Miss Buncle Married Quotes

“Jerry took a large slice of wheaten bread, spread with golden butter, and bit into it with her small white teeth. It was a natural gesture - she was very hungry indeed - but to Sam, there was something symbolic about it. Jerry was like bread, he thought. She was like good wholesome wheaten bread, spread thick with honest farm butter; and the thought crossed his mind, that a man might eat bread forever and ever, and not tire of it, and it would never clog his palate like sweet cakes or pastries or chocolate éclairs. ”
― D.E. Stevenson, Miss Buncle Married

“In a new friend we start life anew, for we create a new edition of ourselves and so become, for the time being, a new creature.”
― D.E. Stevenson, Miss Buncle Married

“Barbara returned the pressure. “It’s turned out all right after all,” she said contentedly. “Things usually do, somehow. You worry and fuss and try to make things go the way you think they should, and then you find that the other way was best. I’m going to try not to worry about things anymore.”
― D.E. Stevenson, Miss Buncle Married

“There are very few people in the world with courage enough to admit that they do not care for music (dogs and children come into the same category) and so brand themselves forever as Philistines in the eyes of their friends.”
― D.E. Stevenson, Miss Buncle Married

“He put down the paper without regret, and looked at his wife, and, as he looked at her, he smiled because she was nice to look at, and because he loved her, and because she amused and interested him enormously. They had been married for nine months now, and sometimes he thought he knew her through and through, and sometimes he thought he didn’t know the first thing about her—theirs was a most satisfactory marriage.”
― D.E. Stevenson, Miss Buncle Married

“Mrs. Marvell's mind had atrophied to a certain extent; it was subsidiary to her body. Her body was her chief asset, and was therefore her chief care. She cultivated her body assiduously; she massaged it, exercised it, dieted it, manicured it, and anointed it with various oils and lotions. She was fully aware that, when her body was no longer beautiful, James would insist (with perfect right) upon having a model in the house——and, once that started, where were you? So Mrs. Marvell lived for her body, and tended it carefully, and neglected her mind.”
― D.E. Stevenson, Miss Buncle Married

“English towns and villages have as many idiosyncrasies as prima donnas. Some of them hide themselves among woods, or lurk behind hills, to burst into the motorist's view as the road winds round a corner; others are set upon a hilltop, their roofs and spires stretching heavenward for all the world to see. Others, again, lie upon a plain, so that the traveler sees them before him for miles, growing gradually bigger, changing from a toy village to a real one as he approaches. some indulge in outlying suburbs of villas and bungalows, very new and tidy; others in long rows of workmen's cottages with children playing round the doors.”
― D.E. Stevenson, Miss Buncle Married

“This was all the easier because Mr. Marvell was so matter of fact about the whole thing—the picture might have been a still life of a jar of roses, or of a cabbage, rather than the naked figure of his wife. After all, he’s her husband, thought Barbara vaguely, and that seemed to help.”
― D.E. Stevenson, Miss Buncle Married

“As she turned from him and looked at Trivona, she was assailed by a vague feeling of discomfort, for there was something very pathetic in the sleeping Trivvie. By day she was a rebel, full of the lust of life, battling for power, and yet more power, for freedom and yet more freedom; but, asleep, she was innocent, helpless, vulnerable. Barbara felt it was wrong to see Trivvie thus; it was like a treachery. Trivvie would hate to be seen without her armor on.”
― D.E. Stevenson, Miss Buncle Married

“She had been born in the days when children were taught to venerate the aged, but she had lived long enough to learn that she could count upon no respect from the young.”
― D.E. Stevenson, Miss Buncle Married

“Jerry found Barbara very soothing and comforting during this difficult time. It was not necessary to confide in Barbara to gain her sympathy—you just talked to Barbara about odds and ends of things, and you came away feeling a different creature.”
― D.E. Stevenson, Miss Buncle Married

“I’m glad you’re here, Monkey,” said Arthur Abbott at last. “I’m getting old, I suppose. Anyhow, I’ve come to the time of life when one old friend seems better than all the new friends in the world.”
― D.E. Stevenson, Miss Buncle Married

