People from Portsmouth

"Criticism should be done by critics, and a critic should have some training and some love of the medium he is discussing. But these days, gossip-columnist training seems to be enough qualification. I suppose an ability to stand on your feet through interminable cocktail parties and swig interminable gins in between devouring masses of fried prawns may just possibly help you to understand and appreciate what a director is getting at, but for the life of me I can't see how."

"There is no me. I do not exist … There used to be a me, but I had it surgically removed."

"If you ask me to play myself, I will not know what to do. I do not know who or what I am."

"People will swim through shit if you put a few bob in it."

"To see me as a person on screen would be one of the dullest experiences you could ever wish to experience."

"If I can't really find a way to live with myself, I can't expect anyone else to live with me."

"I'm a classic example of all humorists — only funny when I'm working."

"Some forms of reality are so horrible we refuse to face them, unless we are trapped into it by comedy. To label any subject unsuitable for comedy is to admit defeat."

"Who in the world am I? Ah, that's the great puzzle!"

"I writhe when I see myself on the screen. I'm such a dreadfully clumsy hulking image. I say to myself, "Why doesn't he get off? Why doesn't he get off?" I mean, I look like such an idiot. Some fat awkward thing dredged up from some third-rate drama company. I must stop thinking about it, otherwise I shan't be able to go on working."

"[W]hile at first I felt like a new boy in his presence, I soon relaxed: he was so welcoming, cheery and easy to write with. And he was effortlessly, brilliantly funny all the [fucking] time. We’d be sitting there discussing some aspect of the plot and he’d slide into a five-minute monologue that he could easily have bestowed on a West End audience."

"He had a conspicuous individual talent, but it was interpretive, not directly creative. He could never have emulated Chaplin, Keaton or Jacques Tati and set up a whole project by himself, controlling its every detail even if the task took years. But there is no point carping. He had such a protean capacity that it would have been a miracle if he had been in full command of it."

"Peter was always a mixed-up guy, a childish fellow. But if you're fond of children, you're also fond of childish men. He was always very helpful to me. After he was famous, and when I was still in trouble with the US embassy, he wrote a letter in support of me which was magnificent. But it is true that he was very cruel to his children. He was so hurt by the way children treat you when you're their father. I have been hurt by my children. But he was not in possession of a proper brain when it came to these things."

"Peter Sellers, a showbiz baby, was carried onstage two weeks into his life by vaudevillian Dickie Henderson, who encouraged the audience to join him in singing "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow." Little Peter instantly burst into tears and the audience erupted into laughter and applause. From Pete's perspective, this emotional scenario was played out more or less consistently until his death in 1980."

"First of earthly singers, the sun-loved rill."

"See ye not, Courtesy Is the true Alchemy, Turning to gold all it touches and tries?"

"I've studied men from my topsy-turvy Close, and I reckon, rather true. Some are fine fellows: some, right scurvy; Most, a dash between the two."

"It's past parsons to console us: No, nor no doctor fetch for me: I can die without my bolus; Two of a trade, lass, never agree! Parson and Doctor!--don't they love rarely Fighting the devil in other men's fields! Stand up yourself and match him fairly: Then see how the rascal yields!"

"Into the breast that gives the rose, Shall I with shuddering fall?"

"Earth, the mother of all, Moves on her stedfast way, Gathering, flinging, sowing. Mortals, we live in her day, She in her children is growing."

"For singing till his heaven fills, 'Tis love of earth that he instils, And ever winging up and up, Our valley is his golden cup, And he the wine which overflows To lift us with him as he goes."

"The song seraphically free Of taint of personality, So pure that it salutes the suns The voice of one for millions, In whom the millions rejoice For giving their one spirit voice."

"But O the truth, the truth! the many eyes That look on it! the diverse things they see!"

"On a starred night Prince Lucifer uprose. Tired of his dark dominion swung the fiend."

"Around the ancient track marched, rank on rank, The army of unalterable law."

"Enter these enchanted woods, You who dare. Nothing harms beneath the leaves More than waves a swimmer cleaves. Toss your heart up with the lark, Foot at peace with mouse and worm, Fair you fare. Only at a dread of dark Quaver, and they quit their form: Thousand eyeballs under hoods Have you by the hair. Enter these enchanted woods, You who dare."

"She whom I love is hard to catch and conquer, Hard, but O the glory of the winning were she won!"

"Darker grows the valley, more and more forgetting: So were it with me if forgetting could be willed. Tell the grassy hollow that holds the bubbling well-spring, Tell it to forget the source that keeps it filled."

"Civil limitation daunts His utterance never; the nymphs blush, not he."

"With patient inattention hear him prate."

"Full lasting is the song, though he, The singer, passes"

"Behold the life at ease; it drifts, The sharpened life commands its course."

"All wisdom's armoury this man could wield"

"Cannon his name, Cannon his voice, he came."

"I expect that Woman will be the last thing civilized by Man."

"Who rises from prayer a better man, his prayer is answered."

"Perfect simplicity is unconsciously audacious."

"The sun is coming down to earth, and the fields and the waters shout to him golden shouts."

"Kissing don't last; cookery do!"

"God's rarest blessing is, after all, a good woman!"

"Speech is the small change of Silence."

"Not till the fire is dying in the grate, Look we for any kinship with the stars. Oh, wisdom never comes when it is gold, And the great price we pay for it full worth: We have it only when we are half earth."

"And if I drink oblivion of a day, So shorten I the stature of my soul."

"The actors are, it seems, the usual three: Husband and wife and lover."

"What are we first? First, animals; and next Intelligences at a leap; on whom Pale lies the distant shadow of the tomb, And all that draweth on the tomb for text. Into which state comes Love, the crowning sun: Beneath whose light the shadow loses form. We are the lords of life, and life is warm. Intelligence and instinct now are one. But nature says: 'My children most they seem When they least know me: therefore I decree That they shall suffer.' Swift doth young Love flee, And we stand wakened, shivering from our dream. Then if we study Nature we are wise."

"How many a thing which we cast to the ground, When others pick it up, becomes a gem!"

"In tragic life, God wot, No villain need be! Passions spin the plot: We are betrayed by what is false within."

"More brain, O Lord, more brain! or we shall mar Utterly this fair garden we might win."

"Ah, what a dusty answer gets the soul When hot for certainties in this our life! - In tragic hints here see what evermore Moves dark as yonder midnight ocean's force, Thundering like ramping hosts of warrior horse, To throw that faint thin fine upon the shore!"

"Comedy is a game played to throw reflections upon social life, and it deals with human nature in the drawing-room of civilized men and women, where we have no dust of the struggling outer world, no mire, no violent crashes, to make the correctness of the representation convincing."

"She [Comedy] it is who proposes the correcting of pretentiousness, of inflation, of dulness, and of the vestiges of rawness and grossness to be found among us. She is the ultimate civilizer, the polisher, a sweet cook."

"Cynicism is intellectual dandyism."

"In...the book of Egoism, it is written, possession without obligation to the object possessed approaches felicity."

"A witty woman is a treasure; a witty beauty is a power."

"What a woman thinks of women is the test of her nature."

"The well of true wit is truth itself."

"Ireland gives England her soldiers, her generals too."

"How divine is utterance!" she said. "As we to the brutes, poets are to us."

"There is nothing the body suffers that the soul may not profit by."

"... Other writers may draw more recognisable scenes; Meredith contrives to place us in company which, in spite of seeming at times like a mad dream, never allows us to question that something living and genuine is going forward."

"Why do we call ourselves 'Imagists'. Well why not? Well I think it is a very good and descriptive title and it serves to enunciate some of the principles we mos firmly believe in... Direct treatment of the subject... as few adjectives as possible... a hardness, as of cut stone... individuality of rhythm..."

"I dream of silent verses where the rhyme Glides noiseless as an oar."

"By the sense of mystery I understand the experience of certain places and times when one's whole nature seems to be in touch with a prescence, a genius loci, a potency."

"I began to write what I called 'rhythms' ie unrhymed pieces with no formal metrical scheme where the rhythm was created by a kind if inner chant..Later I was told I was writing 'free verse' or Vers libre."

"Patriotism is a lively sense of collective responsibility. Nationalism is a silly cock crowing on its own dunghill."

"Death of a Hero is a very angry novel; virulent is perhaps a better adjective... There is nothing Aldington does not view in hellish images. One has the impression of reading the testimony of a madman."

"I have little to say in favour of Pinorman, and nothing in defence of the book about Lawrence. But Aldington wrote a book about the other Lawrence which is first-class. Death of a Hero was not the first of the books proclaiming the disillusion of the generation which fought the First World War but it was in the vanguard. And a man who has written such other novels as All Men are Enemies and Women Must Work; whose poems include A Fool i' the Forest and A Dream in the Luxembourg; who has one of the best single volumes on Voltaire to his credit; and whose other work ranges from French Studies and Reviews to translations of Alcestis and Fifty Romance Lyric Poems cannot be dismissed so easily."

"It is true that the war occupies only the third part of the novel [Death of a Hero]. But it was perhaps the first of the "angry young men's" novels; it is fine one: and it is interesting to compare Aldington's picture of the pre-war generation with Sassoon's."

"Richard Aldington is exactly the same inside, murder, suicide, rape—with a desire to be raped very strong—same thing really—just like you—only he doesn't face it, and gilds his perverseness."

"I well remember that first meeting. We had lunch together and then strolled up Charing Cross Road, looking at the bookshops and talking about our literary enthusiasms. Aldington looked very handsome in his uniform and I was immediately captivated by the brightness and candour of his features—a boyishness, one might call it, which he retained perhaps all his life, certainly until he left Europe. He was one of the most stimulating friends I have ever had—easy in conversation and very frank, full of strange oaths (mostly in French), his mind darting about rapidly from one aspect of a subject to another."

"Over thirty years, large numbers of copies of Richard Aldington's works have been printed. In 1935, Death of a Hero and in 1937 All Men are Enemies ran to 10,000 copies. In the second half of the fifties and at the beginning of the sixties, the situation changed dramatically. The number of copies printed of the 1961 edition of Death of a Hero was ten times as large (100,000 copies). All Men are Enemies ran to 225,000 copies (Goslitizdat) and was also published in Smerdlovsk, by a local publishing house which printed around 100,000 copies. These books did not lie round in the bookshops—they were sold literally in a few days, and now it is impossible to find them in the shops—not one reader has offered to sell to a second-hand bookseller, evidently because people do not want to part with them. When Richard Aldington's friend, Mr. Alister Kershaw, asked me to send him old Russian editions of the writer and I tried to get them from the second-hand booksellers, I was told, "There are neither old ones nor new ones to be had.""

"Richard Aldington has always been accepted in Russia, and still is, as a many-sided figure, a rounded personality. Articles have been written about him as a poet and a novelist, a translator and a critic, a man and a writer; the content of his works has been discussed and also their form, his works as a whole and individual books, and articles, studies, reviews and notices about him have appeared in works published in Moscow and Leningrad, in journals and in newspapers published in other cities. Papers have been read about him, lectures given, and students have written essays on him. His books have reached every part of our large country. And—what is even more important—his books are read. Our older and younger generations know Richard Aldington. He lives in our memory."

"All that the book contains is the elucidation of but one precept: namely, to interpret language by nature. We [generally and incorrectly] reverse the rule and interpret nature by language."

"As... the following sheets are the painful elaboration of many years, when my language or positions shall, in a casual perusal, seem absurd, (and such cases may be frequent,) I request the reader to seek some more creditable interpretation. The best which he can conceive should be assumed to be my intention: as on an escutcheon, when a figure resembles both an eagle and a buzzard, heraldry decides that the bird which is most creditable to the bearer, shall be deemed to be the one intended by the blazon."

"Man exists in a world of his own creation. He cannot step, but on ground transformed by culture; nor look, but on objects produced by art. The animals which constitute his food are unknown to nature, while trees, fruits, and herbs, are the trophies of his labour. In himself nearly every natural impulse is suppressed as vicious, and every mortification solicited as a virtue. His language, actions, sentiments, and desires are nearly all factitious. Stupendous in achievement, he is boundless in attempt. Having subdued the earth's surface, he would explore its centre; having vanquished diseases, he would subdue death. Unsatisfied with recording the past, he would anticipate the future. Uncontented with subjugating the ocean, he would traverse the air. Success but sharpens his avidity, and facility but augments his impatience."

"To fix the fluctuating mass of theories, no man has suggested any other expedient than the construction of some new theory, to whose authority... all persons shall submit. The remedy is constantly augmenting the disease."

"As theories are the means by which we attempt to discourse of external existences that our senses cannot discover; and as the desire for such discourse originates a large portion of our theories; I will teach you the capacity of language for such an employment, and thereby enable you to judge more understandingly than you can at present, the utility of most theories, and the signification of all."

"His majesty recollected the celebrated quack doctor, who when asked why his patrons were more numerous than those of regular practitioners, replied, that he was patronised by the fools, who are numerous in every community, while regular physicians are patronised by the wise, who are few. His majesty could not see why the principle was not applicable to politics. He resolved to try it. He would so govern as to be patronised by the numerous class, and leave the desires of the few to be regarded by some future emperor, who should choose to make so unpromising an experiment."

"Man soon finds what he wants to find. If he cannot find it otherwise, he creates it for his special enjoyment: for instance, if a man wants to see a ghost, he need only promulge his wish some night around a decaying fire, with a few alarmed and shocked listeners. Then let him ascend in the dark to a remote chamber, carefully looking over his shoulder every few moments; and if he will not see a ghost, he will feel as if he saw one, and that will be tantamount thereto."

"In her youth she had indulged a passion towards a young monarch of a neighbouring island, Glanden, whose subjects, though they enjoyed the benefits of fairly-dispensed justice, suffered such disparities of condition, that some of them were born with saddles on their backs, and others booted and spurred to mount and ride during their lives. Shocking! yet countless eyes certified its truth: nay, even the Glandens admit the charge, but deem their island the most delightful in the world, and the most favourable for human improvement and comfort."

"War and fights, like courtship and kisses, are seldom interesting except to the actors and their connexions; hence I will not burden my readers with the military operations of these remote regions."

"The old lady Felderal had long railed at the emperor for not declaring war. She pretended that he feared to call on his subjects for the requisite means, lest their avarice, stronger than their patriotism, should depose him. When, however, war was declared, and the emperor's forces were victorious, she became enamoured of peace, and maintained that a moral and religious people ought not to rejoice at victories purchased by the sacrifice of human life. She invented a song, whose burden was "the golden days of commercial prosperity," and she organized a peace society, whose tenets compelled the members not to fight even an invading army. Finally, as these expedients failed to destroy the emperor, she collected the most desperate of her adherents, to concert means for tying his hands behind his back, "peaceably if they could, forcibly if they must," and delivering him to the king of Glanden."

"The confectionary was useful enough to make its destruction eminently foolish; and fools were numerous enough to make its destruction eminently popular. Thus reasoned the emperor."

"The doctrine of false position has been but little studied in the United States. In France it is understood perfectly. There everything is solved by false position, just as chymists solve everything by attraction and repulsion, mathematicians by circles and tangents, old people by loss and gain, young people by love and courtship."

"We need not wade into the current of Niagara Falls unless we please; but, after we have waded in we must thereafter be governed by the course and force of the stream."

