autobiographers-from-the-united-kingdom

"Grandfather's skirts would flop in the wind along the path and I would hang on. He often found things to do in the , excuses for getting out of the (kicking the swollen door, cursing) and so long as he took me he couldn't get up to much. I was a sort of hobble; he was my minder and I was his. ... He was good at funerals, being gaunt and lined, marked with mortality. He had a scar down his hollow cheek too, which Grandma had done with the carving knife one of the many times he had come home pissed and incapable."

"that he cares for nothing except what might commend itself to a virtuoso Pagan, and thinks only as men thought before Christianity awoke them to the consciousness of sin, of suffering, and of immortality."

"life seemed a perpetual-motion machine, or an effect of gravity, something cyclic and unstoppable."

"... never frequent enough to explain the amount of wine he got through ... Eventually the Church stopped his supply and after that the communicants got watered-down from Boots the chemist in , over the border."

"The only person who knew what was in the books was my mother's brother, Uncle Bill, and affected to despise them. He said that fiction was a waste of time, the opium of the bourgeoisie, that you had to get a real grip on the facts of life."

"cultivated the role of and/or witch, and — in the (1979) — rewrote the with pistol-toting Mother riding to the rescue at the last minute."

"... she saw herself to be: a demystifier, a critical observer of social processes and systems, an outsider who could see through to the inside, a radical realist. Lessing's initial creative roots lie in this ..."

"My grandfather was the subject of my best stories. ... He behaved fantastically badly. ... My grandfather was a priest of the Church of England in Wales ... He was, as it turned out, certainly a boozer, a womanizer — this I had always known about him ... He was also, interestingly enough, very much a sort of a disappointed writer ..."

"It is the habit of s to pick fruit, vegetables, etc., in the morning, and to bring in the day's supply at about eleven o'clock, and on Saturday to provide sufficient for two days' consumption. Except in the case of strawberries (which should be gathered, if possible, on the day on which they are to be eaten) and asparagus (which is infinitely better when cut just before the time for cooking), there is no objection to this plan, provided the garden produce is stored in the best manner. Carrots and turnips, s and onions, should be placed in wire racks; and s should be arranged root-end downmost in a shallow pan of fresh water. s and cauliflower may be treated likewise. should be placed in water as if it were a flower—not soused head over heels in that liquid."

"Chocolate Cake ¼ lb. chocolate grated 3 oz. flour. and melted in a basin 2 eggs. in the oven. 4 drops vanilla essence. 3 oz. butter. 1 teaspoonful baking ¼ lb. castor sugar. powder. Beat the butter, chocolate and sugar to a cream, add the vanilla. Beat the eggs and add the flour and baking powder and whip well for 5 minutes. Bake in a moderate oven in a buttered tin for an hour."

"I imagine that there are to-day no three names better known in our country than those of , , and , and this for the reason that they are connected with the intimate details of our lives! It was they who ordained we should or should not have bacon for our breakfast or for our . When husbands grumbled wives made a whipping-boy of the , and I have heard the demand of a child for jam dismissed with the words: "There ain't none, and if you're not a good boy I'll ask Lord Rhondda never to let you have no more neither.""

"In the first thirteen years of the food was cheap and plentiful, ... and the development of and which had come about in the latter part of the nineteenth century permitted a great variety of fare. But, in spite of this plenty, inquiry showed that for the most part the lower-paid workers were then considerably under-nourished, the better-paid just sufficiently nourished and the upper classes over-nourished. Though low wages explained to a great extent the under-nourishment, lack of knowledge of what to buy and how to cook it was, as it still is, responsible for some of the malnutrition both of the rich and of the poor."

"Michael Howard is an excellent and succinct writer and his book is very easy to read."

"An elegance of style which, since his much esteemed early work The Franco-Prussian War, has always distinguished his writing has not been achieved by a sacrifice of accuracy or relentless extension of his "wide learning", and his critical judgments – sometimes feline, sometimes ruthless – are usually cogent. More than that. I suppose that during recent decades nobody on either side of the Atlantic has so effectively brought military studies securely within the domain of the humane disciplines. If he has not civilized Bellona single-handed, he is primus inter pares."

"The system-builders, from Hegel to Toynbee, selected facts from history to prove an a priori thesis, and presented subjective works of art as objective statements of fact. But the old positivist belief in the possibility of a truly scientific and objective history is no longer held even by the most fanatical members of the Institute of Historical Research."

"The collapse at Sedan, like that of the Prussians at Jena sixty-four years earlier, was the result not simply of faulty command but of a faulty military system; and the military system of a nation is not an independent section of the social system but an aspect of it in its totality. The French had good reason to look on their disasters as a judgment. The social and economic developments of the past fifty years had brought about a military as well an industrial revolution. The Prussians had kept abreast of it and France had not. Therein lay the basic cause of her defeat."

