Forced by a disobliging new world to shift on to the shoulders of an alien organization

[Lord Sackville] did not see himself in the role of a willing benefactor of the National Trust to be accorded grateful thanks on a public stage. He saw himself as the inheritor of a glorious palace the burden of which he had been forced by a disobliging new world to shift on to the shoulders of an alien organization while retaining, as far as it were possible, the status granted him by the old world.

J. Lees-Milne, People and Places: Country house donors and the national trust (1992), 181-2

For others the problem is the weather - for us it is war

He [Michael Rayment] went and looked at the ancient vineyards Gaston Hochar had revived in 1932 when he sent his son Serge to be trained in Bordeaux as a wine maker. He remarked later: 'You cannot have a vintage every year: for others the problem is the weather - for us it is war.'

J. Arlott, 'Battlefield vintage [March 1984]', ed. D.R. Allen, Arlott on wine (1986), 187

If you are an Alsatian winemaker you change your nationality and lose your market every 25 years

Halfway up the picturesque cobbled main street of Riquewihr are the shop, offices, and cellar of the family Hugel who have made and sold wine there for twelve generations, since 1636. In their main cellar they have the oldest wine cask still in use in world; made of oak in 1719 and elaborately carved, it contains 8800 litres - a thousand dozen bottles - and was acquired by one of the family after the French Revolution. They are realists - 'if you are an Alsatian winemaker you change your nationality and lose your market every 25 years' - as well as idealists about their wine. 

J. Arlott, 'Wines of Alsace [April 1973]', ed. D.R. Allen, Arlott on wine (1986), 137 

The English, he said, were so spoilt and awed and besotted with writing that they saw the plastic arts as secondary

I once interviewed a very short-tempered Howard Hodgkin, and he erupted with a paean to the inability of the English to see, or make, good artists. The fault, the insurmountable fault, was apparently Shakespeare's ... him and the Book of Common Prayer ... and the dictionary. It was the English language itself, so voluminous, logorrheic, sinewy, subtle, pugnacious and duplicitous (my words, not his). Only English could describe the gallimaufry and the cornucopia of itself. The English, he said, were so spoilt and awed and besotted with writing that they saw the plastic arts as secondary, a charming craft or self-expression. the best those not blessed by the word could hope for would by to become licensed illustrators of poetic insight. 

A.A. Gill, Pour me (2015), 73

Why would you drink like a prissy prancing mellifluous child of Dionysus in the vineyards of antiquity

We [the British] drink like this because we can, because it's our birthright, it's our heritage, our history, our myth and legend. Why would you drink like a prissy prancing mellifluous child of Dionysus in the vineyards of antiquity when you could bellow obscene songs in the mead halls of Asgard? We are the chilly, sweaty drunks of the north, of the long nights. We drink in the dark of the flickering shadows, not in the sunny, blue-hued shade of the south. We drink like this because we fucking can.

A.A. Gill, Pour me (2015), 16-17

Like a lot of A.A. Gill's memoir, this doesn't really stand analysis, but it's a great passage.

The worst was in the ruins of Warsaw, or the fields of Treblinka, or in the marshes of Belarus, or the pits of Babi Yar

The American and British soldiers who liberated the dying inmates from camps in Germany believed that they had discovered the horrors of Nazism. The images their photographers and cameramen captured of the corpses and living skeletons at Bergen-Belsen and Buchenwald seemed to convey the worst crimes of Hitler. As the Jews and Poles of Warsaw knew, and as Vasily Grossman and the Red Army soldiers knew, this was far from the truth. The worst was in the ruins of Warsaw, or the fields of Treblinka, or in the marshes of Belarus, or the pits of Babi Yar.

T. Snyder, