Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont Quotes

“It was hard work being old. It was like being a baby, in reverse. Every day for an infant means some new little thing learned; every day for the old means some little thing lost. Names slip away, dates mean nothing, sequences become muddled, and faces blurred. Both infancy and age are tiring times.”
― Elizabeth Taylor, Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont

“She was a tall woman with big bones and a noble face, dark eyebrows and a neatly folded jowl. She would have made a distinguished-looking man and, sometimes, wearing evening dress, looked like some famous general in drag.”
― Elizabeth Taylor, Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont

“Now – by omission – she was trying to get away with what she thought of as a whopper, and she wondered if either she or Ludo would be equal to it. He had seemed ready enough to fall in with her; had had no scruples as she herself had; had thought it all rather a lark. She had tracked him down in Harrods Banking Hall.”
― Elizabeth Taylor, Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont

“...pensaba en el amor y en sus espantosas desigualdades. Siempre hay alguien que ofrece la mejilla y otro que la besa.”
― Elizabeth Taylor, Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont

“The disaster of being old was in not feeling safe to venture anywhere, of seeing freedom put out of reach.”
― Elizabeth Taylor, Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont

“People are sorry for brides who lose their husbands early, from some accident, or war. And they should be sorry, Mrs Palfrey thought. But the other thing is worse.”
― Elizabeth Taylor, Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont

“None wished to appear greedy, or obsessed by food; but food made the breaks in the day, and menus offered a little choosing, and satisfactions and disappointments, as once life had.”
― Elizabeth Taylor, Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont

“La señora Palfrey durmió plácidamente y toda la noche, con los labios ligeramente estirados, como si estuviese a punto de sonreír.”
― Elizabeth Taylor, Prohibido morir aquí

“Silence, almost, in the dining-room. They lowered themselves into their chairs. As they aged, the women seemed to become more like old men, and Mr Osmond became more like an old woman.”
― Elizabeth Taylor, Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont

“¿Sabes?, si no alientas de entrada a las personas, aunque sea de vez en cuando, se mueren de tristeza o se transforman en Hitler”
― Elizabeth Taylor, Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont

“–Sé que nunca me harías esperar, a menos que tuvieras una buena razón para hacerlo. Te esperaría pacientemente, para que pudiéramos disfrutar el resto de la velada.
–No, la pregunta no se refiere solo a mí –dijo él–. Puede ser cualquier otra persona.
–No hay otra persona –dijo ella–. No se me ocurre nadie más.”
― Elizabeth Taylor, Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont

“From somewhere–most certainly not from his mother–he had inherited a feeling that Sunday was a day of rest, and so he fretted through it, and always came to the end of it with a sense of wide ennui and wasted time.”
― Elizabeth Taylor, Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont

“El tiempo pasaba. Era un hecho nada difícil de probar llegado el caso, aunque sucedían muy pocas cosas.”
― Elizabeth Taylor, Prohibido morir aquí

“she expected a guest to dinner on Saturday. ‘So your grandson is coming to see you at last,’ Mrs Arbuthnot had said on her slow way past Mrs Palfrey’s table and, for some reason she searched for later, Mrs Palfrey let her go without a word. It was the first time since she had become a widow that she had been involved in an untruth. In fact, since early childhood”
― Elizabeth Taylor, Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont

“Well, here’s a gallimaufry!’ said Mr Osmond to Antonio, who spooned blanquette de veau on to his plate. He liked the word, and used it for any sort of stew, sometimes ordered stew especially because he felt like saying it.”
― Elizabeth Taylor, Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont

“They were getting wet and Desmond did not like it. Mrs Palfrey thought that she had been through so much in the last three-quarters of an hour that rain, even on her navy crêpe, did not matter. She enjoyed his discomfort, so much more than she could deplore her own.”
― Elizabeth Taylor, Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont

“You talk a very strange language, Mimsie.’ ‘Do I, darling? Then let’s talk about you instead. How is your novel coming along?’ ‘They don’t do that. They have to be pushed a bit.”
― Elizabeth Taylor, Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont

“Un niño pequeño aprende algo nuevo cada día; un anciona olvida algo cada día. Los nombres desaparecen, las fechas ya no significan nada, las secuencias se tornan confusas y las caras borrosas. La primera infancia y la vejez son épocas agotadoras”
― Elizabeth Taylor, Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont

“La catastrofe de la vejez residía en no atreverse a ir a cualquier parte, en resignarse a perder la libertad”
― Elizabeth Taylor, Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont

“A medida que envejecían, las mujeres parecían volverse cada vez más masculinas, mientas que el señor Osmond, en cambio, se parecía cada día más a una vieja”
― Elizabeth Taylor, Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont

“Mrs. Post had lain quietly down and switched off the bedside lamp. Her head was like a magic lantern into which slides were thrust noisily, one after the other.”
― Elizabeth Taylor, Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont

“If you don't praise people just sometimes a little early on they die of despair, or turn into Hitlers, you know?”
― Elizabeth Taylor, Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont

“Abrió el libro, pero ninguna página parecía ser lo bastante potente para borrar la soledad que sentía.”
― Elizabeth Taylor, Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont