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“I’ve always suspected that a sense of humour is a kind of parlour trick we civilized folk have taught ourselves as an insurance against disillusionment.”
― Mary Westmacott, The Rose and the Yew Tree

“Better to wear out than to rust out!”
― Mary Westmacott, Absent in the Spring

“Nobody ever realized that Celia was shy. They thought she was haughty and conceited. Nobody realized how humble this pretty girl was feeling—how bitterly conscious of her social defects.”
― Mary Westmacott, Unfinished Portrait

“That was why she had had to come here, to the desert. This clear, terrible light would show her what she was. Would show her the truth of all the things she hadn't wanted to look at—the things that, really, she had known all along.”
― Mary Westmacott, Absent in the Spring

“You are alone and you always will be. But, please God, you'll never know it.”
― Mary Westmacott, Absent in the Spring

“She should have known.

If you loved people you should know about them.

You didn't know because it was so much easier to believe the pleasant, easy things that you would like to be true, and not distress yourself with the things that really were true.”
― Mary Westmacott, Absent in the Spring

“She had never needed to think about it before. It had been quite easy to fill her life with unimportant trivialities that left her no time for self-knowledge.”
― Mary Westmacott, Absent in the Spring

“You can take it from me, Averil, that a man who's not doing the work he wants to do—the work he was made to do—is only half a man. I tell you as surely as I'm standing here, that if you take Rupert Cargill away from his work and make it impossible for him to go on with that work, the day will come when you will have to stand by and see the man you love unhappy, unfulfilled—old before his time—tired and disheartened—only living with half his life. And if you think your love, or any woman's love, can make up to him for that, then I tell you plainly that you're a damned sentimental little fool.”
― Mary Westmacott, Absent in the Spring

“But in the night, with the shadows and the dream still clinging round you, it was difficult to be sure of anything. Perhaps nothing was what it seemed and you had always known it really.”
― Mary Westmacott

“It wasn’t quite so easy when it came to writing down. Her mind had always gone on about six paragraphs farther than the one she was writing down—and then by the time she got to that, the exact wording had gone out of her head.”
― Mary Westmacott, Unfinished Portrait

“Yes, isn't that was politics really boil down to in the end? What people will believe, what they will stand, what they can be induced to think? Never plain fact.”
― Mary Westmacott, The Rose and the Yew Tree

“I was out to save a life, and I couldn't bother about a mere reputation.”
― Mary Westmacott

“Don‘t you think a woman can be poor and happy?'
'Certainly, given the necessary qualifications.'
'Which are—what? Love and trust?'
'No, you idiotic child. A sense of humor, a tough hide and the valuable quality of being sufficient unto oneself.”
― Mary Westmacott, Giant's Bread

“Книжки �� то звичка, яка формує залежність.”
― Mary Westmacott, A Daughter's a Daughter

“You won’t take one risk,�� I went on. ‘But you will take another—a simply colossal one.��

She said less calmly, with a touch of eagerness:

‘But that’s entirely different—entirely. It’s when you know what a thing’s like that you won’t risk it. An unknown risk—there’s something rather alluring about that—something adventurous.”
― Mary Westmacott

“Najmanje što čoveku treba u predizbornoj kampanji jesu ljudi koji zaista misle svojom glavom.”
― Mary Westmacott, The Rose and the Yew Tree

“Absence makes the heart grow fonder, they say, but my Aunt Jane used to add on to that, "of somebody else". Out of sight, out of mind is the truer proverb.”
― Mary Westmacott, A Daughter's a Daughter

“You can't win when you're fighting someone who doesn't know there is a fight.”
― Mary Westmacott, The Rose and the Yew Tree

“Vernon calls this the 'usual sort of thing', but, as a matter of fact, it isn't. It's entirely unusual. The whole orchestration is conducted on an unusual plan. What it is, though, is immature. Brilliant but immature.”
― Mary Westmacott, Giant's Bread

“Sa, Norreys, non sono mai riuscito a credere in Dio. Dio Padre, che ha generato le creature e i fiori, Dio che ci ama e si prende cura di noi, Dio che ha creato il mondo. No, non credo in Dio. Ma, a volte, non posso farci nulla, credo in Cristo... perché Cristo è sceso all'inferno... Il suo amore è stato profondo fino a questo punto...
Ha promesso il paradiso ai penitenti. E agli altri? A chi bestemmiava e lo insultava? Cristo è andato all'inferno con loro. Forse dopo... ".”
― Mary Westmacott, The Rose and the Yew Tree

“The perfect husband! Perhaps that was because he was an American. You always heard that Americans made perfect husbands.”
― Mary Westmacott, Giant's Bread

“You can't give in to a thing because you're terrified. It isn't decent.”
― Mary Westmacott, Unfinished Portrait

“Credo che si incontri sempre qualche possibilitàdi fuga... In genere uno se ne rende conto solo dopo, quando si guarda indietro, ma è lì...”
― Mary Westmacott, The Rose and the Yew Tree

“Tu ti attieni al Tempo. Ma il Tempo non vuol dire assolutamente niente. Cinque minuti e mille anni hanno lo stesso significato. E poi citò piano:" Il momento della rosa e il momento del tasso hanno uguale durata... ".”
― Mary Westmacott, The Rose and the Yew Tree

“Alla fine disse:" Credo che sia perché sembrano tutti belli da toccare, densi... come il velluto... E perché fanno un buon profumo. Le rose non crescono molto bene... crescono male. Una rosa vuole starsene da sola, in un bicchiere... allora sì che è bellissima... ma solo per un periodo molto breve... poi si affloscia e muore. Aspirine, potature e tutte quelle cose non servono a niente - non alle rose - vanno bene per gli altri fiori. Niente può tenere in vita le rose per molto... quanto vorrei che non morissero".”
― Mary Westmacott, The Rose and the Yew Tree

“She gave me the impression of one who has been afraid—but has not dared to show fear—and who knows the occasion for fear is now over.”
― Mary Westmacott, The Rose and the Yew Tree

“Teresa disse che successo e felicità erano due cose del tutto diverse.
"Credo che non possano mai andare insieme" sentenziò".”
― Mary Westmacott, The Rose and the Yew Tree

“You don’t know anything about God or you couldn’t have spoken like that, gently patting God on the back for making life comfortable and easy for you. Do you know a text that used to frighten me in the Bible? “This night shall thy soul be required of thee.�� When God requires your soul of you, be sure you’ve got a soul to give Him!”
― Mary Westmacott ( Agatha Christie )

“The will of God! Would you be able to say that if God’s will didn’t happen to coincide with Nell Chetwynd’s comfort, I wonder? You don’t know anything about God or you couldn’t have spoken like that, gently patting God on the back for making life comfortable and easy for you. Do you know a text that used to frighten me in the Bible? This night shall thy soul be required of thee. When God requires your soul of you, be sure you’ve got a soul to give Him!”
― Mary Westmacott, Giant's Bread

“Čestit čovek. Da, to je mnogo lakše nego se truditi da veruješ u Boga. To nije lako, veoma je teško i vrlo zastrašujuće. A ono što je još strašnije jeste dozvoliti sebi da poveruješ da Bog veruje u tebe.”
― Mary Westmacott, The Burden