56 quotes
The two women were alone in the London flat.
"The point is," said Anna, as her friend came back from the telephone on the landing, "the point is, that as far as I can see, everything's cracking up."
The Golden Notebook (1962)
Nonsense, it was all nonsense: this whole damned outfit, with its committees, its conferences, its eternal talk, talk, talk, was a great con trick; it was a mechanism to earn a few hundred men and women incredible sums of money.
The Summer Before the Dark (1973)
The automatic reaction of practically any young person is, at once, against authority. That, I think, began in the First World War because of the trenches, and the incompetence of the people on all fronts.
Salon interview (1997)
The Golden Notebook for some reason surprised people but it was no more than you would hear women say in their kitchens every day in any country. … I was really astounded that some people were shocked.
I think it possible that Marxism was the first attempt, for our time, outside the formal religions, at a world-mind, a world-ethic. It went wrong, could not prevent itself from dividing and subdividing, like all the other religions, into smaller and smaller chapels, sects, and creeds. But it was an attempt.
The Golden Notebook (1962)
For the last third of life there remains only work. It alone is always stimulating, rejuvenating, exciting and satisfying.
Misattributed
Trust no friend without faults, and love a maiden, but no angel.
Misattributed
The worst of superstitions is to think
One's own most bearable.
Misattributed
What is a hero without love for mankind?
Misattributed
It is the mark of great people to treat trifles as trifles and important matters as important.
Misattributed
Think wrongly, if you please, but in all cases think for yourself.
Misattributed
Borrowing is not much better than begging; just as lending with interest is not much better than stealing.
Misattributed
I have found it to be true that the older I've become the better my life has become.
Misattributed
Man, whence is he?
Too bad to be the work of a god, too good for the work of chance.
Misattributed
I, who ne'er
Went for myself a begging, go a borrowing,
And that for others. Borrowing's much the same
As begging; just as lending upon usury
Is much the same as thieving.
Misattributed
Better Counsel comes overnight.
Misattributed