I Capture the Castle

by Dodie Smith

I begin to see that writers are liable to become callous.

Contemplation seems to be about the only luxury that costs nothing.

I shall go down and be very kind to everyone. Noble deeds and hot baths are the best cures for depression.

The last stage of a bath, when the water is cooling and there is nothing to look forward to, can be pretty disillusioning. I expect alcohol works much the same way.

It is half real and half pretence – and I have an idea that it is a game most girls play when they meet any eligible young men. They just … wonder.

there is something revolting about the way girls’ minds so often jump to marriage long before they jump to love. And most of those minds are shut to what marriage really means.

I like seeing people when they can’t see me.

I can’t get the feeling into words – it slipped away when I tried to capture it.

that time takes the ugliness and horror out of death and turns it into beauty.

I didn’t get very far with my thoughts. It is the still, yellow kind of afternoon when one is apt to get stuck in a dream if one sits very quiet – I have been staring blankly at the bright square of the kitchen window for a good ten minutes. I shall pull myself together and do some honest thinking …

‘What is it about the English countryside – why is the beauty so much more than visual? Why does it touch one so?’ He sounded faintly sad. Perhaps he finds beauty saddening – I do myself sometimes. Once when I was quite little I asked Father why this was and he explained that it was due to our knowledge of beauty’s evanescence, which reminds us that we ourselves shall die.

What I’d really hate would be the settled feeling, with nothing but happiness to look forward to.

The thought came to me that perhaps it is the loving that counts, not the being loved in return –

Prayer’s a very tricky business.’ ‘Goodness, is it?’ ‘Well, for inexperienced pray-ers it sometimes is. You see, they’re apt to think of God as a slot-machine. If nothing comes out they say, “I knew dashed well it was empty” – when the whole secret of prayer is knowing the machine’s full.’

and heaven knows, one can’t call misery dull, exactly.

it, but it does seem to me that the climate of richness must always be a little dulling to the senses. Perhaps it takes the edge off joy as well as off sorrow.

Perhaps watching someone you love suffer can teach you even more than suffering yourself can.

I only want to write. And there’s no college for that except life.’