Nell Grey > Nell's Quotes

“These woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.”
― Robert Frost, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

“...red sings like summer in the shadows, hot on my tongue...”
― Nell Grey

“Time and trouble will tame an advanced young woman, but an advanced old woman is uncontrollable by any earthly force.”
― Dorothy L. Sayers, Clouds of Witness

“When I was seventeen I found a man, or maybe he found me. Away from home for the first time, out of reach of my father’s archaic restrictions and my mother’s culinary insistence, I cut off my hair, dropped my Christian name, wore black and toyed with anorexia, passing incognito among the city workers, just another ant in that vast heap.”
― Nell Grey

“I stood transfixed, the silence ringing in my ears. From the field of wild grasses; cocksfoot, tufted hair, wild oat, tall fescue, reed canary and perennial rye, their subtle shades of green, ochre and pink softly patching and blending in rustling movement, suddenly rose a small flock of starlings that had been feeding quietly unseen among the tall waving stems, the swish of their glossy wings startlingly loud in the stillness of midday. Heat held me captive.”
― Nell Grey

“Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self."

[The New Statesman, February 25, 1933]”
― Cyril Connolly

“If you show someone something you've written, you give them a sharpened stake, lie down in your coffin, and say, ‘When you’re ready’.”
― David Mitchell, Black Swan Green

“We gaze up at the same stars, the sky covers us all, the same universe encompasses us. What does it matter what practical system we adopt in our search for the truth? Not by one avenue only can we arrive at so tremendous a secret.”
― Symmachus

“We don’t sleep to sleep, dammit, any more than we eat to eat . We sleep to dream. We’re amphibians. We live in two elements and we need both."

Edward Nesbit”
― Lindsay Clarke, The Chymical Wedding

“Learning the secret of flight from a bird was a good deal like learning the secret of magic from a magician.”
― Orville Wright

“It pays to keep an open mind, but not so open your brains fall out.”
― Carl Sagan

“If you wish to upset the law that all crows are black, you mustn't seek to show that no crows are; it is enough if you prove one single crow to be white.”
― William James

“Mysticism is the art of union with Reality.”
― Evelyn Underhill

“It is when we stop believing that religions have been handed down from above or else that they are entirely daft that matters become more interesting.”
― Alain de Boton

“People with a psychological need to believe in marvels are no more prejudiced and gullible than people with a psychological need not to believe in marvels.”
― Charles Fort

“What you knew in your childhood is true; the Otherworld of magic and enchantment is real, sometimes terribly real - and certainly more real than the factual reality which our culture has built up, brick by brick, to shut out colour and light and prevent us from flying.”
― Patrick Harpur, A Complete Guide to the Soul

“I maintain that truth is a pathless land, and you cannot approach it by any path whatsoever, by any religion, by any sect. That is my point of view, and I adhere to that absolutely and unconditionally. Truth, being limitless, unconditioned, unapproachable by any path whatsoever, cannot be organized; nor should any organization be formed to lead or coerce people along a particular path. ... This is no magnificent deed, because I do not want followers, and I mean this. The moment you follow someone you cease to follow Truth. I am not concerned whether you pay attention to what I say or not. I want to do a certain thing in the world and I am going to do it with unwavering concentration. I am concerning myself with only one essential thing: to set man free. I desire to free him from all cages, from all fears, and not to found religions, new sects, nor to establish new theories and new philosophies.”
― Jiddu Krishnamurti