Elizabeth Bowen, CBE (/ˈboʊən/; 7 June 1899 – 22 February 1973) was an Anglo-Irish novelist and short story writer. Read full biography of Elizabeth Bowen →
No object is mysterious. The mystery is your eye.
Jealousy is no more than feeling alone against smiling enemies.
Art is one thing that can go on mattering once it has stopped hurting.
We are minor in everything but our passions.
Fate is not an eagle, it creeps like a rat.
One can live in the shadow of an idea without grasping it.
All your youth you want to have your greatness taken for granted; when you find it taken for granted, you are unnerved.
Mechanical difficulties with language are the outcome of internal difficulties with thought.
If a theme or idea is too near the surface, the novel becomes simply a tract illustrating an idea.
Silences have a climax, when you have got to speak.
Nobody can be kinder than the narcissist while you react to life in his own terms.
Autumn arrives in early morning, but spring at the close of a winter day.
Illusions are art, for the feeling person, and it is by art that we live, if we do.
Elizabeth Bowen, CBE (/ˈboʊən/; 7 June 1899 – 22 February 1973) was an Anglo-Irish novelist and short story writer.