Caitlin Thomas Quotes
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The wretched Artist himself is alternatively the lowest worm that ever crawled when no fire is in him; or the loftiest God that ever sand when the fire is going.
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When the desire is on for one particular person, nobody else will do.
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But there is that about well-intentioned advice that has the opposite effect of the one intended, and causes a Spanish fly of perversity to enter into the hitherto passive soul.
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Sex divorced from love is the thief of personal dignity.
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There is, happily, no limit to the faith of human nature in believing what it wants to believe.
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England, where nobody ever says what they mean: and by denying feeling, kill it off stone-cold at the roots.
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anybody who drinks seriously is poor: so poor, poor, extra poor, me.
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Anybody who thinks there is any vague chance of adult exchange with a child is up the spout; and would be much less disappointed if they recognized the chasm unbridgeably dividing them.
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resignation, perhaps the most stifling word in the language.
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... the mere thought of going near a man who is not mellowly pickled, and whose breath reeks of his native fleshy self, is squeamishly unpalatable to me.
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My bitterness is not an abstract substance, it is as solid as a Christmas cake; I can cut it in slices and hand it round and there is still plenty left, for tomorrow.
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none of what I know is out of books. ... I prefer tactual learning. Touching, on the quick of the sore nail, of present, mobile life. To toy, to gnaw, to tear: at the living element of pain. Like at a living drumstick.
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Jealousy is the lifelong noose hanging about the neck of love.
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There is a brotherliness about a drinking person, which is coldly lacking in the straight and narrow enemies of drink; the difference between the two is more marked than nationality or belief: it is an opposite species altogether. It is against the unwritten laws of congeniality for them to mix. For me, a man who does not drink is distinctly indecent.
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I am unable, mentally incapable, of relating the dead thing, the broken body refusing to divulge why or where the occupant has gone, to the thing that was alive.
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Fearful as reality is, it is less fearful than evasions of reality. Look steadfastly into the slit, pinpointed malignant eyes of reality as an old-hand trainer dominates his wild beasts.
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Love can bear anything better than ridicule.
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money ... is only important when you have none; and though it may not be everything, it goes a very long way towards blocking up the winter draft of age.
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there is this malign curse laid on dipsomaniacs. That they must absolutely have a drink: in order to feel strong enough to stop drinking.
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There is a great gulf between the really creative person and normal people. The totally creative person does not have the rest of his life in proper proportion.
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In America they make too much fuss of poets; in London they make too little.
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Between threading a needle and raving insanity is the smallest eye in creation.
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I don't trust sentimentality in men; it goes with tyranny; you can't have one without the other.
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One should never go back to a place one has loved; for, however, rough the going forward is, it is better than the snuffing out-of-love return.