Top 120 Dodie Smith Quotes (2025 Update)
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51. “I found it quite easy to carry on a casual conversation it was as if my real feelings were down fathoms deep in my mind and what we said was just a feathery surface spray.”

— Dodie Smith

52. “It’s a beautiful sight to see good dancers doing simple steps. It’s a painful sight to see beginners doing complicated patterns.”

— Dodie Smith

53. “When I read a book, I put in all the imagination I can, so that it is almost like writing a book as well as reading it – or rather, it is like living it.”

— Dodie Smith

54. “Did you think of anything when Miss Marcy said Scoatney Hall was being re-opened? I thought of the beginning of Pride and Prejudice – where Mrs. Bennet says ‘Netherfield Park is let a last.’ And then Mr. Bennet goes over to call on the rich new owner.”

— Dodie Smith

55. “Only half a page left now. Shall I fill it with ‘I love you, I love you’ – like father’s page of cats on the mat? No. Even a broken heart doesn’t warrant a waste of good paper.”

— Dodie Smith

56. “You lose yourself in something beyond yourself and it’s a lovely rest.”

— Dodie Smith

57. “What with books and chocolate, there’s not much else you could have in it, is there?”

— Dodie Smith

58. “Americans do seem to say things which make the English notice England.”

— Dodie Smith

59. “Perhaps what you call conventionality, I call decency.”

— Dodie Smith

60. “How indescribable the scent of autumn flowers was– barely a scent at all, really; just a faint, strange smell, pleasant but sad. Could a smell be sad or was it just the association with the dying summer?”

— Dodie Smith

61. “Then I told myself that as I never gave the Church a thought when I was feeling happy, I could hardly expect it to do anything for me when I wasn’t. You can’t get insurance money without paying in premiums.”

— Dodie Smith

62. “I have found that sitting in a place where you have never sat before can be inspiring – I wrote my very best poem while sitting on the hen-house.”

— Dodie Smith

63. “I was wandering around as usual, in my unpleasantly populated sub-conscious...”

— Dodie Smith

64. “Oh, comfortable cocoa!”

— Dodie Smith

65. “Once I really looked at the sky, I wanted to go on looking; it seemed to draw me towards it and make me listen hard, though there was nothing to listen to, not so much as a twig was stirring.”

— Dodie Smith

66. “Was I the only woman in the world who, at my age – and after a lifetime of quite rampant independence – still did not quite feel grown up?”

— Dodie Smith

67. “Wakings are the worst times – almost before my eyes are open a great weight seems to roll on my heart.”

— Dodie Smith

68. “And no bathroom on earth will make up for marrying a bearded man you hate.”

— Dodie Smith

69. “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.”

— Dodie Smith

70. “Because there’s so much that just can’t be said plainly. Try describing what beauty is – plainly – and you’ll see what I mean.”

— Dodie Smith

71. “Certain unique books seem to be without forerunners or successors as far as their authors are concerned. Even though they may profoundly influence the work of other writers, for their creator they’re complete, not leading anywhere.”

— Dodie Smith

72. “There’s nothing more, except that I usually sit down until the flames die down and try to think myself back into the past.”

— Dodie Smith

73. “The one Bach piece I learnt made me feel I was being repeatedly hit on the head with a teaspoon.”

— Dodie Smith

74. “I wanted so terribly to be good to him.”

— Dodie Smith

75. “Walking down Belmotte was the oddest sensation – every step took us deeper into the mist until at last it closed over our heads. It was like being drowned in the ghost of water.”

— Dodie Smith

76. “There is a connection between Dal mations and gipsies. Many people believe that it was the gipsies who first brought Dalmatians to England, long, long ago. And nothing like as long ago as that, there were gipsies who travelled round England with Dalmatians trained to do tricks. And these performing dogs earned money for the gipsies.”

— Dodie Smith

77. “I only want to write. And there’s no college for that except life.”

— Dodie Smith

78. “Perhaps he found 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.”

— Dodie Smith

79. “Prayer’s a very tricky business.”

— Dodie Smith

80. “Mr. Dearly wasn’t exactly handsome but he had the kind of face you don’t get tired of.”

— Dodie Smith

81. “In addition, I think religion has a chance of a look-in whenever the mind craves solace in music or poetry – in any form of art at all. Personally, I think it is an art, the greatest one; an extension of the communication all the other arts attempt.”

— Dodie Smith

82. “I’m convinced England’s overflowing with eccentric people, places, happenings. Indeed, you might say eccentricity’s normal in England.”

— Dodie Smith

83. “How can a young man like to wear a beard?”

— Dodie Smith

84. “People’s clothes ought to be buried with them.”

— Dodie Smith

85. “Oh, wise young judge.”

— Dodie Smith

86. “Another great luxury is letting myself cry – I always feel marvellously peaceful after that. But it is difficult to arrange times for it, as my face takes so long to recover; it isn’t safe in the mornings if I am to look normal when I meeter father at lunch, and the afternoons are no better, as Thomas is home by five. It would be all right in bed at night but such a waste, as that is my happiest time. Days when father goes over to read in the Scoatney library are good crying days.”

— Dodie Smith

87. “It’s hopeless to make friends with people who never talk about themselves.”

— Dodie Smith

88. “I have really sinned. I am going to pause now, and sit here on the mound repenting in deepest shame...”

— Dodie Smith

89. “I suppose the best kind of spring morning is the best weather God has to offer. It certainly helps one to believe in Him.”

— Dodie Smith

90. “Rose doesn’t like the flat country, but I always did – flat country seems to give the sky such a chance.”

— Dodie Smith

91. “And suddenly all the puppies were her puppies; she was their mother – just as Pongo had felt he was their father.”

— Dodie Smith

92. “I pulled my mind off the table and stared into the dimness beyond, and then I gradually saw the servants as real people, watching us, whispering instructions to each other, exchanging glances. I noticed a girl from Godsend village and gave her a tiny wink – and wished I hadn’t, because she let out a little snort of laughter and then looked in terror at the butler.”

— Dodie Smith

93. “I believe it is customary to get one’s washing over first in baths and bask afterwards; personally, I bask first. I have discovered that the first few minutes are the best and not to be wasted – my brain always seethes with ideas and life suddenly looks much better than did.”

— Dodie Smith

94. “But some characters in books are really real – Jane Austen’s are; and I know those five Bennets at the opening of Pride and Prejudice, simply waiting to raven the young men at Netherfield Park, are not giving one thought to the real facts of marriage.”

— Dodie Smith

95. “Oh, I have just had an idea – after tea I shall attack myself with sandpaper.”

— Dodie Smith

96. “But the happiness you hoped to win for me will never be mine.”

— Dodie Smith

97. “Well, my paper has asked me to do a series: Lives of the Great Musicians, reading time 2 minutes.”

— Dodie Smith

98. “The tea was a comfort – and by that time I more than needed comfort.”

— Dodie Smith

99. “Perhaps it would really be rather dull to be married and settled for life. Liar! It would be heaven.”

— Dodie Smith

100. “And at last father flung the rug off as if it were hampering him and strode over to the table saying, ‘cocoa, cocoa!’ – it might have been the most magnificent drink in the world; which, personally, I think it is.”

— Dodie Smith