"A young lady, being on a visit at a noble friend's mansion, was betrayed by complaisance into an admission that she was very fond of potted sprats, though she abhorred the sight, taste, and smell of them. This little falsehood brought her into a false position as respects her noble friend, who, to oblige her young guest, provided for her nothing but potted sprats. ...So the aforesaid young lady found herself suddenly seated beside a plate of sprats, with all their disgusting odours rising to her face, and their horrid forms spread out before her eyes. A moment ago, she might, with entire propriety, have declared her disgust of them; but she had taken her false position, and that was now to govern. ...But here the authority ended of all external government. The chyle would not digest the intruder, nor the pylorus permit its egress The whole inner woman suffered a state of rebellion; when a new actor appeared upon the stage... in the shape of fever, first mild and gentle, then importunate and bold, then raging, and then outrageous. The fever introduced, in turn, a new agent in the shape of a physician, grave and knowing; who introduced two others more knowing still, who introduced various cathartics, diaphoretics, lancets, leeches, blisters, and glysters, which together soon introduced debility, epilepsy, and catalepsy; which, to the astonishment of no one but the doctors, introduced death, who ended the false position."

"My readers understand now something of the nature of a false position. I hope they will never know one experimentally. Should they unfortunately become entangled with one, they had better not flounder along in it till they are carried they know not whither, but adopt the practice of French and English statesmen, who, immediately on the happening of such a dilemma, submit to what they call a ministerial crisis, and quietly resign their official posts. An occasion of this kind has just transpired in France. ...They wisely chose the latter evil, and retired covered with glory for the great things they would have accomplished had the king only permitted them to carry forward their grand designs: thus the ministers preserve their credit the nation its peace."

"The emperor relied on his popularity, the obedient habits of his subjects, and chiefly on the prejudices of the people against anything that could be subjected, right or wrong, to the charge of unconstitutionality."

"The confectioner relied equally on the power which he possessed of injuring or benefiting, as he should elect, the property of nearly every man in the community. And, finally, he relied on the utility of his institution to the government, in the collection, safe keeping, and disbursement of its revenues; and to the public, in regulating domestic and foreign exchange, in furnishing a currency of nearly uniform value over the whole empire, and in which government dues could be paid without the procurement of sugar, that was scarce as well as cumbersome."

"Among its [Boresko's] curiosities is a high rock, which overhangs a fearful precipice, whose bottom is just as much below the surface of the surrounding country as the summit of the rock is above the surface. From its summit the rock presents the most enchanting views that the country affords... The atmosphere exerts, however, a medical influence. While inhaling it, each person possesses in imagination whatever he desires at the moment: riches, health, power, or even a lady's love. The place is appropriately termed the pinnacle of hope. ...Hither come ...all persons who wish to cheat the present moment of its anguish by pleasant anticipations of the future. Occasionally, however, a peculiar madness seizes the visiters, and they jump from the delightful pinnacle into the abyss below, whose noxious vapours prostrate all the energies of life, and reverse all the reveries of hope."

"No contrast is greater than a man on the pinnacle, erect in stature, confident, supercilious; and the same man in the pit, bent, irresolute, and servile. Some observers insist that, in the pit, a man usually loses his moral principles; but, on the pinnacle, is virtuously inclined, sensitive of reputation, faithful of trusts."

"To jump occasionally into the pit is common to all who visit the mountain, and to some who keep on the plain; but the madness to which I have alluded consists in rapid alternations from the mountain to the pit, annoying all persons who are forced, by friendship or consanguinity, to consort with the unfortunate maniacs. To remain permanently either on the pinnacle or in the abyss is deemed a species of the same disorder, though not so common."

"Many branches of knowledge exist in our world that are unknown to theory and untaught in schools."

"In Boresko, the government, though imperial, grants the people some power. They collect annually, and, marching to the palace, signify to the emperor their wishes, which he is constrained to respect. To march at the head of such a procession confers power and influence, and those who thus march are called political leaders."

"Their [the political leaders'] skill consists in a quick perception of the people's wishes as to the road which they desire to travel. This ascertained, the leader places himself at the head of the moving column, and shouts loudly for the people to advance on his lead, which he assures them is direct, suitable, and pleasant. ...They will diverge no inch to please him, but he must crook and turn as their wayward fancy may indicate. He must bear all their censure, too, when the path taken leads into a quagmire; and, notwithstanding the mud and bruises, of which he obtains a double portion, he must maintain by argument that no other road could have been taken consistently with the prosperity, honour, and security of a great, wise, free, and virtuous people."

"After hearing incessantly that the people follow him without sense or discretion, he [the political leader] is liable to fall a victim of the delusion which he has created, and to imagine that he possesses some personal attraction, by virtue of which he is followed. The delusion soon develops itself. He will diverge from the authorized track... From habit, the people will move a little in his erratic course. Their compliance augments his delusion, and he will become increasingly regardless of the popular will, and more obstinately intent on his own. He soon becomes monomaniac, and is abandoned except by a few stragglers as crazy as himself; while he interprets the abandonment into ingratitude or heterodoxy, and grows scurrilous, turbulent, and impotent."

"Theorem I. Any sight of which seeing has not informed me of, is unknown to me. Comments. 1. Sensible knowledge discriminated from intellectual knowledge. 2. The intellectual injury from the privation of any sense."

"Whoever estimates the sensible sameness by the verbal identity of their common name will commit the error of mistaking for physical what is only intellectual. ...the sensible signification of language is strictly limited by the sensible knowledge of the hearer."

"Locke supposes that a person acquainted sensibly with the colours which compose a rainbow, can by the names of such colours in a verbal description, be made visually acquainted with a rainbow. The verbal description will give such a person's intellect a good verbal definition of the word rainbow, but it cannot communicate the sight to the extent that it differs, in any manner from the sights he already knows."

"In every particular in which a picture constitutes a sight that is not identical with the sight represented, the picture will fail to communicate the represented object."

"Theorem II. Any feel which feeling has not informed me of, is unknown to me. Comments. 1. Words are sensibly intelligent to a man of only such words as he has experienced. 2. The intellectual signification of words discriminated from the sensible signification. 3. Intellectual intimations discriminated from sensible revelations."

"Oh, and some nasty stuff in there! It looked to be a bite, almost. Holyfield is very unhappy, look at this! It looked as if Tyson bared his teeth at one stage in the exchange. He bit his ear! Well, feelings are running very, very hot indeed in there. Holyfield was outraged by that. Now what is the referee going to do about that? One point deduction for Tyson! One point deducted from Mike Tyson, for biting Holyfield's ear. Now, let's take a look again. Well, this is getting like a street fight."

"The experienced Stewart with the corner here for the United States. Here's Brian McBride, it's not away on O'Brien! Gives the United States the lead inside four minutes!"

"Portugal all the over the place here, and they've made another mistake. Here's Donovan, with a cross. Deflected, and in! Two, nil! Can you believe this? Landon Donovan's cross, deflected off Costa. Two, nothing!"

"Here's Sanneh. The Americans, here. What a start for them, and this is number three! Brian McBride!"

"It's a crushing right hand and that must finish it! It must finish it! Tyson cannot get up from that, surely. He will be counted out. Lennox Lewis seals his place in history forever and closes the book on Mike Tyson!"

"Now, then. Landon Donovan for the United States. Twisting, turning. Can he find the right ball? Cesar hit it away; it's played back in by Bocanegra. Oh, and nearly Altidore getting under of it. A really good clearance by Jokić; just when it looked as if Jozy Altidore might be in. They really have to put Slovenia under pressure. If they can get one goal, I think, John. You just wonder, whether then Slovenia might start to look a little bit shaky and start to wonder. He's got in, behind. Donovan, Donovan goes alone and scores! Oh, what a goal! Landon Donovan, tremendous strike for the United States! It looked impossible, but Donovan did it! And the USA are back in business!"

"Certainly rolling the dice now. Bob Bradley as he had to, really. Here's his son, Michael Bradley. Decent effort. Donovan, the man whose goal has given the United States at least hope. Altidore to lay it down, Bradley! Bradley, has done it! USA are level! The comeback kings, strike again! Michael Bradley, for the USA! What a moment! 'Thank you son', says Bob Bradley. And I think the whole of the United States of America, says 'thank you' too. To Michael Bradley."

"I don't know what everybody back home is like watching this, but I'm very tense. I'll tell you that."

"Oh, talk about lightning striking twice. Another goal scrubbed out for the United States."

"Clint Dempsey off the post and again, and he's missed the rebound! Absolute agony for the USA!"

"It just takes one moment to make the difference here for the USA of staying in this competition or leaving it."

"Will the goal never come?"

"Four minutes of added time. That might lift the United States, that's time enough. Dreadfully negative, really. From the Algerians, they're looking for things on the break. I suspect they'll get a chance or two, on the break. Ghezzal, that's a good ball he's found there to Guedioura who plays it deep. Saïfi, with a header. Howard, gratefully claims it. Distribution, brilliant. Landon Donovan. Oh, are things on here for the USA? Can they do it here? Cross, and Dempsey is denied again, and Donovan has scored! Oh, can you believe this? Go, go, USA! Certainly through! Oh, it's incredible! You could not write a script like this!"

"Played in, and it comes out into Landon Donovan, who strikes again. What a golden goal for the USA, if you're just joining us? There it is, the moment. Deep, deep into the match! To give the USA surely, a place in the last sixteen. It is breathtakingly exciting!"

"It is over! The USA have made it, in a Hollywood-style finish!"

"Now, van Bronckhorst with pace! Oh, it is an absolute firecracker from Giovanni van Bronckhorst! One, nil! Holland!"

"Cristiane with a chance to put Brazil at level. Hope Solo saved it! A hero again! What is it with Hope Solo and Brazil? Now what's the referee doing here? Is? The penalty? Is it going to have to be retaken? Because they're claiming Solo moved before the ball was kicked. Now this is very controversial, and Solo has got a yellow card for that as well. This is highly contentious! Now look at this again, does she move off the line? No, no, no, no! That is an astonishing decision in my view."

"Marta again, she'll keep the ball in the corner now, much to the annoyance of the crowd. The decision was goal kick. I think this referee knows that she made a very, very big call over that penalty. Morgan, and still it goes on here. Tobin Heath. Boxx. Carli Lloyd! Oh, uh. Couldn't keep it down. Chants of 'USA' ringing around the arena here in Dresden, and it do, does look like it's going to be to no avail. And it will go down as the USA's worst performance ever in the Women's World Cup. Cristiane can buy some time down by the corner, here. Eat away vital seconds. Now, USA have it. And they've just got to get everybody forward now. No sense defending anymore, Lloyd's got to get this pass off. To Rapinoe, and everybody's got to bomb forward now. Rapinoe gets a cross in, it's towards Wambach! Oh, can you believe this? Abby Wambach has saved the USA's life in this World Cup!"

