People From London

"The first war had ruined him. He had volunteered, though he was over military age and was fighting a country he loved; his health was broken, and he came back to a new literary world which had carefully eliminated him. For some of his later work he could not even find a publisher in England. No wonder he preferred to live abroad — in Provence or New York. But I don't suppose failure disturbed him much: he had never really believed in human happiness, his middle life had been made miserable by passion, and he had come through — with his humour intact, his stock of unreliable anecdotes, the kind of enemies a man ought to have, and a half-belief in a posterity which would care for good writing."

"Yes, society must go on; it must breed, like rabbits. That is what we are here for. But then, I don't like society — much. I am that absurd figure, an American millionaire, who has bought one of the ancient haunts of English peace. I sit here, in Edward's gun-room, all day and all day in a house that is absolutely quiet. No one visits me, for I visit no one. No one is interested in me, for I have no interests. In twenty minutes or so I shall walk down to the village, beneath my own oaks, alongside my own clumps of gorse, to get the American mail. My tenants, the village boys and the tradesmen will touch their hats to me. So life peters out. I shall return to dine and Nancy will sit opposite me with the old nurse standing behind her. Enigmatic, silent, utterly well-behaved as far as her knife and fork go, Nancy will stare in front of her with the blue eyes that have over them strained, stretched brows. Once, or perhaps twice, during the meal her knife and fork will be suspended in mid-air as if she were trying to think of something that she had forgotten. Then she will say that she believes in an Omnipotent Deity or she will utter the one word "shuttle-cocks", perhaps. It is very extraordinary to see the perfect flush of health on her cheeks, to see the lustre of her coiled black hair, the poise of the head upon the neck, the grace of the white hands — and to think that it all means nothing — that it is a picture without a meaning. Yes, it is queer."

"Mind, I am not preaching anything contrary to accepted morality. I am not advocating free love in this or any other case. Society must go on, I suppose, and society can only exist if the normal, if the virtuous, and the slightly deceitful flourish, and if the passionate, the headstrong, and the too-truthful are condemned to suicide and to madness."

"She asked him perpetually what he wanted. What did he want? What did he want? And all he ever answered was: "I have told you". He meant that he wanted the girl to go to her father in India as soon as her father should cable that he was ready to receive her. But just once he tripped up. To Leonora's eternal question he answered that all he desired in life was that — that he could pick himself together again and go on with his daily occupations if — the girl, being five thousand miles away, would continue to love him. He wanted nothing more, He prayed his God for nothing more. Well, he was a sentimentalist."

"It is a queer and fantastic world. Why can't people have what they want? The things were all there to content everybody; yet everybody has got the wrong thing. Perhaps you can make head or tail of it; it is beyond me. Is there any terrestrial paradise where, amidst the whispering of the olive-leaves, people can be with whom they like and have what they like and take their ease in shadows and in coolness? Or are all men's lives like the lives of us good people — like the lives of the Ashburnhams, of the Dowells, of the Ruffords — broken, tumultuous, agonized, and unromantic lives, periods punctuated by screams, by imbecilities, by deaths, by agonies? Who the devil knows?"

"Pride and reserve are not the only things in life; perhaps they are not even the best things. But if they happen to be your particular virtues you will go all to pieces if you let them go."

"I couldn't regard myself as personally repulsive. No man can, or, if he ever comes to do so, that is the end of him."

"No, by God, it is false! It wasn't a minuet that we stepped; it was a prison — a prison full of screaming hysterics, tied down so that they might not outsound the rolling of our carriage wheels as we went along the shaded avenues of the Taunus Wald. And yet I swear by the sacred name of my creator that it was true. It was true sunshine; the true music; the true splash of the fountains from the mouth of stone dolphins. For, if for me we were four people with the same tastes, with the same desires, acting — or, no, not acting — sitting here and there unanimously, isn't that the truth? If for nine years I have possessed a goodly apple that is rotten at the core and discover its rottenness only in nine years and six months less four days, isn't it true to say that for nine years I possessed a goodly apple?"

"Our intimacy was like a minuet, simply because on every possible occasion and in every possible circumstance we knew where to go, where to sit, which table we unanimously should choose; and we could rise and go, all four together, without a signal from any one of us, always to the music of the Kur orchestra, always in the temperate sunshine, or, if it rained, in discreet shelters."

"You may well ask why I write. And yet my reasons are quite many. For it is not unusual in human beings who have witnessed the sack of a city or the falling to pieces of a people to set down what they have witnessed for the benefit of unknown heirs or of generations infinitely remote; or, if you please, just to get the sight out of their heads."

"This is the saddest story I have ever heard."

"For the judging of contemporary literature the only test is one's personal taste. If you much like a new book, you must call it literature even though you find no other soul to agree with you, and if you dislike a book you must declare that it is not literature though a million voices should shout you that you are wrong. The ultimate decision will be made by Time."

"No author, I think, is deserving of much censure for vanity if, taking down one of his ten-year-old books, he exclaims: "Great heavens, did I write as well as that then?" for the implication always is that one does not write any longer so well and few are so envious as to censure the complacencies of an extinct volcano."

"No more Hope, no more Glory, no more parades for you and me any more. Nor for the country... nor for the world, I dare say... None... Gone."

"Only two classes of books are of universal appeal: the very best and the very worst."

