Angela Thirkell quotes:

There are few pleasures like really burrowing one's nose into sweet peas.

But human nature cannot be content on a diet of honey and if there is nothing in one's life that requires pity, one must invent it; for to go through life unpitied would be an unthinkable loss.

Never economize on luxuries.

Early poems are a thing it takes years to live down.

If one cannot invent a really convincing lie, it is often better to stick to the truth.

I suppose everybody has a mental picture of the days of the week, some seeing them as a circle, some as an endless line, and others again, for all I know, as triangles and cubes. Mine is a wavy line proceeding to infinity, dipping to Wednesday which is the colour of old silver dark with polishing and rising again to a pale gold Sunday. This day has a feeling in my picture of warmth and light breezes and sunshine and afternoons that stretch to infinity and mornings full of far-off bells.

It has been noticed that people who are not parents often have a peculiar fondness for children. This is sometimes attributed to a very beautiful nostalgia for a gift denied to them - dream-children, flowers that have only bloomed in imagination - but we think it is rather because they have not the faintest idea how dreadful children are.

If only life were one long crisis, everyone would be perfect.

Christmas, so long looming over everyone's head, finally surged up, buried everyone alive and ebbed away, leaving its victims distinctly cross.

If there is one pleasure on earth which surpasses all others, it is leaving a play before the end. I might perhaps except the joy of taking tickets for a play, dining well, sitting on after dinner, and finally not going at all. That, of course, is very heaven.

it is rather depressing to think that one will still be oneself when one is dead, but I dare say one won't be so critical then.

The great thing in life is not to be able to do things, because then they are always done for you.

First love is an astounding experience and if the object happens to be totally unworthy and love not really love at all, it makes little difference to the intensity of the pain.