Elizabeth von Arnim
2 books by Elizabeth von Arnim to read free, each with its best passages and lines, and the best quotes from all of them below.
Where to start
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The Enchanted April
Four women spend a month-long holiday at a medieval Italian castle, where they find themselves renewed and transformed by the beauty around them.
78,728 words, about 6 hours
Then
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Elizabeth and Her German Garden
The English wife of a German aristocrat recounts, through a series of diary entries, a year spent revitalizing the neglected garden of their estate.
48,675 words, about 3 hours
Elizabeth von Arnim quotes
She was the kind of person who is not noticed at parties.
I shall not let myself be frightened away by the sarcasm of owls.
There he hung, the second in importance, a bloodless thing bled white by her prayers.
But why cook when you can get someone to cook for you?
I’m sure it’s wrong to go on being good for too long, till one gets miserable.
“But I like being buried.”
She waived references.
Reading is an occupation for men; for women it is reprehensible waste of time.
“The first thing to happen in this house,” she said softly, solemnly, “shall be a kiss.”
It is so sweet to be sad when one has nothing to be sad about.
Actually Mellersh, after quivering a minute, was lost in light.
“Such a child will never go into the Himmel,”
You didn’t take your clothes to parties; they took you.
I suppose the fact is, that no friendship can stand the breakfast test, and here, in the country, we invariably think it our duty to appear at breakfast.
I love things to be taken out of my hands,
“What! am I to be conquered by crabs?”
Oh, but nobody helps anybody in heaven. That’s finished with. You don’t try to be, or do. You simply are.
“Hal-le-lu-jah,” sang my father with deliberation;
She wanted to be alone, but not lonely.
I never could see that delicacy of constitution is pretty, either in plants or women.