STELLA BENSON QUOTES

English novelist (1892-1933)

Imagination seems to be a glory and a misery, a blessing and a curse. Adam, to his sorrow, lacked it. Eve, to her sorrow, possessed it. Had both been blessed -- or cursed -- with it, there would have been much keener competition for the apple.

STELLA BENSON

I Pose

Tags: imagination


Twenty-three is said to be the prime of life by those who have reached so far and no farther. It shares this distinction with every age, from ten to three-score and ten.

STELLA BENSON

I Pose


There pass the trav'lling dreams, and these my soul adores.

STELLA BENSON

Twenty


People who were not American seemed deliberately to avoid efficiency or comfort.

STELLA BENSON

Pipers and a Dancer


The sun was like a word written between the sea and the sky, a word that was swallowed up by the sea before any man had time to read it.

STELLA BENSON

This Is the End

Tags: sun


The dense and godly wear consistency as a flower, the imaginative fling it joyfully behind them.

STELLA BENSON

I Pose

Tags: consistency


High and miraculous skies bless and astonish my eyes;
All my dead secrets arise, all my dead stories come true.
Here is the Gate to the Sea. Once you unlocked it for me;
Now, since you gave me the key, shall I unlock it for you?

STELLA BENSON

Twenty


There were so few clouds in the sky that when the sun went down it found no canvas on which to paint its picture.

STELLA BENSON

This Is the End


Come home, come home, you million ghosts,
The honest years shall make amends,
The sun and moon shall be your hosts,
The everlasting hills your friends.

STELLA BENSON

Twenty

Tags: ghosts


Family jokes, though rightly cursed by strangers, are the bond that keeps most families alive.

STELLA BENSON

Pipers and a Dancer


The moment of cocoa-drinking was always the moment of confidences.

STELLA BENSON

I Pose


There are some people who can never see a little cloud of fantasy float across the horizon of their dreams without building a heavy castle in the air upon it, and bringing it to earth.

STELLA BENSON

I Pose

Tags: fantasy


Life is a luxury, isn't it? there's no use in it--but how delightful!

STELLA BENSON

This Is the End

Tags: life


Prayer is the weary soul of Herod's dancer,
Dancing before blind kings without applause.

STELLA BENSON

This Is the End

Tags: prayer


A committee, of course, exists for the purpose of damping enthusiasms.

STELLA BENSON

Living Alone


We travel because we do not know. We know that we do not know the best before we start. That is why we start. But we forget that we do not know the worst either. That is why we come back.

STELLA BENSON

attributed, A Shadowy Third

Tags: travel


He was always willing to be the text of his own oratory.

STELLA BENSON

I Pose


It is so easy to be wild and let love rip; poets get such easy kudos.

STELLA BENSON

Mundos: An Unfinished Novel


There was a magic in the words. I suppose their power lay in their utter futility.

STELLA BENSON

I Pose

Tags: words


You can't discover one foot of clay on an idol without suspecting the other.

STELLA BENSON

Pipers and a Dancer