Even a broken heart doesn't warrant a waste of good paper.

— Dodie Smith

Everything in the least connected with him has value for me; if someone even mentions his name it is like a little present to me--and I long to mention it myself, I start subjects leading up to it, and then feel myself going red. I keep swearing to myself not to speak of him again- and then an opportunity occurs, and I jump at it.

— Dodie Smith

Father says hot water can be as stimulating as an alcoholic drink and though I never come by one... I can well believe it.

— Dodie Smith

He laughed a little, in an odd, nervous kind of way. "Because if I don't get going soon, the whole impetus may die--and if that happens, well, I really shall consider a long, restful plunge into insanity. Sometimes the abyss yawns very attractively.

— Dodie Smith

He stood staring into the wood for a minute, then said: "What is it about the English countryside — why is the beauty so much more than visual? Why does it touch one so?" He sounded faintly sad. Perhaps he finds beauty saddening — I do myself sometimes. Once when I was quite little I asked father why this was, and he explained that it was due to our knowledge of beauty's evanescence, which reminds us that we ourselves shall die. Then he said I was probably too young to understand him; but I understood perfectly.

— Dodie Smith

...he talked quite naturally while we ate — about the difficulty of finding words to describe the luminous mist, and why one has the desire to describe beauty." Perhaps it's an attempt to possess it," I said." Or be possessed by it; perhaps that's the same thing, really. I suppose it's the complete identification with beauty one's seeking." The mist grew brighter and brighter.

— Dodie Smith

I am a restlessness inside a stillness inside a restlessness.

— Dodie Smith

I am not so sure if I should like the facts of life, but I have got over the bitter disappointment I felt when I first heard about them, ...

— Dodie Smith

I am surprised to see how much I have written; with stories even a page can take me hours, but the truth seems to flow out as fast as I can get it down. But words are very inadequate – anyway, my words are.

— Dodie Smith

I could marry the Devil himself if he had some money.

— Dodie Smith