Author of quotes: Elizabeth Bowen. Page 2

At the first stage of great love, which for young people can drag on for a very long time, the beloved exist in each other, and therefore cannot leave or come. And in this stupid, enthusiastic and delightful confusion, everything that happens in reality plays almost no role.

Fortunately, feelings are not so easy to outwit — or rather, they cannot be outwitted too often. They find their way back and after them lead us to what else can be grabbed.

Memories sometimes become soulless duty because we remember as much as we can bear.

The heart may think that it knows something better, but feelings know that separation erases people from life. A friend becomes a traitor, moving away - even with longing, albeit reluctantly - from our space, and we, despite all the pleas of our hearts, judge him to the fullest extent.

The first day by the sea, when you feel salty, strong, persistent and hollow - like a ball of seaweed springing under your heel.

Some characters are formed under the influence of addictions, others under the influence of antipathies.

We all have a worried man hiding inside him, who freezes in the middle of an empty room, not knowing what to do.

Habit is not bondage, but tender affection: memories of the familiar and take for happiness.

... Between women, intimate acquaintance is often tied from the opposite: it begins with revelations, and ends with small talk, which is conducted with the same respect.

They didn't get married just because they refused to trust each other.

… Very young people are precise but not resonant instruments. All their senses, like the senses of animals, are grounded, and they feel without any pain, without hesitation.

... The first hour of spring hits just about five in the evening, this autumn comes in the early morning, but spring - at the end of a winter day. The air, before darkening, becomes denser, begins to pulsate with a strange white light, and the veil of blackness does not fall, as if something out of the ordinary happened. Maybe there are still no sunsets, and the buds on the branches have not yet swollen, but the senses have already been given a sign, a sign that is barely perceptible, but so reliable that it seems that this is not a sign at all, but a movement of the soul. And from this everything that was in the heart awakens.

Innocence is so often in a false position that people who are innocent at heart soon learn to be hypocritical. Not having mastered the language in which they could speak on their own behalf, they resign themselves to the fact that from now on they will be translated - and inaccurately. They are lonely, and when entering into a relationship, they make unnecessary compromises - because of fear, because of the desire to share warmth and feel it in return. Our love is too wicked for them. They inevitably stumble, after which they are reproached for infidelity. Their love, tender and destructive, turns into countless betrayals for those who are not so innocent. Being hopelessly alien in this world, they still - stubbornly, heroically - demand happiness from him. Their restlessness, their ruthlessness, their tireless movement towards one single goal doom them to cruelty - and to a cruel attitude towards themselves. Two innocent people rarely manage to meet - there are so few of them, but if this happens, then the land around them is usually littered with their victims.

Oh, be afraid of the old women - you have no idea how they suck on someone else's life.