"My body of work means nothing to me"

“It's not my intention to be understood. I will continue writing for a readership that is fundamentally local. Because if you want to produce universal writing, you run the risk of losing your local knowledge. Your views are so universalist that the street aspect disappears.”

“My own belief is that there is hardly anyone whose sexual life, if it were broadcast, would not fill the world at large with surprise and horror.”

“We have a strange illusion that mere time cancels sin. I have heard others, and I have heard myself, recounting cruelties and falsehoods committed in boyhood as if they were no concern of the present speaker's, and even with laughter. But mere time does nothing either to the fact or to the guilt of a sin. The guilt is washed out not by time but by repentance and the blood of Christ: if we have repented these early sins we should remember the price of our forgiveness and be humble.”

“Christmas, my child, is love in action. Every time we love, every time we give, it's Christmas.”

“When I began listening to saxophones, I was first attracted to Coleman Hawkins”

“Why not be oneself? That is the whole secret of a successful appearance. If one is a greyhound why try to look like a Pekinese?”

Source : "Edith Sitwell, a Unicorn Among Lions". Book by Victoria Glendinning (p. 54), 1981; later quoted in "An Uncommon Scold" edited by Abby Adams (p. 74), November 1, 1989.

“Ferrari never spoke to me again. He was a great man, I admit, but it was so very easy to upset him.”

Source : Thoroughbred & Classic Cars interview, January 1, 1991.

“Possessing them physically as one would possess a potted plant, a painting, or a Porsche. Owning, as it were, this individual.”