Quotes from book
I Capture the Castle

I Capture the Castle
Dodie Smith

I Capture the Castle is the first novel by the British author Dodie Smith, written during the Second World War when she and her husband Alec Beesley were living in California. She longed for home and wrote of a happier time, unspecified in the novel apart from a reference to living in the 1930s. Smith was already an established playwright and later became famous for writing the children's classic The Hundred and One Dalmatians.

“I like seeing people when they can't see me.”

Dodie Smith book I Capture the Castle

Source: I Capture the Castle

“And no bathroom on earth will make up for marrying a bearded man you hate.”

Dodie Smith book I Capture the Castle

Source: I Capture the Castle

“Perhaps watching someone you love suffer can teach you even more than suffering yourself can.”

Dodie Smith book I Capture the Castle

Source: I Capture the Castle

“I have really sinned. I am going to pause now, and sit here on the mound repenting in deepest shame…”

Dodie Smith book I Capture the Castle

Source: I Capture the Castle

“The Devil's out of fashion.”

Dodie Smith book I Capture the Castle

Source: I Capture the Castle

“Certain unique books seem to be without forerunners or successors as far as their authors are concerned. Even though they may profoundly influence the work of other writers, for their creator they're complete, not leading anywhere.”

Dodie Smith book I Capture the Castle

Source: I Capture the Castle

“I write this sitting in the kitchen sink.”

Dodie Smith book I Capture the Castle

Source: I Capture the Castle

“I found it quite easy to carry on a casual conversation it was as if my real feelings were down fathoms deep in my mind and what we said was just a feathery surface spray.”

Dodie Smith book I Capture the Castle

Source: I Capture the Castle

“How I wish I lived in a Jane Austen novel!”

Dodie Smith book I Capture the Castle

Source: I Capture the Castle

“Only the margin left to write on now. I love you, I love you, I love you.”

Dodie Smith book I Capture the Castle

Source: I Capture the Castle

“Thinking of death--strange, beautiful, terrible and a long way off--made me feel happier than ever.”

Dodie Smith book I Capture the Castle

Source: I Capture the Castle

“I shouldn't think even millionaires could eat anything nicer than new bread and real butter and honey for tea.”

Dodie Smith book I Capture the Castle

Source: I Capture the Castle

“But some characters in books are really real--Jane Austen's are; and I know those five Bennets at the opening of Pride and Prejudice, simply waiting to raven the young men at Netherfield Park, are not giving one thought to the real facts of marriage.”

Dodie Smith book I Capture the Castle

Source: I Capture the Castle

“… for I know I shall be interrupted-- I shall want to be, really, because life is too exciting to sit still for long.”

Dodie Smith book I Capture the Castle

Source: I Capture the Castle

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