Rebecca West Giving Quotations

Women know the damnation of charity because the habit of civilization has always been to throw them cheap alms rather than give them good wages.

The Portrait of a Lady is entirely successful in giving one the sense of having met somebody far too radiantly good for this world.

Yes,” said Mamma, “this is the worst of life, that love does not give us common sense but is a sure way of losing it. We love people, and we say that we are going to do more for them than friendship, but it makes such fools of us that we do far less, indeed sometimes what we do could be mistaken for the work of hatred.

the bad is more easily perceived than the good. A fresh lobster does not give such pleasure to the consumer as a stale one will give him pain.

Fiction and poetry are the only way one can stop time and give an account of an experience and nail it down so that it lasts for ever.