Stella Gibbons Quotes

Surely she had endured enough for one evening without having to listen to intelligent conversation?

Bookshelves stood against the four walls. They were shapely and well made, but were all second-hand; Hetty had picked them up on visits to Chesterbourne. She liked her shelves to have personality, as well as the books on them, and thought it would have been simpler to order shelves to be fitted around the room, or to buy those bookcases that grow with the growth of their library, she had stood firm against the amusement of Victor and the irritation of her aunt, and had the shelves she wanted.

Twice, in half an hour, Hetty had held up Miss Barlow's plans, and prevented her from moving as quickly as possible on to the next pleasure. Miss Barlow liked her life to be a steady movement towards pleasure. While she was having one, she was thinking about the next and what she should wear while she had that.

Ye know, doan't ye, what it feels like when ye burn yer hand in takin' a cake out of the oven or wi'a match when ye're lightin' one of they godless cigarettes? Ay. It stings wi' a fearful pain, doan't it? And ye run away to clap a bit o' butter on it to take the pain away. Ah, but' (an impressive pause) 'there'll be no butter in hell!

While she lay there with these old worn thoughts coming obediently into her mind, called there by habit and the familiar quiet of early morning, she was aware that at the back of her mind there was another thought that was not at all stale, but so fresh that it was nearly a feeling, with all a feeling's delicious power to kill thought.

Haven't you enough money?'For she knew that this is what is the matter with nearly everybody over twenty-five.

She liked to watch her father as he read, and to listen to the smoothly rolling tones; she felt no curiosity about what the words meant. It was only Shakespeare and she was used to him.

She sat in a corner warm with sunlight, a copy of Home Notes open unread upon her knee, and watched the green meadows flying past while the business men in the carriage talked about news in the papers— awful, as usual— their golf, their gardeners, and the detective stories they were reading.