Winifred Holtby
Winifred Holtby
Winifred Holtbywas an English novelist and journalist, now best known for her novel South Riding, which was posthumously published in 1936...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth23 June 1898
mean writing thinking
I can't think why I was cursed with this inordinate desire to write, if the high gods weren't going to give me some more adquate means of expressing myself than that which my present pedestrian prose affords.
grief writing stories
But to write - that is grief and labor; and to read what one has written - how unlike the story as one saw it; how dull, how spirtless - that is enough to send one weeping to bed.
strong book writing
the damned book I am writing is like the driveling of a weak-kneed sea calf. If I were sufficiently strong minded, I should tear it up an start again. But I don't.
writing wings imagination
why, why, when one writes, does a sort of shackle bind one's imagination? I become conscious of a deadening mediocrity, perhaps a form of mental cowardice, and I long to break free, to let my imagination take wings. It doesn't - yet ...
writing creation difficulty
The only difficulty is to know what bits to choose and what to leave out. Novel-writing is not creation, it is selection.
built death fortress future line lives safety violently war whose word youth
These are they whose youth was violently severed by war and death; a word on the telephone, a scribbled line on paper, and their future ceased. They have built up their lives again, but their safety is not absolute, their fortress not impregnable.
god life shall till work
God give me work, till my life shall end/And life, till my work is done.
dream want
The things that one most wants to do are the things that are probably most worth doing.
time age finals
Is this the final treachery of time, that the old become a burden upon the young?
tragedy nuisance
Everybody's tragedy is somebody's nuisance.
teacher teaching government
Teachers have power. We may cripple them by petty economics; by Government regulations, by the foolish criticism of an uninformed press; but their power exists for good or evil ...
suicide grief youth
Youth knows no remedy for grief but death.
voice opinion lecturer
the ruder lecturers are, and the louder their voices, the more converts they make to their opinions.
regret affliction cures
Remorse ... is one of the many afflictions for which time finds a cure.