Louisa Young Quotes

“Courage for the big troubles in life, lad' he'd say, 'and patience for the small. Be of good cheer. God is awake.”

— Louisa Young

“No one ever wins a war, and wars are never over.”

— Louisa Young

“Length of service: one year or duration of war. Duration of war, of course. He didn't want to spend a whole year in the army.”

— Louisa Young

Papa," she said easily, happily, walking across the park with him to
the Albert Hall. "What is it like to be in love?"
"Oh, it's marvellous," he said. "Or terrible. Or both. The Romans
saw it as a fit of madness that you wouldn't wish on anybody. But
there's nothing you can do about it, that's the main thing.

— Louisa Young

“They were completely happy. They couldn't stop smiling at each other, beaming like fools till their cheeks ached.”

— Louisa Young

“They did not talk about the larger present, so circumscribed, so uncontrollable. Their little present was two bodies and a bed, and that was the entirety of time and place: them, there, in their little room, awkward, laughing, happy, warm, tentative, surrendering, overwhelmed, alarmed, astounded, shivering, subsiding, asleep, awake, getting the hang of it, learning, loving, redeemed. Happy.”

— Louisa Young

“More talk of love would lead to the difficulties surrounding ... Oh, God, he loved her, he did, she did, they did, it was.
It was.”

— Louisa Young

“He was astounded, sometimes, by the fluid articulacy of his own fury.”

— Louisa Young

Other people", Rose thought. "Other people and their bloody love.

— Louisa Young

“Look how beautiful the green lawns of the park are in the misty evening light, unmuddied, smooth, alive, no holes, no bodies, no barbed wire, no explosions. Such a simple thing to be grateful for. No wrongness. Can no wrongness be enough to make rightness? God, no wrongness. No wrongness would be fucking marvellous.”

— Louisa Young

“He's a man, she thought, and the very word gave her s frisson, a lurch inside.”

— Louisa Young

“Last year we had many smallish hopes, made many smallish attempts, suffered many smallish failures, and we died one by one. This year a change of plan! One big hope, one big push, one big fuck-up, and we all die at once.”

— Louisa Young

“One of the new conscripts, a useless, terrified little creature ... These boys are no use out here. Why send them? Why not recognise that cowardice is a fact and most cowards wish they weren't, and it's not their fault and it's not under their control, and keep them the hell out of our way while we get on with it?”

— Louisa Young