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Quote by Barbara Holland

“Visiting is a pleasure; being visited is usually a mixed or ambivalent joy. ... The visitor can always go home; the visitee is already home, trapped like a rat in a drainpipe.”

Quote by Barbara Holland

Author

Barbara Holland

Barbara Holland (April 5, 1933 - September 7, 2010) was a British author known for her unique literary style and profound insights into social issues. more

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“In civilized places idleness, once the prerequisite for abstract thought, poetry, religion, philosophy, and falling in love, has become a character flaw. In America we've managed to stamp it out almost completely, and few people under forty can remember a single moment of it, even in earliest childhood. The phrase 'spare time' has vanished from the land.”

Source: Wasn't the Grass Greener?: A Curmudgeon's Fond Memories

“A good-looking piece of scenery anywhere delights the eye and elevates the spirits. Some of us, crude creatures that we are, are merely excited; finer souls draw ethical and spiritual nutrients from the sight.”

Soul Eye Spiritual Spirit Pieces Creatures Draws Sight Delight Excited Ethical Looking Good Crude Scenery Nutrients

Author:Barbara Holland

“moral indignation is a pleasure, often the only pleasure, in many lives. It's also one of the few pleasures people feel obliged to force on other people.”

People Feels Force Pleasure Moral Morality Obliged Indignation Moral Indignation

Author:Barbara Holland

“Are you seeing a psychiatrist?' as a conversation opener would nowadays earn you a punch in the nose, but for fifty years it was a compliment. It meant, 'One can plainly see you are sensitive, intense, and interesting, and therefore neurotic.' Only the dullest of clods trudged around without a neurosis.”

Years Interesting Seeing Conversation Intense Noses Sensitive Fifty Compliment Psychiatry Neurotic Psychiatrist Neurosis

Book:Wasn't the Grass Greener?: A Curmudgeon's Fond Memories

Source: Wasn't the Grass Greener?: A Curmudgeon's Fond Memories

“New York was where we wanted to live when we were finally grown up, and drink martinis and stay out past bedtime.”

Wanted Past New York Drink Bedtime Martini

Book:Wasn't the Grass Greener?: A Curmudgeon's Fond Memories

Source: Wasn't the Grass Greener?: A Curmudgeon's Fond Memories

“Sophistication called for a variety of talents and attitudes, but the minimum requirement was being in New York. Not all New Yorkers achieved it, but nobody elsewhere had a prayer.”

Prayer Attitude Talent New York Variety Elsewhere Minimum Requirements New Yorkers Sophistication

Book:Wasn't the Grass Greener?: A Curmudgeon's Fond Memories

Source: Wasn't the Grass Greener?: A Curmudgeon's Fond Memories

“Once considered an art form that called for talent, or at least a craft that called for practice, a poem now needs only sincerity. Everyone, we're assured, is a poet. Writing poetry is good for us. It expresses our inmost feelings, which is wholesome. Reading other people's poems is pointless since those aren't our own inmost feelings.”

People Needs Writing Art Feelings Form Reading Practice Talent Poet Crafts Poetry Is Sincerity Assured Pointless Writing Poetry

Book:Wasn't the Grass Greener?: A Curmudgeon's Fond Memories

Source: Wasn't the Grass Greener?: A Curmudgeon's Fond Memories

“The only people who still read poetry are poets, and they mostly read their own.”

People Stills Poet

Book:Wasn't the Grass Greener?: A Curmudgeon's Fond Memories

Source: Wasn't the Grass Greener?: A Curmudgeon's Fond Memories

“Napping is too luxurious, too sybaritic, too unproductive, and it's free; pleasures for which we don't pay make us anxious. Besides, it seems to be a natural inclination. ... Fighting off natural inclinations is a major Puritan virtue, and nothing that feels that good can be respectable.”

Feels Seems Fighting Natural Sleep Pleasure Pay Virtue Majors Anxious Inclination Respectable Puritan Luxurious Unproductive

Author:Barbara Holland

“No doubt about it, solitude is improved by being voluntary.”

Doubt Solitude No Doubt

Book:One's Company: Reflections on Living Alone

Source: One's Company: Reflections on Living Alone