Because of the Lockwoods Quotes

“Shyness in the young may be charming to look at but is painful to the one who suffers it.”
― Dorothy Whipple, Because of the Lockwoods

“In the bosom of a family, nothing can be hidden. One might wish, when things are bad, to suffer unobserved, but in a family there is no chance of that.”
― Dorothy Whipple, Because of the Lockwoods

“She had a good memory, too good, perhaps, since it held her imprisoned in the past.”
― Dorothy Whipple, Because of the Lockwoods

“So far in his life, his happiness had mostly consisted of seeing his wife and his children happy. He had snatched and grabbed pleasure for them, passing it on to them and snatching incessantly at more, making himself very unpleasant in the process.

The bird that plucks its breast to line the nest for its young may be very disagreeable with other birds. And the fact that its young don't need more than a minimum of down, or that something else less hardly come by would do just as well, probably doesn't stop the bird from plucking. Mr. Lockwood went on snatching and grabbing wealth, often other people's, long after his wife and daughters had more than enough.

Where he differed from the bird was that he had enjoyed snatching and grabbing for his family; whereas the bird can hardly, one imagines, enjoy plucking till the blood flows.”
― Dorothy Whipple, Because of the Lockwoods

“No matter how you resent other people's company, when you have it, you can't concentrate so fiercely upon your misery as you would without it.”
― Dorothy Whipple, Because of the Lockwoods

“Good cooking is a form of benevolence. Molly gladly sacrificed a fine afternoon to give pleasure by a cake at tea-time. She would lay her afternoon and fresh air on the table with the cake and be rewarded by the glow of pleasure she felt when they enjoyed it.”
― Dorothy Whipple, Because of the Lockwoods

“If you don't mind my saying so, I think, as a family, you're inclined to give up. Give you a blow, you don't rally. You shrink and nurse your pride.... I admire you all, you've got things our family hasn't and never will have, but by George, I don't think you go the right way about living.... I think it's resentment," said Oliver, puzzling them out. "But you'd better remember that, if you fall out of life, you fall out. No one bothers. Those nearest to you fall out with you, perhaps, but your neighbours don't care, the town doesn't care, the world doesn't care.

"I think you've got to get rid of all idea that you've had a bad deal," he said.... "Ten to one, you've not had half such a bad deal as the next man.”
― Dorothy Whipple, Because of the Lockwoods

“Love has a dangerous way of simplifying, for the lovers, things that cannot be simplified. Lovers can rarely see why they cannot be allowed to love, to be together. Why not, they naively wonder, since nothing else matters?”
― Dorothy Whipple, Because of the Lockwoods

“Love is not only blind about the beloved; it is blind about other people, too. Thea went dreamily on with no idea that she was startling the Lockwoods and many of the boarders by her looks alone. In the pension, many girls were putting on the bloom of young womanhood, but Thea outshone them. Her hair glowed and curled with vitality, her eyes were full of light.... The eyes of the Lockwoods followed her uneasily. It looked as if their snubbing days were entirely over; you couldn't snub a girl who was turning into a beauty under your eyes.”
― Dorothy Whipple, Because of the Lockwoods

“Doesn't it seem hard, Oliver, that as children, when we'll take any mould, we should be formed for the rest of our lives by small things that don't really matter in themselves at all? My grievance is that the Lockwoods were silly, selfish, snobbish, creatures with no single saving grace—except, perhaps, Clare—and yet I minded about them.”
― Dorothy Whipple, Because of the Lockwoods

“Molly was bending over the table where her masterpiece, the white and silver cake, towered above her lesser achievements in the shape of patties, canapes, rolls, sandwiches, cakes and biscuits. A current of goodwill flowed from Molly through the food to the people who ate it and back again the same way. Her good cooking made the connection; she seemed to need no other.”
― Dorothy Whipple, Because of the Lockwoods

“No such snake as family criticism had ever reared its head among the Lockwoods before.”
― Dorothy Whipple, Because of the Lockwoods

“The days were lengthening. A wet primrose light lay over Wells Road. The lamps were like jewels, pale but piercingly bright. The air... fresh and mild.”
― Dorothy Whipple, Because of the Lockwoods

“At some point in the family history, parents begin to look to children for explanation, instead of children to parents.”
― Dorothy Whipple, Because of the Lockwoods

“I suppose all young men dream of making a fortune," she said. "But most of them come to be content to make a living.”
― Dorothy Whipple, Because of the Lockwoods

“She was one of those, born not made, to whom walking in the country is a happiness in itself. She went from one interest to another, poking into streams, looking into banks and hedges for flowers and nests, loitering round farmyards....”
― Dorothy Whipple, Because of the Lockwoods