"Hobbes's ideas seemed at least as relevant to the middle decades of the twentieth century as they had been to those of the seventeenth. (Happy the generation now growing up in our universities whose natural affinity appears to be rather with Rousseau!) A situation in which recourse to force is such an imminent probability that one's whole life and policy has to be adjusted to it is not, save in the most formal sense, a state of peace. It is for that reason that I equate peace with that unfashionable term 'Order'; an emphasis which probably brands me as a temperamental Tory rather than a temperamental Whig."

"The Foreign Secretary's Malcolm Rifkind] apologia for Nato enlargement is strong on dogmatic assertion but weak on reasoned argument... "Neither the new Nato nor its expansion poses a threat to Russia". That surely is for the Russians to say. After all, we were taught during the Cold War to base our policies on the capabilities of our adversaries rather than their intentions. To take account of Russian susceptibilities is not to accept their veto over our policies. It is simply to recognise that there can never be stability in Europe unless the Russians feel secure, and to ride roughshod over their susceptibilities is not a very sensible way to guarantee the security of their neighbours to the west."

""Covenants without swords are but words." Thus did Hobbes sum up, typically, one of the more elementary and depressing truths of political science. At the root of save all the most primitive or the most celestial of social organizations there must lie the sanction of force: force not to create right but to uphold it; force to assure order, to cow rebellion at home and to subdue enemies abroad. That it is not in itself the foundation of society, that it is only the one factor out of many which go to constitute a political community, has been emphasized by political thinkers at least since the days of St Augustine. But as yet no community of any degree of complexity has succeeded in existing without force, and the manner in which that force is organized and controlled will largely determine the political structure of the State."

"The gravamen of Geyl’s charge against Toynbee is not that he makes sense of the past: it is that to do so he resorts to quite ludicrous distortions, selecting evidence to conform to his views and ignoring all that does not. The abuse of history in fact lies less often in the motives of the historian than in his methods. It was after all the most honourable loyalties and affections which led Cardinal Gasquet to attempt the vindication of the monastic orders against the charges of Protestant historians; the formidable Coulton may have been inspired merely by acrimonious anti-Popish spite; but Coulton was an honest scholar, and Gasquet, one is forced to conclude, was not."

"Many Christians, of whom I am one, see no moral dilemma inherent in the possession, and if necessary the use, of nuclear weapons to deter their use against our own peoples by a Soviet state whose leaders are explicitly unconstrained by those considerations of "bourgeois morality" which so properly worry us. It is the initiation of the use of these weapons that causes so many of us such profound concern; and we have come to depend on that initiation because we have acquiesced in a decision to maintain a standard of living far higher than that of our adversaries, rather than provide the resources needed for a convincing defence by non-nuclear means of the territories of Western Europe."

"So long as the conventional balance remains so uneven, the Western strategy of relying on the first use of nuclear weapons to defend ourselves is not only morally dubious but politically incredible. But the responsibility for this strategy does not lie with the United States. It lies with the governments and peoples of Western Europe who have, for the last thirty years, refused to take the necessary measures to provide for their own conventional defence. That is where the CND is so dangerous. Their present campaign is sending a signal both to Moscow and to the United States, not simply that the peoples of Western Europe are not prepared to defend themselves with nuclear weapons, but that they are not prepared to defend themselves at all: a signal that could create a quite terrifying degree of instability by presenting the leaders of the Soviet Union with options that hitherto have been firmly closed to them."

"Some time ago one of my daughters persuaded me to do an online Pink Floyd quiz. I scored 56%."

"I knew I couldn't play 'Comfortably Numb' better than David or Roger, or indeed even the Australian Pink Floyd [tribute band]""

"You have a hatred of the Catholic Church, ... But, for your poetry you will be forgiven. But sin no more."

"More and more I realized that Ireland could rely only on force, in some form or another, to free herself."

"In order to play some sports there's quite a big cost implication, whereas football is relatively cheap.All you need is a ball and a couple of jumpers to practice."

"I think you can learn lots of skills playing football.Team building is one.You also learn how to solve problems within your team. Sometimes you find yourself playing with players that you don't necessarily like, but you have to put your differences aside for the good of the team.It gives you skills that you may not appreciate at the time."

"In football I enjoyed competing and wanted to be the best.That was also part of it.There were quite a few factors.I loved the game,it was a great way to socialize and I liked playing against girls because it meant competing on a level playing field."

"A great football team is the right balance and the right mixture of players.Good leaders, good communicators and good technicians.You need people that are strategically astute.People need passion, desire and most importantly, a willingness to keep learning."