"Just incredible! Look at Hope Solo celebrate! There is an American party going on, all around the terraces! Surely the whistle's going to go any second, and it will be a penalty shootout. Abby Wambach in the one hundred and twenty-second minute. Well that does match the drama of the men's World Cup last year, and the Landon Donovan goal which saved the USA against Algeria, doesn't it? Well, well, well! And the goal was scored in the time added on for the largely bogus injury, we think, to Érika. Is there some kind of poetic justice in that? It's not finished yet, though. Still the referee plays on, and here's Marta again! Solo beats it away; it will be a corner. How much more of this can there possibly be? It is over! It will be a penalty shoot-out! An incredible finish, one of the great climaxes to any World Cup match! Brazil are denied at the death! A ten-woman USA save it! Wow, we need to get our breath back. So let's go back to Bob Ley for a moment."

"Daiane, whose own goal started all the talking points today after seventy-four seconds. Seems a long, long time ago now. It was into this goal, now Brazil need her to put one in legitimately for them. Yes! Brilliant save from Solo, brilliant save! And that one is legal, and now that means, that if the United States put in the last two penalties, they will go into the semi-finals. That is a moment of magic from Hope Solo!"

"The biggest moment, this. Of her soccer life. Ali Krieger, who recovered from that life-threating illness five years ago. Can she win it for the USA, here? And she does! And the USA are into the last four! It's been a near miracle, this! In Dresden!"

"I think one word we can agree Bob is, uh? Epic, classic. Thriller, block-buster. I think all the clichés were made real. I mean? You woke up this morning, saying you felt nervous about this game. Now, I know why."

"Yeah they did, Bob. It was a classic final, and I think the old cliché? Football was the winner there; just a terrific match. Shattering defeat for the USA; so hard to take. But only the hardest heart, Julie? Would deny Japan that. I suppose you could have an inquest in the USA played so well for much of the game. Just seemed to get a little bit panicky when the finishing line was in reach. But, really that's? That's being a little bit picky, isn't it? Because they did ever so well here. I just think the ball had Japan's name on it. They were destined to win it. Uh, just a feeling? Bob, I think Japan won rather more than just a soccer match here."

"Now don't ask me why I said that; it just came out. Somewhere in the recesses of my mind; quite beyond logic. But, there it is."

"I've been lucky since I've had this job, getting two amazingly dramatic moments like that. You sort of had a license to go to nine or ten on the Richter scale."

"I'm just kind of glad people seem to like the way I do it."

"They came to me and said, 'Would you want to do the U.S., talk to an American audience?' Yeah, of course. So that’s kind of how I ended up being the commentator that day calling the Landon Donovan goal. It just fell into place."

"I think in all the bedlam, it got forgotten. We were on the move all the time traveling around South Africa. People were saying, 'Your call of that goal has created quite a stir in America.' Yeah?"

"Maybe my style is a bit more like an American style. I suppose I am more enthusiastic."

"But you have concerns about that back line, don't you, Taylor?"

"But they can't be."

"It's a little like a Ray Charles concert, isn't it? Georgia!"

"I know his relationship with the coach hasn't been the warmest. I can see where Jürgen's coming from. He feels Donovan took a timeout, a sabbatical, and most pros wouldn't do that."

"I think they're an honest bunch. I wish them well. I hope they surprise and confound a few people. It’s good for the game in America if they do. If they can make a ripple or two, that pushes the game on again."

"You hope you come up with the odd memorable one. That's the best any of us could hope for."

"Dempsey, great start here. Can Clint Dempsey score? He has! The U.S. ahead! Incredibly, within seconds! Now that, is dreamland! Clint Dempsey becomes the first American to score at three different World Cups!"

"The dynamic of the group changes totally if the U.S. can hold on here. Gyan with a lovely ball, though. André Ayew, equalizes! It's a superb goal, to break American hearts! The resistance is broken!"

"Zusi to take it, and there! It's there! What about that? It's John Brooks! It's John Brooks! For the USA! Have they stolen it? Quite incredible, he couldn't even have dreamt that."

"Payback, for the USA!"

"Andre Almeida. Back in, by Veloso. Oh, it's a miscue to Nani! Oh my goodness, me! The USA pressed the 'self-destruct' button there! A catastrophe in the U.S. defense."

"I think he was greeted when he arrived at the hotel in Brazil by a topless model and a guy dressed as Donald Duck."

"He comes late, corner wouldn't drop to a white shirt. Now it has, Jones. Oh, yes! Jermaine Jones, what a cracker from him! USA level! Simply, sensational strike."

"Nicely measured. Jones to Yedlin. Really, it nearly got to him! He has got to Bradley, and then Zusi, and Dempsey! Is he onside? He is! It's two, one! To the U.S.! 'Captain Marvel', again!"

