Vera Brittain
Vera Brittain
Vera Mary Brittainwas an English nurse, writer, feminist, and pacifist. Her best-selling 1933 memoir Testament of Youth recounted her experiences during the First World War and the beginning of her journey towards pacifism...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionWriter
Date of Birth29 December 1893
friends children parent
However deep our devotion may be to parents or to children, it is our contemporaries alone with whom understanding is instinctive and entire.
meek possession profession
Meek wifehood is no part of my profession; / I am your friend, but never your possession.
eye poet prose
The best prose is written by authors who see their universe with a poet’s eyes.
humanity world levels
Few of humanity's characteristics are more disconcerting than its ability to reduce world-events to its own level, wherever this may happen to be.
college secluded vegetation
College is a secluded life of scholastic vegetation
attitude lying men
It is probably true to say that the largest scope for change still lies in men's attitude to women, and in women's attitude to themselves.
party book people
Nevertheless, hateful as saying 'No' always is to an imaginative person, and certain as the offence may be that it will cause to individuals whose own work does not require isolated effort, the writer who is engaged on a book must learn to say it. He must say it consistently to all interrupters; to the numerous callers and correspondents who want him to speak, open bazaars, see them for 'only' ten minutes, attend literary parties, put people up, or read, correct and find publishers for semi-literate manuscripts by his personal friends.
successful ideas order
The idea that it is necessary to go to a university in order to become a successful writer . . . is one of those fantasies that surround authorship.
war men suffering
Most men, whether men or women, wish above all else to be comfortable, and thought is a pre-eminently uncomfortable process; it brings to the individual far more suffering than happiness in a semi-civilised world which still goes to war.
spring lasts may
I thought that spring must last forevermore, For I was young and loved, and it was May.
work passion careers
Definite gifts render their possessors capable of overcoming any obstacle this side of death; they create an impetus of far more genuine value than external advantages in some other career where the impulse to make use of them remains weak or non-existent. The work that one enjoys is the greatest source of happiness and vitality in life.
waiting mood cease
An author who waits for the right 'mood' will soon find that 'moods' get fewer and fewer until they cease altogether.
men thinking victory
I don't think victory over death... is anything so superficial as a person fulfilling their normal span of life. It can be twofold; a victory over death by the man who faces it for himself without fear, and a victory by those who, loving him, know that death is but a little thing compared with the fact that he lived and was the kind of person he was.
lying rushing giving
The tragedy of journalism lies in its impermanence; the very topicality which gives it brilliance condemns it to an early death. Too often it is a process of flinging bright balloons in the path of the hurricane, a casting of priceless petals upon the rushing surface of a stream.