Best Of Dorothy Whipple's "They Were Sisters"

Here is a selection of memorable quotes from They Were Sisters by Dorothy Whipple.

Above: Three of Cups from Shadowscapes Tarot by Stephanie Pui-Mun Law

Sometimes, when there were no young men about and Harry and Aubrey were out of the house, the three sisters were happy together, happier than at any other time. There was complete confidence among them then. At these times, Vera would suddenly disclose something things she had decided not to tell Lucy. They would clear up misunderstandings, make everything straight. Vera burst out in imitations and they laughed till they were weak. They put on the gramophone, kicked off their slippers and danced wildly about the rooms, whirling each other round when they met in the hall, their eyes alight, their hair flying, smiling, smiling all the time.

p.8

After her marriage, Lucy went through a strange time of repair. She was always falling asleep- in the afternoons, in the evenings. 'I'm so Sorry, William,' she would say apologetically. 'I'm afraid I've been to sleep again.'

p.25

The magnificence of the winter night enthralled her.

p.126

Watching Charlotte, Lucy was sad. She had loved Geoffrey with all her heart. Too much. 'You shouldn't love as much as that,' thought Lucy. 'It's a bit abject. You should keep something of your self.'

p.139

They say beauty is a gift, she thought, but it makes a lot of trouble. It sows dissatisfaction, a kind of yearning all around it. Either we ought all to be beautiful or none of us ought.

p.220

But there was something elusive about him, as if he did not wish to give himself up to his company, as if, thought Vera recognising the same thing in herself, he wished to be somewhere else, unspecified.

p.236

Youth can draw out such a moment indefinitely without thinning out the first ecstasy.

p.240

Sitting there between the outer and the inner, deeper dusk, the pressure of her soul was too much. It is at such times that the soul asks its insistent questions.

p.281

It seems as if when we love people and they fall short, we retaliate by falling shorter ourselves. Children are like that. Adults have a fearful responsibility. When they fail to live up to what children expect of them, the children give up themselves. So each generation keeps failing the next.

p.372

It was one of those flashes that illuminate past stretches of the years behind. Closing the door, the girls turned away.

p.382-383