Patricia Wentworth Quotes

54 Sourced Quotes

Simplicity is the most difficult thing in the world to ape.

Patricia Wentworth
He replied readily, but with that indomitable British accent which exemplifies the ability of the English to withstand foreign influences.

Patricia Wentworth
My dear father always said that when everybody had a telephone nobody would have any manners, because there wouldn't be time for them. And of course he was perfectly right.

Patricia Wentworth
When married people begin to talk about their rights, it means something has gone pretty far wrong between them.

Patricia Wentworth
She had the air of someone who walked among her own thoughts and found them sufficient company.

Patricia Wentworth
A good many established writers seem to have the feeling that some day they are going to be found out, revealed as frauds.

Patricia Wentworth
Her own sense of superiority was largely maintained by the contemplation of other people's faults.

Patricia Wentworth
Conversation with Albert was instructive rather than entertaining... a mine of information produced in such a manner as to rob it of any possible spark of interest.

Patricia Wentworth
It was only among your own people that you didn't need to shine, because that wasn't what mattered. Your own people were your own people. You could take them for granted, and be taken for granted by them. The bosom of the family was an extraordinarily restful place.

Patricia Wentworth
If you cannot get what you want, common sense suggests that you should put your mind to wanting what you can get.

Patricia Wentworth
People who lost their tempers were never much more than five years old.

Patricia Wentworth
It was his rooted belief that an unlocked door or window would instantly attract a burglar.

Patricia Wentworth
Infallibility requires a great deal of charm to carry it off. Unfortunately, Albert was deficient in charm.

Patricia Wentworth
It isn't good tactics to ask for something that you know will be refused.

Patricia Wentworth
Too much information can be as disconcerting as too little.

Patricia Wentworth
You can't do such a lot and do it all so well and have much time left for the ordinary human feelings.

Patricia Wentworth
To be always right — was there a more enraging faculty in the world? Was it a faculty, or a virtue? If it was a virtue, it was certainly the most disagreeable of all the virtues — a tyrannical prig of a virtue, the sort of virtue which makes you want to go and wallow in vice.

Patricia Wentworth
One cannot withdraw from the life of the community. Injury to one member of it cannot fail to be the concern of all.

Patricia Wentworth
The most trying moments in human experience were those in which there was nothing to be done except to wait.

Patricia Wentworth
The things that happened in your body were never as bad as the things that happened in your mind.

Patricia Wentworth
To Jackson the human leg was an obsolete form of conveyance. To use it betokened extreme penury or a barbaric devotion to exercise.

Patricia Wentworth
There's a general consensus of opinion that people in love are apt to look silly — except to each other.

Patricia Wentworth
Any road is bound to arrive somewhere if you follow it far enough.

Patricia Wentworth
I bore you and I nursed you, you were flesh and blood and bone of me.
I toiled for you and loved you, but you've gone from me and grown from me.
Oh, once you were my little maid, but now you've travelled far.
For it's a grown woman, a grown woman, and a stranger that you are.

Patricia Wentworth