Rose Macaulay

“The ascendancy over men's minds of the ruins of the stupendous past, the past of history, legend and myth, at once factual and fantastic, stretching back and back into ages that can but be surmised, is half-mystical in basis. The intoxication, at once so heady and so devout, is not the romantic melancholy engendered by broken towers and mouldered stones; it is the soaring of the imagination into the high empyrean where huge episodes are tangled with myths and dreams; it is the stunning impact of world history on its amazed heirs.”

“Each wrong act brings with it its own anesthetic, dulling the conscience and blinding it against further light, and sometimes for years.”

“Love's a disease. But curable.”

“It was a book to kill time for those who like it better dead.”

“We may say that all ages are dangerous to all people, in this dangerous life we live. But the thirties are a specially dangerous time for women. They have outlived the shyness and restraints of girlhood, and not attained to the caution and discretion of middle age. They are reckless, and consciously or unconsciously on the lookout for adventure. They see ahead of them the end of youth, and that quickens their pace.”

“You should always believe what you read in the newspapers, for that makes them more interesting.”

“It is a common delusion that you make things better by talking about them.”