Rumer Godden
Rumer Godden
Margaret Rumer Godden OBEwas an English author of more than 60 fiction and nonfiction books written under the name of Rumer Godden. A few of her works were co-written with her older sister, novelist Jon Godden, including Two Under the Indian Sun, a memoir of the Goddens' childhood in a region of India now part of Bangladesh...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth10 December 1907
writing sight mind
Every piece of writing starts from what I call a grit a sight or sound, a sentence or happening that does not pass away but quite inexplicably lodges in the mind.
dust indian felt
Once you have felt the Indian dust, you will never be free of it.
happiness book two
I suppose the more you have to do, the more you learn to organize and concentrate-or else get fragmented into bits. I have learned to use my 'ten minutes'. I once thought it was not worth sitting down for a time as short as that; now I know differently and, if I have ten minutes, I use them, even if they bring only two lines, and it keeps the book alive.
successful should-have people
People don't know the consolations of being unsuccessful ... If I had been successful I should have had no peace or time.
done stubbornness obstinate
It's only by being obstinate that anything is got, or done.
firsts birth first-time
To wake for the first time in a new place can be like another birth.
thinking solitude going-away
The best would be to have friends who came and went away; but if I had to choose between their never coming or never going away, I think I would choose that they do not come.
people hurtful three
Most grown people are like icebergs, three-tenths showing, seven-tenths submerged - that is why a collision with one of them is unexpectedly hurtful ...
book cat writing
For a dyed-in-the-wool author nothing is as dead as a book once it is written ... she is rather like a cat whose kittens have grown up. While they were a-growing she was passionately interested in them but now they seem hardly to belong to her, and probably she is involved with another batch of kittens as I am involved with other writing.
gratitude cheer garden
A garden isn't meant to be useful. It's for joy.
love-is people matter
If you love the wrong people it's still love, isn't it, no matter what kind of love ...
dolls done sometimes
It is an anxious, sometimes a dangerous thing to be a doll. Dolls cannot choose; they can only be chosen; they cannot 'do'; they can only be done by.
thinking curiosity answers
if you think you know, you don't ask questions, or if you ask, you don't listen to the answers. Everyone, everything, each thing, is different, so that it isn't safe to know. You - you have to grope.
running thinking solitude
In good company your thoughts run, in solitude your thought is still ... In talk your mind can be stretched, widened, exhilarated to heights, but it cannot be deepened; you have to deepen it yourself.