Elizabeth > Elizabeth's Quotes

“He smelt of English sweat and English beer, and it was a good cure for dead faces.”
― Robert Westall, Harvest

“A Ford motorcar is a magical thing in the night with the spraying lamps against the pitch road and the smell of metal and perfume under the clothy roof.”
― Sebastian Barry, The Whereabouts of Eneas McNulty

“Reading good books ruins you for enjoying bad books.”
― Mary Ann Shaffer, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

“...The verses of Byron, Keats or Poe are real whether they are in bootleg form or not. You can still read them for the same effect.”
― Jasper Fforde

“There was no harm in taking aim, even if the target was a dream.”
― John Knowles, A Separate Peace

“I could look at stationers' shops forever and ever.”
― Dodie Smith

“I don't want to miss anything.”
― Dodie Smith

“I felt like one who wants to trap and cage a little bird, and after years of waiting and luring and baiting finds that she must do no more than hold out her hand, and the finch lands on her finger and does not fly. You scarcely dare to move. It rests on your hand whole and free, foolishly trusting and infinitely courageous. It will never be more beautiful.”
― Elizabeth E. Wein

“The gift that isn't big enough to make a mark, but is too big to leave the possessor in peace. And so they can't be content to be Sunday painters, or poets who write for a few friends, or composers whose handful of delicate little settings of Emily Dickinson can't find a singer. It's a special sort of hell.”
― Robertson Davies

“You'd think they would train these SOE girls better, it's just sloppy.' Hans sipped his cognac. 'She looked the wrong way crossing the road, silly girl.”
― Kate Lord Brown, The Beauty Chorus

“FLY THE PLANE, MADDIE.”
― Elizabeth Wein, Code Name Verity

“It's impossible to stall a Lizzie.”
― Elizabeth Wein, Code Name Verity

“My heart is warm with the friends I make,
And better friends I'll not be knowing,
Yet there isn't a train I wouldn't take,
No matter where it's going.”
― Edna St. Vincent Millay, The Selected Poetry

“One would never write a single word if one knew the horrors that lay ahead,’ agreed Charlotte.

‘But if you sell copies by the sackload, you may well forget the horrors,’ I agreed quickly.”
― Eva Rice

“I am no longer afraid of getting old. Indeed I can't believe I ever said anything so stupid. So childish. So offensive and arrogant.
But mainly, so very, very stupid. I desperately want to grow old.”
― Elizabeth Wein, Code Name Verity

“A whore, we've established that, filthy, it goes without saying, but whatever else the hell I am, I AM NOT ENGLISH.”
― Elizabeth Wein, Code Name Verity

“He just put his hand through the bulkhead, exactly as she'd done, and squeezed my shoulder. He has very strong fingers.
And he kept his hand there the whole way home, even when he was reading the map and giving me headings.
So I am not flying alone now after all.”
― Elizabeth Wein, Code Name Verity

“Please come back soon. The window is always open.”
― Elizabeth Wein, Code Name Verity

“I, of course, took the opportunity to interpose with pigheaded Wallace pride, 'I am not English, you ignorant Jerry bastard, I am a SCOT.”
― Elizabeth Wein

“If you show this devious little liar one atom's worth of compassion I will have you shot.”
― Elizabeth Wein, Code Name Verity

“She has the filthiest tongue of any woman in France. Burn her mouth clean.”
― Elizabeth Wein

“I used to think that fifteen would be nearly grown up," said her sister Naomi, "until you started being it”
― Hilary McKay, The Exiles in Love

“Se parece a enamorarse, saber que acabas de encontrar a tu mejor amiga.”
― Elizabeth Wein, Code Name Verity

“Jamie let go of me. "Shut your mucky gob, man." He stepped close to our fearless leader in the dark, took hold of his jacket by the collar, and in a dead quiet voice that had gone dangerously Scots, threatened heatedly, "Talk like that again wi' these brave lassies listenin' an' Ah'll tear the filthy English tongue frae yer heid, so Ah will.”
― Elizabeth Wein, Code Name Verity

“Nobody ought to write books before they’re thirty. I hate precocity.”
― Nancy Mitford, Wigs on the Green

“The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry.”
― Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms

“Oh, drop dead, you miserable cow.”
― Alan Garner