"What the artist wishes to do — as far as you are concerned — is to take you out of yourself. As far as he is concerned, he wishes to express himself."

"He has the record on 40 metres. I think it's 4.72 seconds or something like that. Certainly Theo could have been a 100-metre runner."

"I trained with the lad last season at Southampton for two or three weeks. In all the years I played there was never anything I saw on a training pitch that took my breath away, but he was doing things on the pitch that made me stand up and say 'Wow'. He could go on and make a better player than Wayne Rooney."

"He is potentially brilliant, and he is going to be exciting, but potential is nothing unless you can produce it. I would think he's way, way, way, miles away from international World Cup football."

"For me, it is not so surprising England chose him. In training we all notice him because he is confident and very quick."

"I don't think the whole World Cup can rely on Theo Walcott but he can certainly come on and make a difference - and why not start him in a game or two? He is an interesting weapon because he can play wide and centrally. Then, once he is in front of the defender, nobody can catch him. He is a fantastic prospect."

"The kid can run through puddles and not make a splash. He is lightning quick and drifts over the ground."

"First catch your hare."

"As soon as (Sid) realised how much everyone hated Nancy, man, he stuck to her like a stamp to a letter. That´s why he was called "Sid": he hated the name Sid, so everyone called him Sid. That´s what that whole scene was about. But when we got fucked up, he got very violent actually. He was shooting speed before he met Nancy, and when she got him into dope it was a very easy switch to make; then it was all over for him. He`d never been with a woman before, where she had that kind of control over him... Nancy was an opportunist. I'm not even going to say whether I liked her or not, but she had a negative effect on Sid and he didn't need that."

"Everybody wanted to be with Sid, but unfortunately he came with Nancy. She was unbelievably thick-skinned, one of the most unlikable people I've met. Everybody could see through her, except Sid."

"Like Johnny Gonzales said, "I wanna live till I die"."

"I'm not chic, I could never be chic. I was in it from its inception."

"All I did was cash in on the fact that I'm good-looking and I have a good figure and girls like me."

"We had a death pact. I have to keep my half of the bargain. Please bury me next to my baby in my leather jacket, jeans and motor cycle boots. Goodbye."

"I've met the man in the street, and he's a cxxt."

"You just pick a chord, go twang, and you've got music."

"The band broke up because I couldn't bear Rotten anymore because he was an embarrassment with his silly hats and his, like, shabby, dirty, nasty looking appearance."

"American audiences are just the same as anybody else. Except a bit more boring."

"Well, you know, like, I don't really give a fuck what the general public think."

"I'll probably die by the time I reach 25. But I'll have lived the way I wanted to."

"I'm not vicious really. I consider myself kind-hearted. I love my mum."

"If you need help with anything, John is always there. And even he has made mistakes, does he have to be reminded of that all his life,"

"He has surprised us all, Maybe he is a bionic man. He recovers very quickly. Maybe he will be on the bench or even start, but we haven’t decided yet. Each injury depends on the person and he is very strong, not just mentally but also physically.""

"I want to thank John Terry for coming into the dressing room and congratulating us, he's a true gentleman."

"John is naturally somebody who attracts people to follow him, You know how you can dress any way you want, but if you don’t have natural style, it doesn’t matter? John has that leadership naturally."

"The careers of Maldini and that of John Terry are very close in comparison. Like Maldini at AC Milan, Terry was born in this club. Like Maldini, he went through the academy at this club. And he can play until he is 40. I don't see a big difference between them as players or people."

"I always knew what I wanted to do with my life and career, but I was helped along the way by a few people. I didn't need telling, but when people like Franco (Zola), Wisey (Dennis Wise) and Marcel (Desailly) take the time out to say, 'You've got the world at your feet if you do things right', then you think there must be something to it."

"The fact is, we're looking for a very small number of very evil needles in a very large haystack, which is the city of London."

"I am not in any way opposed to medieval studies (or for that matter Latin)."

"I don't mind there being some medievalists around for ornamental purposes, but there is no reason for the State to pay for them."

"One of the main purposes of university is to encourage people to think. But education for its own sake is a bit dodgy, too. The idea that you can learn about the world sitting in your study just reading books is not quite right... If we had less people studying philosophy, that would be unfortunate. I feel very less occupied by classics."

"Banks was a student of natural history in its broadest sense, and when at sea he made observations concerning birds, marine animals of various kinds, belonging to lower or higher orders, while on land he discusses in a most interesting manner insects and animals, the appliances and habits of the natives, and so forth."

"[General literacy would] teach [the poor] to despise their lot in life, instead of making them good servants in agriculture, and other laborious employment to which their rank in society has destined them;... it would enable them to read seditious pamphlets, vicious books, and publications against Christianity; it would render them insolent."

"The Dudley Committee's space standards began to be eroded in 1951, and were soon to be abandoned altogether by Harold Macmillan, Minister of Housing and Local Government in the new Conservative government. His task was to achieve the target of 300,000 dwellings per year, which was accomplished in 1953. It was in part attained by relaxing building licensing in the private sector and also by substantial increase in the public supply, to over 229,000 completions in that year. A drastic reduction in dwelling size in Macmillan's "people's house" contributed to the achievement: in 1953 the average five-person council house was over 110 sq ft smaller than in 1951, a reduction in floor area of 11 per cent."

"Introducing SuperMac."