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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

“But I should never write what had happened down. One's nature is to forget, and one ought to go by that. Memory is quite unbearable enough, but even so it leaves out quite a lot.”

Writing Memory Remembrance Unbearable Elizabeth Bowen The Death Of The Heart

Book:The Death Of The Heart

Source: The Death Of The Heart

“Yes, writing a novel, my boy, is like driving pigs to market - you have one of them making a bolt down the wrong lane; another won't get over the right stile.”

Writing Boys Novel Driving Pigs Get Over Lanes Bolts My Boys Stiles

Book:Collected Impressions

Source: Collected Impressions

“My writing, I am prepared to think, may be a substitute for something I have been born without - a so-called normal relation to society. My books are my relation to society.”

Thinking Writing May Has Beens Book Born Normal Relation Prepared Substitutes

Book:Listening in: Broadcasts, Speeches, and Interviews by Elizabeth Bowen

Source: Listening in: Broadcasts, Speeches, and Interviews by Elizabeth Bowen

“I am fully intelligent only when I write. I have a certain amount of small-change intelligence, which I carry round with me as, at any rate in a town, one has to carry small money, for the needs of the day, the non-writing day. But it seems to me I seldom purely think ... if I thought more I might write less.”

Ifs Thinking Needs Writing Seems Might Certain Amount Intelligent Towns Rate Rounds Small Changes

Author:Elizabeth Bowen

“Style is the thing that's always a bit phony, and at the same time you cannot write without style.”

Writing Bits Style Phony

Book:The Death Of The Heart

Source: The Death Of The Heart

“Temperamentally, the writer exists on happenings, on contacts, conflicts, action and reaction, speed, pressure, tension. Were he acontemplative purely, he would not write.”

Thinking Writing Action Conflict Happenings Pressure Speed Reactions Contact Tension Thoughtful Action And Reaction

Book:The Mulberry Tree

Source: The Mulberry Tree

“... in nine out of ten cases the original wish to write is the wish to make oneself felt[ellipsis in source] the non-essential writer never gets past that wish.”

Writing Past Wish Felt Cases Source Ten Essentials Originals Oneself Nine

Author:Elizabeth Bowen

“... it appears to me that problems, inherent in any writing, loom unduly large when one looks ahead. Though nothing is easy, little is quite impossible.”

Writing Looks Littles Problem Easy Impossible Inherent Nothing Is Easy

Author:Elizabeth Bowen

“The writer, unlike his non-writing adult friend, has no predisposed outlook; he seldom observes deliberately. He sees what he didnot intend to see; he remembers what does not seem wholly possible. Inattentive learner in the schoolroom of life, he keeps some faculty free to veer and wander. His is the roving eye.”

Writing Doe Seems Eye Remember Awareness Adults Observation Wander Faculty Outlook Learners Roving

Book:The Mulberry Tree

Source: The Mulberry Tree

“The story must spring from an impression or perception pressing enough to have made the writer write. It should magnetize the imagination and give pleasure.”

Giving Should Writing Made Enough Stories Imagination Pleasure Perception Spring Impression

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

“If a theme or idea is too near the surface, the novel becomes simply a tract illustrating an idea.”

Ifs Writing Ideas Novel Surface Theme Illustrating

Author:Elizabeth Bowen

“Bring all your intelligence to bear on your beginning.”

Author:Elizabeth Bowen

“Often when I write I am trying to make words do the work of line and color. I have the painter's sensitivity to light. Much of my writing is verbal painting.”

Writing Trying Light Lines Color Painting Painter Sensitivity

Author:Elizabeth Bowen

“Dialogue must appear realistic without being so. Actual realism-the lifting, as it were, of passages from a stenographer's take-down of a 'real life' conversation-would be disruptive. Of what? Of the illusion of the novel. In 'real life' everything is diluted; in the novel everything is condensed.”

Writing Real Would Be Novel Conversation Illusion Real Life Dialogue Realistic Passages Realism Lifting Disruptive

Book:Collected Impressions

Source: Collected Impressions

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

Writing Firsts Doe Stories Lying Crafts Novelists

Author:Elizabeth Bowen

“What must novel dialogue . . . really be and do? It must be pointed, intentional, relevant. It must crystallize situation. It must express character. It must advance plot. During dialogue, the characters confront one another. The confrontation is in itself an occasion. Each one of these occasions, throughout the novel, is unique.”

Writing Character Situation Novel Unique Dialogue Occasions Plot Relevant Confrontation

Book:Collected Impressions

Source: Collected Impressions

“What is being said is the effect of something that has happened; at the same time, what is being said is in itself something happening, which will, in turn, leave its effect.”

Writing Said Turns Happened Effects Happenings

Book:Collected Impressions

Source: Collected Impressions

“Dialogue is the ideal means of showing what is between the characters. It crystallizes relationships. It should, ideally, be so effective as to make analysis or explanation of the relationships between the characters unnecessary.”

Should Writing Mean Character Ideals Dialogue Analysis Explanation Unnecessary

Book:Collected Impressions

Source: Collected Impressions

“Short of a small range of physical acts-a fight, murder, lovemaking-dialogue is the most vigorous and visible inter-action of which characters in a novel are capable. Speech is what characters do to each other.”

Writing Character Action Fighting Novel Speech Capable Murder Dialogue Range Visible Vigorous

Book:The Mulberry Tree

Source: The Mulberry Tree

“Jane Austen, much in advance of her day, was a mistress of the use of the dialogue. She used it as dialogue should be used-to advance the story; not only to show the characters, but to advance.”

Should Writing Character Stories Use Shows Used Dialogue Jane Mistress Austen

Author:Elizabeth Bowen

“All good dialogue perhaps deals with something unprecedented.”

Writing Deals Dialogue Unprecedented

Author:Elizabeth Bowen

“Nothing arrives on paper as it started, and so much arrives that never started at all. To write is always to rave a little-even if one did once know what one meant”

Ifs Knows Writing Littles Paper Rave

Book:The Death Of The Heart

Source: The Death Of The Heart

“The writer, like a swimmer caught by an undertow, is borne in an unexpected direction. He is carried to a subject which has awaited him--a subject sometimes no part of his conscious plan. Reality, the reality of sensation, has accumulated where it was least sought. To write is to be captured--captured by some experience to which one may have given hardly a thought.”

Writing May Sometimes Reality Given Plans Subjects Conscious Caught Unexpected Sensations Captured Swimmer Undertow

Book:The Mulberry Tree

Source: The Mulberry Tree

“Dialogue should show the relationships among people.”

People Should Writing Shows Dialogue

Author:Elizabeth Bowen

“Dialogue should convey a sense of spontaneity but eliminate the repetitiveness of real talk.”

Should Writing Real Dialogue Spontaneity Real Talk

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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