There’s something dreadfully decisive about a beheading.
AGNES SMEDLEYThere’s something dreadfully decisive about a beheading.
AGNES SMEDLEYThe highest joy is to fight by the side of those who for any reason of their own making or ours, are unable to develop to full human stature.
AGNES SMEDLEYWhen I was a girl, the West was still young, and the law of force, of physical force, was dominant.
AGNES SMEDLEYTo die would have been beautiful. But I belong to those who do not die for the sake of beauty.
AGNES SMEDLEYI believe only in money, not in love or tenderness. Love and tenderness meant only pain and suffering and defeat.
AGNES SMEDLEYI would not let it ruin me as it ruined others! I would speak only with money, hard money.
AGNES SMEDLEYI feel like a person living on the brink of a volcano crater.
AGNES SMEDLEYYet it is awful to love a person who is a torture to you. And a fascinating person who loves you and won’t hear of anything but your loving him and living right by his side through all eternity!
AGNES SMEDLEYNow, being a girl, I was ashamed of my body and my lack of strength. So I tried to be a man.
AGNES SMEDLEYI have no objection to a man being a man, however masculine that may be.
AGNES SMEDLEYMy mother listened to all the news from the camp during the strike.
AGNES SMEDLEYI was ashamed of them and their ways of life. But now – yes, I love them; they are a part of my blood; they, with all their virtues and their faults, played a great part in forming my way of looking at life.
AGNES SMEDLEYI joined another circle and the leader gave us a little leaflet in very small print, asking us to read it carefully and then come prepared to ask questions.
AGNES SMEDLEYEverybody calls everybody a spy, secretly, in Russia, and everybody is under surveillance. You never feel safe.
AGNES SMEDLEYI have loved and bitterness left me for that hour. But there are times when love itself is bitter.
AGNES SMEDLEYNew York was a new and strange world. Vast, impersonal, merciless.
AGNES SMEDLEY