Quote

The only difficulty is to know what bits to choose and what to leave out. Novel-writing is not creation, it is selection.

Winifred Holtby

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Winifred Holtby
Age: 37 †
Born: 1898
Born: June 23
Died: 1935
Died: September 29
Author
Journalist
Novelist
Suffragette
Writer
Rudston
East Riding of Yorkshire
Creation
Novel
Leave
Bits
Writing
Selection
Difficulty
Choose

More quotes by Winifred Holtby

Image
Everybody's tragedy is somebody's nuisance.
Winifred Holtby
Image
Is this the final treachery of time, that the old become a burden upon the young?
Winifred Holtby
Image
Remorse ... is one of the many afflictions for which time finds a cure.
Winifred Holtby
Image
no truth is strong enough to defeat a well-established legend.
Winifred Holtby
Image
Life flows on over death as water closes over a stone dropped into a pool. ... Fate is certain death is certain but the courage and nobility of men and women matter more than these.
Winifred Holtby
Image
Oh, time betrays us. Time is the great enemy.
Winifred Holtby
Image
If you are rich, you have lovely cars, and jars full of flowers, and books in rows, and a wireless, and the best sort of gramophone and meringues for supper.
Winifred Holtby
Image
I can't think why I was cursed with this inordinate desire to write, if the high gods weren't going to give me some more adquate means of expressing myself than that which my present pedestrian prose affords.
Winifred Holtby
Image
But questioning does not mean the end of loving, and loving does not mean the abnegation of intelligence
Winifred Holtby
Image
If we haven't a grouch against Fortune, we seem unable to avoid one against ourselves.
Winifred Holtby
Image
the ruder lecturers are, and the louder their voices, the more converts they make to their opinions.
Winifred Holtby
Image
The more I see of dogs, the more I like children.
Winifred Holtby
Image
I like a bit of color myself, I must say. At my time of life, if you wear nothing but black, people might think you were too mean to change frocks between funerals.
Winifred Holtby
Image
There's never been a lack of men willing to die bravely. The trouble is to find a few able to live sensibly.
Winifred Holtby
Image
I advise nobody to drown sorrow in cocoa. It is bad for the figure and it does not alleviate the sorrow.
Winifred Holtby
Image
why haven't we seventy lives? One is no use.
Winifred Holtby
Image
Question everyone in authority, and see that you get sensible answers to your questions ... questioning does not mean the end of loving, and loving does not mean the abnegation of intelligence. Vow as much love to your country as you like ... but, I implore you, do not forget to question.
Winifred Holtby
Image
we are so little, so ignorant, so feeble an infant race crawling on a planet between immensities we haven't even begun to understand, that really we have no grounds for either congratulation or despair.
Winifred Holtby
Image
Progress. There's a good deal too much o' this progress about nowadays, an', what's more, it'll have to stop.
Winifred Holtby
Image
Nature is not silent, and never was a name more derisively inappropriate than when we speak of these non-human creatures who hoot and crow and bray as the dumb animals.
Winifred Holtby