Quotessence
Home / Authors / Josephine Tey
Josephine Tey

Josephine Tey Quotes

Author

Filter quotes by topic

AllThinkingPeopleIfsMenWritingAccountsBookFactsIdeasLetters

Famous Josephine Tey Quotes

“I judged it better to do your breakfast myself. How do you like your eggs? Sunny side up?” “If you really want to know, I like them broken when they are half cooked and rummelled up with a fork.” “Panaché!” Marta said, delighted. “That is one I have not met before. We are growing intimate, aren’t we! I am probably the only woman alive except your housekeeper who knows that you like your breakfast eggs streaky. Or—am I?” “Well, there’s a woman in a village near Amiens that I once confessed it to. But I doubt if she would remember.” “She is probably making a fortune out of the idea. Eggs à l’Anglaise probably has a totally new meaning in France nowadays. Brown bread or white?” “Brown, please.”

Food
Book:To Love and Be Wise
Create image

“It's an odd thing but when you tell someone the true facts of a mythical tale they are indignant not with the teller but with you. They don't want to have their ideas upset. It rouses some vague uneasiness in them, I think, and they resent it. So they reject it and refuse to think about it. If they were merely indifferent it would be natural and understandable. But it is much stronger than that, much more positive. They are annoyed. Very odd, isn't it.”

IfsThinkingWantIdeasFactsWould BeNaturalStrongerRefuseTalesOddUpsetRejectsIndifferentVagueAnnoyedResentUneasinessOdd ThingsIndignantTrue Fact
Author:Josephine Tey
Create image

“Letterwriting is the natural outlet of the "odds." The busy-bodies, the idle, the perverted, the cranks, the feel-it-my-duties ... Also the plain depraved. They all write letters. It's their safe outlet, you see. They can be as interfering, as long-winded, as obscene, as pompous, as one-idea'd, as they like on paper, and no one can kick them for it. So they write. My God, how they write!”

FeelsWritingLongIdeasBodyNaturalDutySafePaperLettersBusyKicksOddsInterfereIdleOutletsObscenePompousDepravedCrank
Author:Josephine Tey
Create image

“It is the utterly destructive quality. When you say vanity, you are thinking of the kind that admires itself in mirrors and buys things to deck itself out in. But that is merely personal conceit. Real vanity is something quite different. A matter not of person but of personality. Vanity says, "I must have this because I am me." It is a frightening thing because it is incurable.”

ThinkingKindPersonsDifferentRealMatterQualityPersonalityMirrorsAdmireVanityDestructiveFrighteningConceitDeck
Book:The Singing Sands
Create image

“He knew by heart every last minute crack on its surface. He had made maps of the ceiling and gone exploring on them; rivers, islands, and continents. He had made guessing games of it and discovered hidden objects; faces, birds, and fishes. He made mathematical calculations of it and rediscovered his childhood; theorems, angles, and triangles. There was practically nothing else he could do but look at it. He hated the sight of it.”

LooksHeartMadeLastsFacesGamesGoneChildhoodMinutesObjectsBirdRiversSightFishesSurfaceMathematicalHatedIslandsMapsCracksContinentsExploringAngleCeilingsCalculationsGuessingTheoremsTrianglesLast Minute
Book:The Daughter of Time
Create image