"If you want to make it as a sportsperson, become knowledgeable in the sport you want to participate in.Think about the sport and what it can offer in its entirety.You shouldn't want to become a professional sportsperson because of the money.There's a lot more to gain from being involved in sport. Work hard to get what you want.If it's your ambition, go for it.You don't have to be the best in the world to make it as an elite athlete.You need to be a grafter and be prepared to sacrifice."

"I think part of being a good coach is knowing how to extract the best from different people."

"I think any sport needs to be accessible, affordable and practiced within the confines of a safe environment.Parents who have young children want to be able to leave their child somewhere which has good facilities and where they're going to be looked after."

"Football was just the playing I enjoyed at first,but the longer you're playing the more it becomes a social event.You meet new people and make new friends.I still know some of the people I played with when I was 11-years-old, which is nice."

"There are lots of positives to come out of playing all sports, not just football.Team games can offer you different life skills than an individual sport can.Football improves your time management you have to be places on time and disciplined in terms of training."

"Doris Phipps and Lily-Annie Pollett, though they looked incredibly plain and depraved in oyster satin blouses, tight-seated, bell-bottomed trousers, red nails on dirty hands, greasy curls hanging on their shoulders, a cigarette for ever glued to their lips, were really very nice, kind girls."

"Laura looked up at the shelf of her novels, with Adrian Coates's name on their backs. She had been lucky, she thought, to fail into the hands of so agreeable and helpful a publisher. ... So in time her first story went to Adrian, who recognising in it a touch of good badness almost amounting to genius, gave her a contract for two more."

"The organ pealed forth, though never except in fiction does it do this, rather blaring and bursting, or in more refined cases quavering. In every heart began to spring that exquisite hope, seldom if ever realised, that the bride will have had a fit, or eloped with someone else."

"One more long happy Sunday had joined the pale golden Sundays that are gone. Better — to us at any rate — than Sundays now. Though these latter-day Sundays may be real enough, to us they are but the illusion and the bygone days the reality. There is always in our minds the hope that we may find again those golden unhastening days and wake up and dream."

"Motörhead is nothing if not democratic, but I don't think it's fair to be waving your dick around when people are minding their own business and might not want to see it."

"Apparently people don't like the truth, but I do like it; I like it because it upsets a lot of people."

"As the decades passed, everyone knew Lemmy from Motorhead wouldn’t really live forever. It was inevitable that the legendary rocker’s hedonistic lifestyle would catch up with him. It seemed more and more imminent as his health problem affected the touring schedule of the band especially in the last few years of his life. However, we had all hoped he would at least outlive Keith Richards. Though many might argue it was sad to see the mighty Lemmy in such a frail state towards the end of his life, the contrary can also be said. How amazing was it that a man in his late 60s lived to his last months literally partying, meeting women all over the world, gambling and playing rock music to tons of fans? Lemmy lived his life as his own, to his last days, and never regretted a thing. He was lucky in the sense that most people would have dropped dead 20 years before him with the amount of meth cigarettes and Jack Daniels he consumed. But the point was that Lemmy was a bad motherfucker till the end. He was one of rock’s most respected party animals and talented bass players. Motorhead will without a doubt continue to inspire generations of rockers to come, ensuring that Lemmy’s musical legacy will never die."

"(when asked if he has any regrets) None. Life's too short."

"You can’t keep guys faithful. If people want to get married and then run around, I think that’s dishonest. If you’re going to get married, get fucking married and that’s it. I never saw a chick that could stop me looking at all the others, so I didn’t."

"If you can give the kids a good time then that’s all it’s for. Forget art and all that – that’s bullshit. If you can send that shiver down a kid’s back then that’s what it’s all about. All else is bullshit."

"In your twenties, you think you are immortal. In your thirties, you hope you are immortal. In your forties, you just pray it doesn’t hurt too much, and by the time you reach my age, you become convinced that, well, it could be just around the corner."

"We wanna be like Status Quo and go on forever. Chuck Berry never changed. Little Richard never changed. I’d rather be like that and stick to a formula we’re happy with."

"You can't have everything, can you? Where would you put it?"

"I am so sad to hear of her passing but at the same time so glad to have met her and experienced first-hand her warm, fun-loving personality. Her voice will sing in my heart forever."

"As we commemorate 75 years since Victory in Europe, we must all remember the brave boys and what they sacrificed for us … they left their families and homes to fight for our freedom, and many lost their lives trying to protect us and our liberties. This year, we must commemorate this special anniversary apart. I hope that VE Day will remind us all that hope remains even in the most difficult of times and that simple acts of bravery and sacrifice still define our nation as the NHS works so hard to care for us. Most of all, I hope today serves as a reminder that however hard things get, we will meet again."