Enid Bagnold

It's not till sex has died out between a man and a woman that they can really love. And now I mean affection. Now I mean to be fond of (as one is fond of oneself) --to hope, to be disappointed, to live inside the other heart. When I look back on the pain of sex, the love like a wild fox so ready to bite, the antagonism that sits like a twin beside love, and contrast it with affection, so deeply unrepeatable, of two people who have lived a life together (and of whom one must die) it's the affection I find richer. It's that I would have again. Not all those doubtful rainbow colors.

— Enid Bagnold

As for death one gets used to it, even if it's only other people's death you get used to.

— Enid Bagnold

When a man goes through six years training to be a doctor he will never be the same. He knows too much.

— Enid Bagnold

If a dog doesn't put you first where are you both? In what relation? A dog needs God. It lives by your glances, your wishes. It even shares your humor. This happens about the fifth year. If it doesn't happen you are only keeping an animal.

— Enid Bagnold

A father is always making his baby into a little woman. And when she is a woman he turns her back again.

— Enid Bagnold

The pleasure of one's effect on other people still exists in age -- what's called making a hit. But the hit is much rarer and made of different stuff.

— Enid Bagnold

Judges don't age. Time decorates them.

— Enid Bagnold

In marriage there are no manners to keep up, and beneath the wildest accusations no real criticism. Each is familiar with that ancient child in the other who may erupt again. We are not ridiculous to ourselves. We are ageless. That is the luxury of the wedding ring.

— Enid Bagnold

Sex -- the great inequality, the great miscalculator, the great Irritator.

— Enid Bagnold

The theatre is a gross art, built in sweeps and over-emphasis. Compromise is its second name.

— Enid Bagnold

Who wants to become a writer? And why? Because it's the answer to everything. To Why am I here? To uselessness. It's the streaming reason for living. To note, to pin down, to build up, to create, to be astonished at nothing, to cherish the oddities, to let nothing go down the drain, to make something, to make a great flower out of life, even if it's a cactus.

— Enid Bagnold

Marriage. The beginning and the end are wonderful. But the middle part is hell.

— Enid Bagnold

So few people achieve the final end. Most are caught napping.

— Enid Bagnold

One can lie, but truth is more interesting.

— Enid Bagnold

EARTH has her usual delights—which can be met with six days out of the seven. But here and there upon grey earth there exist, like the flying of sunlight, celestial pleasures also—and one of these is the heaven of success.

— Enid Bagnold