Vita Sackville-West Quotes

Youth had no beauty like the beauty of an old face; the face of youth was an unwritten page.

The country habit has me by the heart, For he's bewitched for ever who has seen, Not with his eyes but with his vision, Spring Flow down the woods and stipple leaves with sun, As each man knows the life that fits him best, The shape it makes in his soul, the tune, the tone, And after ranging on a tentative flight Stoops like the merlin to the constant lure.

"[Virginia] is an exquisite companion, and I love her dearly. She has to stay in bed till luncheon, as she is still far from well, and she has lots of lessons to do. Leonard is coming on Saturday [...]
Please don't think that
a) I shall fall in love with Virginia
b) Virginia will fall in love with me
c) Leonard """"""
d) I shall fall """ Leonard
Because it is not so [...]

You will get letters, very reasoned and illuminating, from many people; I cannot write you that sort of letter now, I can only tell you that I am shaken, which may seem to you useless and silly, but which is really a greater tribute than pages of calm appreciation...

No, I am in no muddles [...] Virginia – not a muddle exactly; she is a busy and sensible woman. But she does love me, and I did sleep with her at Rodmell. That does not constitute a muddle though.

Prune my ambition to the lowly prayer
That I may drive the furrow of my tale
Straight, through the lives and dignities I know.

All her lovers have passed, her beautiful lovers have passed, The young and eager men that fought for her arrogant hand, And the only voice which endures to mourn for her at the last Is the voice of the lonely land.

Leopards on the gable-ends, Leopards on the painted stair, Stiff the blazoned shield they bear, Or and gules, a bend of vair, Leopards on the gable-ends, Leopards everywhere.

Like a little warm coal in my heart burns your saying that you miss me. I miss you oh so much. How much, you'll never believe or know. At every moment of the day. It is painful but also rather pleasant, if you know what I mean. I mean, that it is good to have so keen and persistent a feeling about somebody.

And still the strange meaningless conversations continue, and I wonder more and more at the fabric which nets the world together, so that anything which I do finally incubate out of my system into words will quite certainly be about solitude. Solitude and the desirability of it, if one is to achieve anything like continuity in life, is the one idea I find in the resounding vacancy which is my head.

Henry by the compulsion of love had cheated her of her chosen life, yet he had given her another life, an ample life, a life in touch with the greater world, if that took her fancy; or a life, alternatively, pressed close up against her own nursery. For a life of her own, he had substituted his life with its interests, or the lives of her children with their potentialities. He assumed that she might sink herself in either, if not both, with equal joy. It had never occurred to him that she might prefer simply to be herself.

Cristina, being something of a gardener, knew well enough that certain plants may appear to remain stationary for years while they are really making roots underground, only to break into surprising vigour overhead at a given moment.

I sing the cycle of my country's year,
I sing the tillage, and the reaping sing,

I am reduced to a thing that wants Virginia. I composed a beautiful letter to you in the sleepless nightmare hours of the night, and it has all gone. I just miss you...

I think we have got something indestructible between us, haven't we?