List of Elizabeth Hardwick Quotes

A Letter Is Not A Dialogue Or Even An Omniscient Exposition. It Is A Fabric Of Surfaces, A Mask, A Form As Well Suited To Affectations As To The Affections. The Letter Is, By Its Natural Shape, Self-justifying; It Is One's Own Evidence, Deposition, A Self-serving Testimony. In A Letter The Writer Holds All The Cards, Controls Everything About Himself And About Those Assertions He Wishes To Make Concerning Events Or The Worth Of Others. For Completely Self-centered Characters, The Letter Form Is A Complex And Rewarding Activity.

They Had Created Themselves Together, And They Always Saw Themselves, Their Youth, Their Love, Their Lost Youth And Lost Love, Their Failures And Memories, As A Sort Of Living Fiction.

Houses Of Evil Similarity Appeared Like Rows Of Disciplined, Humiliated Orphans.

Writing Is Not "the Establishment Of A Professional Reputation" As If One Were A Doctor Or Lawyer; It Is Not Properly In The Sentence With Creation Of A Family And The Purchase Of A Home.

Biology Is Destiny Only For Girls.

Boston - Wrinkled, Spindly-legged, Depleted Of Nearly All Her Spiritual And Cutaneous Oils, Provincial, Self-esteeming - Has Gone On Spending And Spending Her Inflated Bills Of Pure Reputation, Decade After Decade.

Canadians, Do Not Vomit On Me!

Mothers Born On Relief Have Their Babies On Relief. Nothingness, Truly, Seems To Be The Condition Of These New York People. They Are Nomads Going From One Rooming House To Another, Looking For A Toilet That Functions.

The Fifties - They Seem To Have Taken Place On A Sunny Afternoon That Asked Nothing Of You Except A Drifting Belief In The Moment And Its Power To Satisfy.

[on Sociability In Italy:] You May Be A Hermit Or An Innkeeper.

Many People Believe Letters The Most Personal And Revealing Form Of Communication. In Them, We Expect To Find The Charmer At His Nap, Slumped, Open-mouthed, Profoundly Himself Without Thought For Appearances. Yet, This Is Not Quite True. Letters Are Above All Useful As A Means Of Expressing The Ideal Self; And No Other Method Of Communication Is Quite So Good For This Purpose. In Conversation, Those Uneasy Eyes Upon You, Those Lips Ready With An Emendation Before You Have Begun To Speak, Are A Powerful Deterrent To Unreality, Even To Hope.

It Is June. This Is What I Have Decided To Do With My Life Just Now. I Will Do This Work And Lead This Life, The One I Am Leading Today. Each Morning The Blue Clock And The Crocheted Bedspread, The Table With The Phone, The Books And Magazines, The Times At The Door.