List of Shirley Hazzard Quotes

Perhaps If We Lived With Less Physical Beauty We Would Develop Our True Natures More.

The Sweetness That All Longed For Night And Day. Some Tragedy Might Be Idly Guessed At-loss Or Illness. She Had The Luminosity Of Those About To Die.

A Poet Or Novelist Will Invent Interruptions To Avoid Long Consecutive Days At The Ordained Page; And Of These The Most Pernicious Are Other Kinds Of Writing -- Articles, Lectures, Reviews, A Wide Correspondence.

When You Realize Someone Is Trying To Hurt You, It Hurts Less." "unless You Love Them.

For Most People It's Easier To Support An Eminent Person In Deserved Disgrace Than An Obscure One Who Has Been Wronged.

Madness Might Sometimes Give Access To A Kind Of Knowledge. But Was Not A Guarantee.

That Was The Trouble With Experience; It Taught You That Most People Were Capable Of Anything, So That Loyalty Was Never Quite On Firm Ground -- Or, Rather, Became A Matter Of Pardoning Offenses Instead Of Denying Their Existence.

In England, Life Is A Long Process Of Composing Oneself.

In Thoughts One Keeps A Reserve Of Hope, In Spite Of Everything. You Cannot Say Good-bye In Imagination. That Is Something You Can Only Do In Actuality.

One Would Always Want To Think Of Oneself As Being On The Side Of Love, Ready To Recognize It And Wish It Well -but, When Confronted With It In Others, One So Often Resented It, Questioned Its True Nature, Secretly Dismissed The Particular Instance As Folly Or Promiscuity. Was It Merely Jealousy, Or A Reluctance To Admit So Noble And Enviable A Sentiment In Anyone But Oneself?

I Never Had, Or Wished For, Power Over You. That Isn't True, Of Course. I Wanted The Greatest Power Of All. But Not Advantage, Or Authority.

The United Nations Emerged As A Temple Of Official Good Intentions, A Place Where Governments Might - Without Abating Their Transgressions - Go To Church; A Place Made Remote - By Agreed Untruth And Procedural Complexity, And By Tedium Itself - From The Risk Of Intense Public Involvement.