Lazy Thoughts of a Lazy Girl Quotes

“People have different ideas of 'Christmasing'. Some prefer to adopt an unsteady gait and to spend the night in a ditch or a police station; some have a taste for family parties; some like it better by themselves: and some go right away and spend the time at a different place every year. These last are, I think, by far the most sensible.”
― Jenny Wren, Lazy Thoughts of a Lazy Girl

“Dear Mr. So-and-So' we write to a man almost a stranger to us. Imagine his surprise if we addressed him so to his face! And we end in just such a foolish and unreasonable way, 'Yours obediently, faithfully, truly!' Where is the sense? Your signature should be quite enough. You have to be so careful, too, in saying whether you are obedient, faithful or affectionate to your correspondent. If you end too warmly, by mistake, the whole letter has to be written again. It is not a thing you can scratch out or correct. It would look so very bad.”
― Jenny Wren, Lazy Thoughts of a Lazy Girl

“There is nothing so annoying as being obliged to write letters when you do not feel inclined. It is a great art, this letter writing, and very few possess it. People often think they do, and they write for writing's sake; but these letters are most wearying to read. Between every line you seem to see the words, 'Is not this a charming letter?' and in reality you are so bored it is all you can do to reach the end.”
― Jenny Wren, Lazy Thoughts of a Lazy Girl

“Christmas decorations are delightful altogether. And so the clergymen think when they become excited in their sermons and bring their fists down sharply on some charming arrangement of holly round the pulpit. They do not actually swear then, but their faces express sufficiently all they would like to say; it rather spoils the effect of the discourse, especially if the text be on the virtue of patience.”
― Jenny Wren, Lazy Thoughts of a Lazy Girl

“In most of these books you see illustrations and descriptions of the dress of the period, the costume of the reign. How, o historians, can you show forth those of Victorian times? Fifty years have passed already! There were four seasons in each of those fifty years! Two hundred illustrations must be shown in order to give a correct idea of the dress of the time! Perhaps it might be more satisfactory to devote a volume exclusively to the subject.”
― Jenny Wren, Lazy Thoughts of a Lazy Girl

“...on the whole, I do not think afternoon tea is so nice abroad as it is at home. It is not so pleasant with many as with a chosen few. I am selfish, I am afraid, but I must confess I enjoy mine most with the sole company of a roaring fire, a very easy chair and a novel!”
― Jenny Wren, Lazy Thoughts of a Lazy Girl

“How rarely do you meet a good-looking man who thinks of anything but his appearance. It is strange, for the more lovely a woman is the less apparently conscious she is of her beauty.”
― Jenny Wren, Lazy Thoughts of a Lazy Girl

“It certainly is not nice to be caught up suddenly and made to appear foolish. If you ever make a mistake, the best way is to confess it at once, to tell the tale yourself. It sounds very different from your lips than from those of your dearest friends. People laugh, but it is a laugh that lacks the sting it would have if someone else told it at your expense.”
― Jenny Wren, Lazy Thoughts of a Lazy Girl

“A man told me once he had found a spider in his room of such enormous dimensions that he had to open the door in order that it might get out! Overdrawn, you say? Well, it sounds a little improbable certainly; not so much on account of the unusual size of the spider as for the extraordinary consideration on the part of the man.”
― Jenny Wren, Lazy Thoughts of a Lazy Girl

“We are so foolish, we have such little minds, we try to hide our doings from our neighbors, who are all going through the same experiences and are equally desirous of concealing them from us. If all our screens were taken away what a comedy of errors would be disclosed. How surprised we should be to see everyone committing follies of which we have been so ashamed and so anxious to hide from the eyes of all!”
― Jenny Wren, Lazy Thoughts of a Lazy Girl

“Obtuse as most men are, with things going on right under their eyes, it is not easy to baffle them when once their curiosity is roused. And yet curiosity is always imputed exclusively to women: though Eve was the first to taste the apple, Adam had no intention of being behindhand.”
― Jenny Wren, Lazy Thoughts of a Lazy Girl

“It is much more difficult to write a tale than some people think; you get in such hopeless tangles sometimes. People you kill off in the first chapter, you sadly need in the last. Then, when you are finishing up, there are so many people to get rid of that you are obliged to dispatch them in a bunch with an explosion, or something equally probable - three or four strangers as a rule, who have never seen each other before, but who considerately assemble in one place to meet their doom. Then the last pages will never fit in with the first. Your meek but lovely heroine at the beginning has been transformed into a beautiful vixen as you near the end and is quite unrecognisable.”
― Jenny Wren, Lazy Thoughts of a Lazy Girl

“My next venture was tale writing. Who has not tried this most unsatisfactory method? It is a tremendously anxious time when your first effort is sent out. What a lot of money you expect to obtain for it! You do not intend to be unprepared, so you spend every penny in your mind beforehand. Then there are the honor and glory of it! You will hear everyone talking of the cleverly written tale and wondering who is the gifted author!
What made me more hopeful was the possession of a cousin who was very successful in this line. Indeed, she has reached the three-volume stage by now and is beginning to be quite well known. I have lost my interest in her, however, since she took me and my family off in one of her books. It is such an easy thing to do. You only have to find out a person's peculiarities - and everyone has a peculiarity! - and overdraw them a little.”
― Jenny Wren, Lazy Thoughts of a Lazy Girl

“Bills! Bills! Bills! Detestable sound! Obnoxious word! Why were such things ever invented? Why are they sent to destroy our peace of mind? They always come, too, when you are expecting some interesting letter. You hurry to meet the postman, you get impatient at the length of time he takes to separate his packets (I sometimes think these men find pleasure in tantalizing you and keep you waiting on purpose), and when he at last presents you with your long-expected missive, behold, it turns to dust and ashes in your hand - metaphorically speaking, of course. It is a pity such a metamorphosis does not occur in reality; for the wretched oblong envelope, with the sprawly, flourishy writing, so unmistakably suggests a bill that you - well, I do not know what you do on such an occasion; my letter, which I have been so anxious to obtain, is flung to the other side of the room.”
― Jenny Wren, Lazy Thoughts of a Lazy Girl

“...if parents wish to encourage a match, young people are thrown together as much as possible. However big the gathering, you are somehow always paired off with the eligible party until you grow to loathe the man and would sooner become an 'old maid' than marry him.”
― Jenny Wren, Lazy Thoughts of a Lazy Girl

“Parents are greatly at fault in the issues of the matrimonial market. After all these centuries of experience, you would give them credit for more tact than they possess. Any match they do not desire, they oppose at once, and thereby set alight all the contradictory elements in your nature. If Laban had been less obstinate, and had consented to an alliance between Jacob and Rachel from the first, provided Leah was left behind to look after him, the latter would immediately have been endowed with attractions innumerable to Jacob, tender eyes and all!
Nowhere is there such a fertile soil for love as opposition!”
― Jenny Wren, Lazy Thoughts of a Lazy Girl