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Elizabeth Bowen

Elizabeth Bowen Quotes

Novelist

Elizabeth Bowen was an Irish-born British novelist known for her intricate psychological portrayals and profound insights into British society from the late Victorian era to the mid-20th century. Her works often focus on female characters, exploring themes of family, love, class, and identity.

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Famous Elizabeth Bowen Quotes

“A Bowen, in the first place, made Bowen's Court. Since then, with a rather alarming sureness, Bowen's Court has made all the succeeding Bowens.”

Firsts Made Home Succeed Court

Book:Bowen's Court

Source: Bowen's Court

“Knowledge of Rome must be physical, sweated into the system, worked up into the brain through the thinning shoe-leather. ... When it comes to knowing, the senses are more honest than the intelligence. Nothing is more real than the first wall you lean up against sobbing with exhaustion. Rome no more than beheld (that is, taken in through the eyes only) could still be a masterpiece in cardboard - the eye I suppose being of all the organs the most easily infatuated and then jaded and so tricked. Seeing is pleasure, but not knowledge.”

Firsts Stills Real Eye Pleasure Brain Knowing Taken Seeing Honest Wall Travel Shoes Senses Rome Organs Masterpiece Leather Exhaustion Through The Eyes Jaded Sobbing Infatuated

Author:Elizabeth Bowen

“Roughly, the action of a character should be unpredictable before it has been shown, inevitable when it has been shown. In the first half of a novel, the unpredictability should be the more striking. In the second half, the inevitability should be the more striking.”

Should Firsts Has Beens Character Action Half Novel Inevitable Unpredictable Inevitability Unpredictability

Book:Collected Impressions

Source: Collected Impressions

“No one of the characters in my novels has originated, so far as I know, in real life. If anything, the contrary was the case: persons playing a part in my life--the first twenty years of it--had about them something semi-fictitious.”

Ifs Knows Years Firsts Persons Real Character Cases Novel Experience Twenties Contrary Real Life

Book:Pictures and conversations

Source: Pictures and conversations

“This, my first [bicycle] had an intrinsic beauty. And it opened for me an era of all but flying, which roads emptily crossing theairy, gold-gorsy Common enhanced. Nothing since has equalled that birdlike freedom.”

Firsts Freedom Common Gold Flying Eras Bicycle Crossings

Author:Elizabeth Bowen

“Each piece of dialogue MUST be "something happening". . .The "amusing" for its OWN sake should above all be censored. . .The functional use of dialogue for the plot must be the first thing in the writer's mind. Where functional usefulness cannot be established, dialogue must be left out.”

Should Mind Firsts Use Left Pieces Happenings Sake Things Happen Dialogue Plot Amusing Usefulness Left Out Censored

Author:Elizabeth Bowen

“The importance to the writer of first writing must be out of all proportion of the actual value of what is written.”

Writing Firsts Values Literature Written Importance Proportion Comeback

Author:Elizabeth Bowen

“But to be quite oneself one must first waste a little time.”

Firsts Littles Waste Oneself Little Time

Book:The House In Paris

Source: The House In Paris

“It is in this unearthly first hour of spring twilight that earth's almost agonized livingness is most felt. This hour is so dreadful to some people that they hurry indoors and turn on the lights.”

People Firsts Light Earth Turns Felt Hours Spring March Twilight Turn-on Springtime

Book:The Death Of The Heart

Source: The Death Of The Heart

“First love, with its frantic haughty imagination, swings its object clear of the everyday, over the rut of living, making him all looks, silences, gestures, attitudes, a burning phrase with no context.”

Firsts Looks Imagination Silence Attitude Clear Objects Everyday Burning Phrases Gestures Swings First Love Love At First Sight Teenage Love Ruts Frantic Time And Love Haughty

Book:The House In Paris

Source: The House In Paris

“The craft of the novelist does lie first of all in story-telling.”

Writing Firsts Doe Stories Lying Crafts Novelists

Author:Elizabeth Bowen

About the Author

Born: June 7, 1899
Died: February 22, 1973
Known for: Novelist
Quotes: 268

Related Topics

Elizabeth Bowen The Death Of The Heart Writing People Literature Dialogue Novel Doe Character Knows Should Feels Firsts Ifs Seems Stories World Feelings Fiction May

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People Ifs Thinking Knows Men World Way Want Love Life Inspirational Needs Giving Feels Should Writing Trying Years Mind Firsts

Books & Sources

The Death Of The HeartRelated source material

The House In ParisRelated source material

Collected ImpressionsRelated source material

Bowen's CourtRelated source material

Pictures and conversationsRelated source material

The Mulberry TreeRelated source material

A Time In RomeRelated source material

The Heat of the DayRelated source material

StoriesRelated source material

The Last SeptemberRelated source material

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