“Someday, she was convinced, somebody would find out that she was an imposter in the adult world.”
― D.E. Stevenson, Miss Buncle Married

“If talent is a natural aptitude for creation with an outlook on life peculiar to oneself, then genius is to have an outlook on life, peculiar to oneself, which yet appeals to everybody. Talent is for oneself and a few others, but genius is universal.”
― D.E. Stevenson, Miss Buncle Married

“She might or might not have "an imagination" (Arthur could not be sure of that), but she certainly had and extraordinary power of getting underneath people's skins. Without being conscious of it herself she was able to sum up a person or a situation in a few minutes, People's very bones were bare to her-and she had no idea of it.”
― D.E. Stevenson, Miss Buncle Married

“matutinal”
― D.E. Stevenson, Miss Buncle Married

“mulcted”
― D.E. Stevenson, Miss Buncle Married

“Barbara saw the matter from the author’s standpoint, and, although she could not explain it in plain English, she knew that it was impossible to alter the appearance of her characters; for an author does not consciously create his characters, they come to him readymade with all their characteristics firmly fixed, and the author can do nothing with his character but accept or reject him. He cannot change or modify the personality that has arisen without making him unreal.”
― D.E. Stevenson, Miss Buncle Married

“she was extremely bad at explaining what she felt, and when she felt very deeply about anything, she became even more incoherent and inarticulate than usual.”
― D.E. Stevenson, Miss Buncle Married

“It’s the only kind of inspiration I ever get,” Barbara told him. “I mean I have to have something to help me. I never get an inspiration straight out of the blue. I’ve got to have a kind of jumping-board before I can jump at all—if you know what I mean—otherwise my feet remain fixed to the ground. Other authors,” she continued, rather enviously, “other authors seem to be able to jump off the ground of their own accord. I mean they can imagine things without any help, but I’m not like that.”
― D.E. Stevenson, Miss Buncle Married

“assiduously;”
― D.E. Stevenson, Miss Buncle Married

“Take the author—he appeals to a different sense. With what care and judgment he builds his book. Keeping in view a sustained line from start to finish, with every part in due relation to the whole. Stone by stone he—” “Oh no, he doesn’t!” Barbara interrupted. “I beg your pardon—” “I said no, he doesn’t,” repeated Barbara firmly. “It isn’t like that at all; it isn’t like building—not a bit. In building, you see, you know beforehand what it’s going to be like; at least, I suppose you do. I mean, it would never do to start off building a house and find you’ve built a bridge, or something, when it was all finished. It’s more like hunting, really,” said Barbara, warming up to her subject. “Yes, it’s really rather like hunting. You start out to hunt a stag and you find the tracks of a tiger. It’s an adventure, you see, that’s the beauty of it. You don’t know a bit what you’re going to find until you come to the end, and, even then, you don’t know what you’ve found. At least you know what you’ve found for yourself but you don’t know if you’ve found anything for anybody else, but that doesn’t matter, really. The only thing that matters is that you must find something—some sort of—well—prey. Otherwise it’s no good, of course. You go questing about, like a—like a hound, and sometimes you get lost, and sometimes you find things you never knew were there.”
― D.E. Stevenson, Miss Buncle Married

“diffidently.”
― D.E. Stevenson, Miss Buncle Married

“Marry intelligence to beauty and beget ambition. A king’s mistress!”
― D.E. Stevenson, Miss Buncle Married

“It is only the very young who can make a place their own by an intimate knowledge of its geography.”
― D.E. Stevenson, Miss Buncle Married

“depilatories.”
― D.E. Stevenson, Miss Buncle Married

“I’ve come to the time of life when one old friend seems better than all the new friends in the world.”
― D.E. Stevenson, Miss Buncle Married

“sibilant”
― D.E. Stevenson, Miss Buncle Married

“stentorian”
― D.E. Stevenson, Miss Buncle Married

“the truth is that authors have no idea at all how or where they garner their harvest. The harvest is garnered by some busy imp that watches and garners daily, hourly, keeping the barns full, so that when the day of threshing comes, and the wheat is winnowed from the chaff, there shall always be enough and to spare for the making of the bread.”
― D.E. Stevenson, Miss Buncle Married