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Quote by Elizabeth Bowen

“One can suffer a convulsion of one's entire nature, and, unless it makes some noise, no one notices. It's not just that we are incurious; we completely lack any sense of each other's existences.”

Author

Elizabeth Bowen

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. more

“The Irish landowner, partly from laziness but also from an indifferent delicacy, does not interfere in the lives of the people round. Sport and death are the two great socializing factors in Ireland, but these cannot operate the whole time: on the whole, the landowner leaves his tenants and work-people to make their own mistakes, while he makes his.”

People Doe Two Whole Sports Mistake Rounds Factors Ireland Laziness Indifferent Interfere Delicacy Socializing Tenants

Author:Elizabeth Bowen

“whenever possible I avoid talking. Reprieve from talking is my idea of a holiday. At risk of seeming unsociable, which I am, I admit I love to be left in a beatific trance, when I am in one. Friendly Romans recognize that wish.”

Ideas Left Wish Silence Talking Risk Holiday Friendly Seeming Trance Reprieve

Author:Elizabeth Bowen

“To the sun Rome owes its underlying glow, and its air called golden - to me, more the yellow of white wine; like wine it raises agreeability to poetry.”

White Sun Air Raises Wine Golden Rome Yellow White Wine

Book:A Time In Rome

Source: A Time In Rome

“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.”