Ivy Compton-Burnett

“As regards plots I find real life no help at all. Real life seems to have no plots. And as I think a plot desirable and almost necessary, I have this extra grudge against real life. But I think there are signs that strange things happen, though they do not emerge”

“My youth is escaping without giving me anything it owes me.”

“A leopard does not change his spots, or change his feeling that spots are rather a credit.”

“At a certain point my novels set. They set just as hard as that jam jar. And then I know they are finished.”

“There isn't much to say. I haven't been at all deedy.”

“There is probably nothing like living together for blinding people to each other.”

“There is more difference within the sexes than between them.”

“Time is not a great healer. It is an indifferent and perfunctory one. Sometimes it does not heal at all. And sometimes when it seems to, no healing has been necessary.”

“People who have power respond simply. They have no minds but their own.”

“Well, of course, people are only human... But it really does not seem much for them to be.”