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Ivy Compton-Burnett Biography

Ivy Compton-Burnett

Dame Ivy Compton-Burnett, DBE (/ˈkʌmptən/; 5 June 1884 – 27 August 1969) was an English novelist, published in the original editions as I. Compton-Burnett. She was awarded the 1955 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for her novel Mother and Son. Her works consist mainly of dialogue and focus on family life among the late Victorian or Edwardian upper middle class. Manservant and Maidservant (1947) is considered one of her best.

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Ivy Compton-Burnett Quotes

It is not for us to hold ourselves above the position of grateful people. We have to be able to accept. Anything else shows an unwillingness to grant someone else the superior place.

Able, Grant, Grateful, People, Place, Position

Real charity and real ability never to condemn-the one real virtue-is so often the result of a waking experience that gives a glimpse of what lies beneath things.

Charity, Giving, Lying, Real, Things

There is danger in courage. Cowardice is a power for good. We hardly know what it prevents.

Cowardice, Danger, Know, Knows, Power

I think I feel on the whole that something's there trying to get out. . . It's sort of trying to get out and wants help.

Thinking, Trying, Want, Help, Sort, Whole

People who have power respond simply. They have no minds but their own.

Mind, People, Power, Respond, Simply

I never agree with the compliments paid to it. It is not a great healer. It is an indifferent and perfunctory one. Sometimes it does not heal at all. And sometimes when it seems to, no healing has been necessary.

Doe, Healer, Healing, Indifferent, Necessary, Sometimes

Dear, dear, the miniature world of the family! All the emotions of mankind seem to find a place in it.

Family, World, Emotion, Miniature, Dear, Mankind

It is no good to think that other people are out to serve our interests.

Good, Interest, People, Think, Thinking

As regards plot I find real life no help at all. Real life seems to have no plots. And as I think a plot desirable and almost necessary, I have this extra grudge against life.

Life, Necessary, Plots, Real, Thinking, Writing

I wonder the human race has been so fond of migrations, when the young take so hardly to traveling.

Human, Migration, Migrations, Race, Take, Travel

If I were not a child with my parents, they would be more unloving toward me.

Child, Children, Parent, Parents, Unloving, Would Be

Truth is so impossible. Something has to be done for it.

Done, Impossible, Truth

As regards plots I find real life no help at all. Real life seems to have no plots.

Help, Helping, Life, Plot, Real, Regards

A leopard does not change his spots, or change his feeling that spots are rather a credit.

Change, Doe, Feeling, Feelings, Leopard, Leopards

When I die, people will say it is the best thing for me. It is because they know it is the worst. They want to avoid the feeling of pity. As though they were the people most concerned!

Death, Feeling, Feelings, Know, People

[On writing:] What a difficult kind of work to choose! But of course one did not choose it. There was no choice.

Choice, Choices, Choose, Kind, Work, Writing

Civilized life exacts its toll.

Tolls, Civilized, Life, Exacts, Toll

Duty is seldom liked either by the doer or the object. . . And why should it be? It is not often of advantage to either.

Advantage, Doers, Liked, Object, Seldom, Should

charm should be on the surface. It has no hidden use.

Charm, Should, Surface, Use

There is probably nothing like living together for blinding people to each other.

Living, Nothing, People, Together, Women

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