Quote

The baby romped on my lap like a short stout salmon.

Sylvia Townsend Warner

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Sylvia Townsend Warner
Age: 84 †
Born: 1893
Born: December 6
Died: 1978
Died: May 1
Linguist
Musicologist
Novelist
Poet
Translator
Writer
Harrow
Silvia Warner
Baby
Children
Like
Stout
Salmon
Lap
Short

More quotes by Sylvia Townsend Warner

Image
Love amazes, but it does not surprise.
Sylvia Townsend Warner
Image
London life was very full and exciting [...] But in London there would be no greenhouse with a glossy tank, and no apple-room, and no potting-shed, earthy and warm, with bunches of poppy heads hanging from the ceiling, and sunflower seeds in a wooden box, and bulbs in thick paper bags, and hanks of tarred string, and lavender drying on a tea-tray.
Sylvia Townsend Warner
Image
She was heavier than he expected - women always are.
Sylvia Townsend Warner
Image
... possessiveness cannot accept it cannot even strike a fair bargain it has to confer.
Sylvia Townsend Warner
Image
In the morning I had decided that henceforth I only cared for easy loves. It is so degrading to have to persuade people into liking one, or one's works.
Sylvia Townsend Warner
Image
My grandmother was unsurpassable at sitting. She would sit on tombstones, glaciers, small hard benches with ants crawling over them, fragments of public monuments, other people's wheelbarrows, and when one returned one could be sure of finding her there, conversing affably with the owner of the wheelbarrow.
Sylvia Townsend Warner
Image
One need not write in a diary what one is to remember for ever.
Sylvia Townsend Warner
Image
Sneezes ... always sound much louder to the sneezer than to the hearers. It is an acoustical peculiarity.
Sylvia Townsend Warner
Image
One reason why my memory decays is that I have three cats, all so loving and insistent that they play cat's-cradle with every train of thought. They drove me distracted while I was having influenza, gazing at me with large eyes and saying: O Sylvia, you are so ill, you'll soon be dead. And who will feed us then? Feed us now!
Sylvia Townsend Warner
Image
Oh, I am all for singing. If I had had children I should have hounded them into choirs & choral societies, and if they weren't good enough for that, I would have sent them out, to sing in the streets.
Sylvia Townsend Warner
Image
I wish you could see the two cats drowsing side by side in a Victorian nursing chair, their paws, their ears, their tails complementarily adjusted, their blue eyes blinking open on a single thought of when I shall remember it's their supper time. They might have been composed by Bach for two flutes.
Sylvia Townsend Warner
Image
I cannot love people in the country, I discover, because there is always this danger that they may be acquaintances, with all the perils and choleras of acquaintance implicit in them but in London they seem as charming as rabbits.
Sylvia Townsend Warner
Image
Love is the only real patriation, and without one's dear one sits in a dreary and boring exile.
Sylvia Townsend Warner
Image
One cannot overestimate the power of a good rancorous hatred on the part of the stupid. The stupid have so much more industry and energy to expend on hating. They build it up like coral insects.
Sylvia Townsend Warner
Image
I seem to use this word 'kind' very frequently. When one is unhappy or anxious it is a quality one dwells on.
Sylvia Townsend Warner
Image
when the German propaganda tries to be winsome it is like a clown with homicidal mania - ludicrous and terrifying both at once.
Sylvia Townsend Warner
Image
Reason is a poor hand at prophecies.
Sylvia Townsend Warner
Image
Of all damnable offenses preaching prudence to the young is the most damnable.
Sylvia Townsend Warner
Image
When other helpers fail and comforts flee, when the senses decay and the mind moves in a narrower and narrower circle, when the grasshopper is a burden and the postman brings no letters, and even the Royal Family is no longer quite what it was, an obituary column stands fast.
Sylvia Townsend Warner
Image
Wealth, if not a mere flash in the pan, compels the wealthy to become wealthier.
Sylvia Townsend Warner