Ivy Compton-Burnett Quotes

53 Sourced Quotes

"Time has too much credit," said Bridget. "I never agree with the compliments paid to it. It is not a great healer. It is an indifferent and perfunctory one. Sometimes it does not heal at all. And sometimes when it seems to, no healing has been necessary."

Ivy Compton-Burnett
There is more difference within the sexes than between them.

Ivy Compton-Burnett
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
My youth is escaping without giving me anything it owes me.

Ivy Compton-Burnett
There is probably nothing like living together for blinding people to each other.

Ivy Compton-Burnett
A leopard does not change his spots, or change his feeling that spots are rather a credit.

Ivy Compton-Burnett
It will be a beautiful family talk, mean and worried and full of sorrow and spite and excitement.

Ivy Compton-Burnett
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
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
Parents have too little respect for their children, just as the children have too much for the parents.

Ivy Compton-Burnett
Many people misjudge the permanent effect of sorrow, and their capacity to live in the past. And it is not a course to be wished for them.

Ivy Compton-Burnett
Most of the pleasure of making a book would go if it held nothing to be shared by other people. I would write for a few dozen people, and sometimes it seems that I do so, but I would not write for no-one.

Ivy Compton-Burnett
A plot is like the bones of a person, not interesting like expression, or signs of experience, but the support of the whole.

Ivy Compton-Burnett
There are different kinds of wrong. The people sinned against are not always the best.

Ivy Compton-Burnett
'I should not like Aubrey to die,' said Dudley. 'I only nearly died, and it would give him the immediate advantage.'

Ivy Compton-Burnett
I wonder the human race has been so fond of migrations, when the young take so hardly to traveling.

Ivy Compton-Burnett
Dear, dear, the miniature world of the family! All the emotions of mankind seem to find a place in it.

Ivy Compton-Burnett
Some people always have a touch of youth about them.

Ivy Compton-Burnett
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
We can build upon foundations anywhere if they are well and firmly laid.

Ivy Compton-Burnett
"Appearances are not held to be a clue to the truth," said his cousin. "But we seem to have no other."

Ivy Compton-Burnett
It is no good to think that other people are out to serve our interests.

Ivy Compton-Burnett
Ah, we have to be generous to be grateful.... One has oneself to be a giver.

Ivy Compton-Burnett
Anyone who picks up a Compton-Burnett finds it very hard not to put it down.

Ivy Compton-Burnett
"Well, of course, people are only human," said Dudley to his brother, as they walked to the house behind the women. "But it really does not seem much for them to be."

Ivy Compton-Burnett