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Winifred Holtby Quotes

Novelist

Winifred Holtby (June 23, 1898 - September 29, 1935) was an English novelist known for her works that focused on social issues, particularly the struggles of women and the working class.

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All Ifs Ends Men World Writing Doe Littles Mean People Thinking Body Book Giving Havens Lovely Should Wells Abnegation Animal Bits

Famous Winifred Holtby Quotes

“Progress? It ought to be stopped, that's what I say. If the Lord meant chickens to come out of incubators he'd never have made hens, it stands to reason.”

Ifs Made Reason Change Lord Progress Ought Resistance Chickens Hens

Book:Pavements at Anderby: tales of

Source: Pavements at Anderby: tales of

“I like a bit of color myself, I must say. At my time of life, if you wear nothing but black, people might think you were too mean to change frocks between funerals.”

People Ifs Thinking Mean Might Bits Black Color Clothes My Time Funeral Black People

Book:South Riding

Source: South Riding

“The world, with all its beauty and adventure, its richness and variety, is darkened by cruelty. Death, if it ends the loveliness, the adventure, ends also that. Death balances the picture.”

Ifs World Ends Adventure Balance Cruelty Variety Richness Loveliness

Book:South Riding

Source: South Riding

“I would, if I could, always feed to music. The singularly graceless action of thus filling one's body with roots and dead animals and powdered grain is given some significance then. One can perform as a ritual what one is shamed to do as a utilitarian action.”

Ifs Body Action Given Animal Eating Roots If I Could Significance Ritual Grain Filling Utilitarian

Book:Letters to a Friend

Source: Letters to a Friend

“Surely, if life is good, it is good throughout its substance; we cannot separate men's activities from women's and say, these are worthy of praise and these unworthy.”

Ifs Men Life Is Activity Praise Equality Worthy Substance Unworthy Life Is Good

Author:Winifred Holtby

“You are quite, quite wrong if you think that ... I find your happiness painful. What matters is that happiness - the golden day - should exist in the world, not much to whom it comes. For all of us it is so transitory a thing, how could one not draw joy from its arrival?”

Ifs Thinking World Should Matter Happiness Joy Draws Painful Golden What Matters Arrivals Transitory Golden Days

Author:Winifred Holtby

“I can't think why I was cursed with this inordinate desire to write, if the high gods weren't going to give me some more adquate means of expressing myself than that which my present pedestrian prose affords.”

Ifs Thinking Giving Writing Mean I Can Desire Talent Give Me Prose Cursed Pedestrians

Book:Letters to a Friend

Source: Letters to a Friend

“If you are rich, you have lovely cars, and jars full of flowers, and books in rows, and a wireless, and the best sort of gramophone and meringues for supper.”

Ifs Book Wealth Rich Car Flower Lovely Jars Supper Wireless

Book:Letters to a Friend

Source: Letters to a Friend

“the damned book I am writing is like the driveling of a weak-kneed sea calf. If I were sufficiently strong minded, I should tear it up an start again. But I don't.”

Ifs Should Writing Book Strong Sea Tears Weak Calves Strong Mind Strong Minded

Author:Winifred Holtby

“If we haven't a grouch against Fortune, we seem unable to avoid one against ourselves.”

Ifs Seems Havens Fortune Grouches

Book:Letters to a Friend

Source: Letters to a Friend

“We're so busy resigning ourselves to the inevitable that we don't even ask if it is inevitable. We've got to have courage, to take our future into our hands. If the law is oppressive, we must change the law. If tradition is obstructive, we must break tradition. If the system is unjust, we must reform the system.”

Ifs Hands Law Asks Break Tradition Busy Reform Inevitable Our Future Unjust Have Courage Resigning

Author:Winifred Holtby

About the Author

Born: June 23, 1898
Died: September 29, 1935
Known for: Novelist
Quotes: 55

Books & Sources

Letters to a FriendRelated source material

Pavements at Anderby: tales ofRelated source material

South RidingRelated source material

Selected letters of Winifred Holtby and Vera Brittain, 1920-1935Related source material

Mandoa, Mandoa!: A Comedy of IrrelevanceRelated source material

Mandoa, Mandoa!: A Comedy of IrrevelevanceRelated source material

Virginia Woolf: A Critical MemoirRelated source material

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