Rebecca West

“The memory, experiencing and re-experiencing, has such power over one's mere personal life, that one has merely lived.”

“Writing has nothing to do with communication between person and person, only with communication between different parts of a person's mind.”

“International relationships are preordained to be clumsy gestures based on imperfect knowledge.”

“I will be­lieve that the bat­tle of fem­i­nism is over, and that the fe­male has reached a po­si­tion of equal­ity with the male, when I hear that a coun­try has al­lowed it­self to be turned up­side-down and led to the brink of war by its pas­sion for a to­tally bald woman writer.”

“Any authentic work of art must start an argument between the artist and his audience.”

“There is no such thing as conversation. It is an illusion. There are intersecting monologues, that is all.”

“Great music is in a sense serene; it is certain of the values it asserts.”

“A strong hatred is the best lamp to bear in our hands as we go over the dark places of life, cutting away the dead things men tell us to revere.”

“The main difference between men and women is that men are lunatics and women are idiots.”

“There is no logical reason why the camel of great art should pass through the needle of mob intelligence.”

“Everyone realizes that one can believe little of what people say about each other. But it is not so widely realized that even less can one trust what people say about themselves.”

“We all drew on the comfort which is given out by the major works of Mozart, which is as real and material as the warmth given up by a glass of brandy.”

“Mr. James Joyce is a great man who is entirely without taste.”