Ivy Compton-Burnett
Ivy Compton-Burnett
Dame Ivy Compton-Burnett, DBEwas an English novelist, publishedas I. Compton-Burnett. She was awarded the 1955 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for her novel Mother and Son...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth5 June 1884
book writing people
Most of the pleasure of making a book would go if it held nothing to be shared by other people. I would write for a few dozen people, and sometimes it seems that I do so, but I would not write for no-one.
people age youth
some people always have a touch of youth about them.
book men views
Well, Buttermere, this is a day that is good to live and breathe in, that makes a man feel in his prime. Standing here in front of my house, I feel as young as when I moved into it thirty years ago, in the year eighteen hundred and fifty-nine. What aged man would you take me to be, as I step as it were casually into your view?
mother children
We are always children to our mothers.
important lines plot
The plot is not very important to me, though a novel must have one, of course. It's just a line to hang the washing on.
long people youth
To young people the future is still long.
tolls civilized
Civilized life exacts its toll.
children parent would-be
If I were not a child with my parents, they would be more unloving toward me ...
grateful people able
It is not for us to hold ourselves above the position of grateful people. We have to be able to accept. Anything else shows an unwillingness to grant someone else the superior place.
writing choices kind
[On writing:] What a difficult kind of work to choose! But of course one did not choose it. There was no choice.
use used
We must use words as they are used, or stand aside from life.
self people sides
People's weaker side is not necessarily their truer self.
desire way income
Our desires have a way of getting bigger with our incomes.
truth done impossible
Truth is so impossible. Something has to be done for it.