"Can they do something here? It's Cristiano Ronaldo. Oh, it's a great cross! And it is an equalizer, from Varela! USA denied, right at the death! And you have to say, this is a terrific goal."

"Goes a long way, and there's Howard with the save to deny Mertesacker, and this time Germany do score, it's Thomas Müller! It is one, nil. To Germany. Him again, and now the tension is racked up."

"The U.S. have no choice, other than to gamble. Which could mean they'll be hit by another counter or two. Bradley. Chipped forward, and look at this! It's Julian Green! Would you believe it? The youngster, gives the U.S. hope! Extraordinary! Two, one! The teenager comes up trumps!"

"I think he's saying there should be more than a minute."

"USA valiant effort, but no hard luck story. Better team won. Last 16 is about as good as U.S. are, but well respected team now."

"If that was Tim Howard's last World Cup game, what a way to go out! He was phenomenal. Most saves by a W.C. keeper in 50 years."

"USA thoughts must turn to rebuild. By 2018, Dempsey is 35, Jones, Beasley and Beckerman 36, and Howard 39. All magnificent servants of U.S."

"Thank you for many kind comments on the USA games coverage with Taylor Twellman. Very much appreciated. But stay tuned; World Cup goes on."

"Here's Toni Kroos. Sami Khedira. Now Müller. Free kick's going to be given Brazil's way; this is turbocharged."

"Klose, with a corner. Goes a long way and a goal! It's him again! Thomas Müller with his tenth World Cup goal in history, to put the Germans ahead! Well Brazil were behind in their opening game of the tournament against Croatia and came back to win. But, it might be a much harder job. Chasing Germany, of all the players."

"Oh, Kroos. Here's more problems here, it's Klose! The history man, he's done it! Two, nil! And that's the goal that puts him in the record books, forever! Brazil being taken to the cleaners, so far. Sixteen goals, an all time World Cup record. And this is his twenty-third World Cup appearance. The tears of Brazil, and that young lady not the only one spilling tears around this nation at the moment. But, wait a minute! Here's Bernard! Can he do something to get Brazil back into this?"

"But, it isn't working. They're two down. Lahm, this time. Müller missed it! And that's three, Toni Kroos! Germany are running riot! They cannot believe it! Splendid hit, from Kroos. You've got something on that, as well. With Julio Cesar, couldn't keep it out. And Toni Kroos marks his fiftieth cap for Germany, with a goal. And once or twice in there, it's just resembling a shooting gallery. Oh, and look at this now. This could get worse; Khedira plays it inside. Oh! It's four, nil! Unbelievable! Kroos again! And Brazil are just being played off the park! This is quite astonishing."

"Two in two minutes for him, and Brazil's World Cup is surely over. This is the first time ever, that Brazil have trailed by four goals in a World Cup match. Four-nil down, twenty-six minutes on the clock. Germany, just too good? This is Brazil, not so much without Neymar. But, without Thiago Silva. Organizing their defense, and this could get a lot worse. Yeah? Unless this team tightens up somehow. Terrible mistake by Fernandinho on that last goal."

"Look at this, again! Khedira plays it wide, Özil! Khedira again! Five, nil! This is utterly, beyond belief! Where is this goal scoring going to end? Well, if this was boxing? The referee would be stopping it, to save Brazil from further punishment. Five goals in the first twenty-nine minutes from a rampant Germany; Brazil have simply unraveled. Fred, here's Luiz Gustavo. Marcelo. Just need something, anything. To lift their confidence, but."

"Lahm, Khedira. Lahm, again. Trying to make sure, and they do make sure! Six, nil! You wonder where all this is going to end for Germany? Schürrle, getting in on the act. Well, they're really booing now. André Schürrle. Fred was booed off in the middle of all that. And Schürrle gets his second goal of the tournament, he got one against Algeria as well. Six, nil. Germany, really rubbing Brazil's noses in it."

"I think it's a sort of morbid fascination, for the Brazil fans now. They've paid a lot for their tickets, they're going to see it, whatever the story. I don't think they'll be watching a replay when they get home, somehow. How good are this German team?"

"Could be more, here's Schürrle! Once again, that's seven! An utter humiliation for Brazil, just got worse! Germany in seventh heaven! What a hit that is; nothing Julio Cesar could've done really. That was travelling at the speed of sound, a devastated Julio Cesar. A devastated Brazil; a devastated nation. Most goals ever scored in a World Cup semi-final by one team. The records are tumbling by the second, it seems here. Ramires. I think these players frankly would like to get off this pitch and go into a tunnel, that led to Tristan da Cunha or somewhere. Bernard's cross, Marcelo. There's not enough room on the caption. They've got roll it through, to get all the goal scorers on. Two goals for André Schürrle since coming on as a substitute."

