , The House in Paris

19 " The inside of the house – with its shallow door-panels, lozenge door-knobs, polished brass ball on the end of the banisters, stuffy red matt paper with stripes to artfully shadowed as to appear bars – was more than simply novel to Henrietta, it was antagonistic, as though it had been invented to put her out. She felt the house was acting, nothing seemed to be natural; objects did not wait to be seen but came crowding in on her, each with what amounted to its aggressive cry. "

― Elizabeth Bowen , The House in Paris

20 " People in love, in whom every sense is open, cannot beat off the influence of a place. "

― Elizabeth Bowen , The House in Paris