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We must use words as they are used, or stand aside from life.

Ivy Compton-Burnett

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Ivy Compton-Burnett
Age: 85 †
Born: 1884
Born: June 5
Died: 1969
Died: August 27
Novelist
Writer
London
England
I. Compton-Burnett
Use
Used
Must
Life
Aside
Stand
Words

More quotes by Ivy Compton-Burnett

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It is no good to think that other people are out to serve our interests.
Ivy Compton-Burnett
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There isn't much to say. I haven't been at all deedy.
Ivy Compton-Burnett
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You should not want to know the things in people's minds. If you were meant to hear them, they would be said.
Ivy Compton-Burnett
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I think I feel on the whole that something's there trying to get out ... It's sort of trying to get out and wants help.
Ivy Compton-Burnett
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[On writing:] What a difficult kind of work to choose! But of course one did not choose it. There was no choice.
Ivy Compton-Burnett
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People have never lost what they think they have.
Ivy Compton-Burnett
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Truth is so impossible. Something has to be done for it.
Ivy Compton-Burnett
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It is better to be drunk with loss and to beat the ground, than to let the deeper things gradually escape.
Ivy Compton-Burnett
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Many people misjudge the permanent effect of sorrow, and their capacity to live in the past.
Ivy Compton-Burnett
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it is in our minds that we live much of our life.
Ivy Compton-Burnett
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Our desires have a way of getting bigger with our incomes.
Ivy Compton-Burnett
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There is probably nothing like living together for blinding people to each other.
Ivy Compton-Burnett
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At a certain point my novels set. They set just as hard as that jam jar. And then I know they are finished.
Ivy Compton-Burnett
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There is more difference within the sexes than between them.
Ivy Compton-Burnett
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When I die, people will say it is the best thing for me. It is because they know it is the worst. They want to avoid the feeling of pity. As though they were the people most concerned!
Ivy Compton-Burnett
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charm should be on the surface. It has no hidden use.
Ivy Compton-Burnett
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It is not for us to hold ourselves above the position of grateful people. We have to be able to accept. Anything else shows an unwillingness to grant someone else the superior place.
Ivy Compton-Burnett
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We can build upon foundations anywhere if they are well and firmly laid.
Ivy Compton-Burnett
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We do not discuss the members of our family to their faces.
Ivy Compton-Burnett
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As regards plot 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 life.
Ivy Compton-Burnett