"Brazil, in their famous history have allowed seven goals only one other time. That was in 1934, when they lost eight-four to Yugoslavia. Well, you and I are pinching ourselves. I think everybody here is. Seven, nil? Yeah, me too. You've got to say, as bad have Brazil have been? Germany have just been absolutely brilliant. Schürrle. Olés now, and I think the Brazil fans are starting to join with it. They're starting to applaud the Germans, what else can they do? Really? Well it's an embarrassment for Luiz Felipe Scolari, as the coach. Isn't he, is? Schürrle, to cut that one back. And you wonder what the? The reaction of the fans will be? We? We've heard about protests and demonstrations, people saying this World Cup wasn't worth the money that was spent on it because more should be invested in the infrastructure of the country. Will those protests come back again? Well, there's going to be a big clear-out isn't there? For certain, after this World Cup. Okay, they've got to the semi-final. That's no mean achievement; plenty didn't of course. Here's Lahm, he'll want to get on the act as well. Schürrle wants a hat-trick. Well, you're watching a game here that's going to go down as one of the most astonishing in the entire history of the World Cup. Bernard, Paulinho. Marcelo, they're trying to give the crowd something. Ramires, no. He's not in the mood for getting beaten."

"As quiet as a library."

"Here's Götze! It's Mario Götze! It's Super Mario! He might just have won the World Cup, for Germany!"

"This is over. No way back for Japan, who in my view are lucky to make this final."

"It is with great pleasure, and I know I say that every week and don't mean it. But, this week I really, really, really mean it. It is with great pleasure, that we welcome back to the pod, the man who many of us know as the voice of football, I think of as. If a soccer ball could actually talk? It would sound just like this man. Welcome back to Men in Blazers, Sir Ian Darke."

"Look at the space, Ian. Look at the space!"

"Many a young fellow has found himself in a similar predicament, but I doubt whether anyone ever became so desperately hungry as I did on that day. I recollect that, having rashly eaten up my sausage before eight o'clock, I felt a sinking towards twelve; it was aggravated by the savoury smell of roast meat which steamed from the cookshops and dining-rooms as I walked along the streets. About one o'clock I gazed with malignant envy on the happy clerks who could go in and order platefuls of the roast and boiled which smoked in the windows, and threw a perfume more delicious than the sweetest strains of music into the streets where I lingered and looked. And at two I observed the diners come out again, walking more slowly, but with an upright and satisfied air, while I -- the sinking had been succeeded by a dull gnawing pain -- was slowly doubling up. At half-past two I felt as if I could bear it no longer. I had been walking about, trying different offices for a clerkship. I might as well have asked for a partnership. But I could walk no more."

"This work fascinates me more than anything else I have ever done. I've been walking about London for the last thirty years, and I find something fresh in it every day."

"Some of us can remember how under the old system at Cambridge the Senior Fellows remained in college all their lives, their interests centred in the society, dining in hall everyday, sitting over the College port in the Combination Room every day. Few among the seniors, as one remembers them, were any longer capable of intellectual work."

"I lay it down as one of the distinctive characteristics of a good story that it pleases--or rather, seizes--every period of life; that the child, and his elder brother, and his father, and his grandfather, may read it with like enjoyment."

"The procession from Newgate to Tyburn used to pass along Broad Street, and halt at the great gate of the hospital, in order that the condemned man might take his last draught of ale on earth."

"Great and Little Wild Streets are called respectively Old and New Weld Streets by Strype. Weld House stood on the site of the present Wild Court, and was during the reign of James II occupied by the Spanish Embassy. In Great Wild Street Benjamin Franklin worked as a journeyman printer."

"Sir Walter Besant's work--his novels, records of fact, and, not least, the keen business instinct which led to the incorporation of the Society of Authors--is so widely known and appreciated that it would seem impertinent even to summarise it."

"Sir Walter Besant was a short, stout, thick-set man. His hair was iron-gray, he wore a full beard and had a ruddy face. His large, clear eyes looked at you through gold-rimmed spectacles. His manner was simple and sincere; his words were direct and to the point. He was a type of the John Bull whom we all love...Whether his talk was founded on fact or fancy, it was essentially worth while. As the physical Walter Besant gave the impression of "heart of oak," so did his conversation; there was not a "cranky," morbid, or meaningless thing about it."

"Other writers, such as Benjamin Disraeli, contended that an unbridgeable gap existed between the English rich and poor, but Besant claimed that individuals possessed the ability to advance socially if they received philanthropic assistance."

"In making the present attempt to improve on the performance of predecessors, and to produce something which might be accepted as echoing however faintly the sublime rhetoric of the Arabic Koran, I have been at pain to study the intricate and richly varied rhythms which—apart from the message itself—constitutes the Koran’s undeniable claim to rank amongst the greatest literary masterpieces of mankind."

"If you can schedule two pairs of animators to work parallel on different sets for the same issue, you can make up a lot of time. Rather than slavishly produce episodes in eight weeks, it is much nicer to be able to do occasional ‘specials’. Some films are basically chat shows, but then the full action ones give the animators scope to extend themselves and scheduling restores the balance."

"There are plusses and minuses on both sides, really. You gain in the quality and get a really nice depth of field, but you kind of have to readjust your thinking when you're directing as to how you can get the shots that you want. But it's fine and we've all got used to it by now. It's much easier to post-produce, obviously in online edit suites, but it takes more time on the floor when you're setting up shots and all the checks that you have to do and the management of all the data."

"'She’s just a typical bourgeois reactionary.’ ‘You mean, her prejudices are different from yours.'"

"An age of chivalry as outmoded as honour, as obsolete as truth."

"War meant a perpetual postponement of life, yet one did not cease to grow old."

"This was a world in which only the ignorant could be happy."

"Ignorance breeds fear. Tell people the truth. Trust them to keep their heads."