It is the soul's duty to be loyal to its own desires.

— Rebecca West

I will be­lieve that the bat­tle of fem­i­nism is over, and that the fe­male has reached a po­si­tion of equal­ity with the male, when I hear that a coun­try has al­lowed it­self to be turned up­side-down and led to the brink of war by its pas­sion for a to­tally bald woman writer.

— Rebecca West

Journalism: an ability to meet the challenge of filling the space.

— Rebecca West

Just how difficult it is to write biography can be reckoned by anybody who sits down and considers just how many people know the real truth about his or her love affairs.

— Rebecca West

Life ought to be a struggle of desire toward adventures whose nobility will fertilize the soul.

— Rebecca West

Motherhood is the strangest thing, it can be like being one's own Trojan horse.

— Rebecca West

[N]body likes having salt rubbed into their wounds, even if it is the salt of the earth.

— Rebecca West

Nobody likes having salt rubbed into their wounds even if it is the salt of the earth.

— Rebecca West

Nothing succeeds like failure.

— Rebecca West

Now I recall my emotions at that moment, children seem to me a remarkable race. They want so much to murder so many people, and they so rarely murder anybody at all.

— Rebecca West