Elspeth Huxley · 281 pages
Rating: (4.6K votes)
“How much does one imagine, how much observe? One can no more separate those functions than divide light from air, or wetness from water.”
― Elspeth Huxley, quote from The Flame Trees of Thika: Memories of an African Childhood
“this was a moment of magic revealing to us all, for a few moments, a hidden world of grace and wonder beyond the one of which our eyes told us, a world that no words could delineate, as insubstanttial as a cloud, as iridescent as a dragon-fly and as innocent as the heart of a rose.”
― Elspeth Huxley, quote from The Flame Trees of Thika: Memories of an African Childhood
“Tilly was downcast; as with all perfectionists, it was the detail others might not notice that destroyed for her the pleasure of achievement.”
― Elspeth Huxley, quote from The Flame Trees of Thika: Memories of an African Childhood
“The best way to find out things, if you come to think of it, is not to ask questions at all. If you fire off a question, it is like firing off a gun; bang it goes, and everything takes flight and runs for shelter. But if you sit quite still and pretend not to be looking, all the little facts will come and peck round your feet, situations will venture forth from thickets and intentions will creep out and sun themselves on a stone; and if you are very patient, you will see and understand a great deal more than a man with a gun.”
― Elspeth Huxley, quote from The Flame Trees of Thika: Memories of an African Childhood
“...that's the way to tell a true story from a made-up one. A made-up story always has a neat and tidy end. But true stories don't end, at least until their heroes and heroines die, and not then really because the things they did and didn't do, sometimes live on.”
― Elspeth Huxley, quote from The Flame Trees of Thika: Memories of an African Childhood
“What sorts of sin?"
Any sort. When other people commit them, you are startled, but when you commit them yourself, they seem absolutely natural.”
― Elspeth Huxley, quote from The Flame Trees of Thika: Memories of an African Childhood
“...when the present stung her, she sought her antidote in the future, which was as sure to hold achievement as the dying flower to hold the fruit when its petals wither.”
― Elspeth Huxley, quote from The Flame Trees of Thika: Memories of an African Childhood
Elspeth Huxley
Born place: in London, The United Kingdom
Born date July 23, 1907
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“Whenever I see you, I am overcome with the urge to be rooted within you, to be buried deep so your body can nourish me.”
― Jacquelyn Frank, quote from Jacob
“There's a good kind of crazy, Kaylee," he insisted softly, reaching out to wrap his warm hand around mine. "It's the kind that makes you think about things that make your head hurt, because not thinking about them is the coward's way out. The kind that makes you touch people who bruise your soul, just because they need to be touched. This is the kind of crazy that lets you stare out into the darkness and rage at eternity, while it stares back at you, ready to swallow you whole."
Tod leaned closer, staring into my eyes so intently I was sure he could see everything I was thinking, but too afraid to say. "I've seen you fight, Kaylee. I've seen you step into that darkness for someone else, then claw your way out, bruised, but still standing. You're that kind of crazy, and I live in that darkness. Together, we'd take crazy to a whole new level.”
― Rachel Vincent, quote from If I Die
“You are rewarded not according to your work or your time but according to the measure of your love.” Saint Catherine of Siena (1347-1380)”
― Rhonda Byrne, quote from The Power
“There was a new hole in the world where sorrow could enter.”
― Guy Gavriel Kay, quote from Under Heaven
“You’d think they’d been raised in a palace for all the manners they have.” “If they’re princes, they probably have been raised in palaces,” Mendanbar said. “Princes usually are.” “Well, no wonder none of them have any manners, then.” The squirrel sniffed. “They ought to be sent to school in a forest, where people are polite. You don’t see any of my children behaving like that, no, sir. Please and thank you and yes, sir and no, ma’am—that’s how I brought them up, all twenty-three of them, and what’s good enough for squirrels is good enough for princes, I say.”
― Patricia C. Wrede, quote from The Enchanted Forest Chronicles
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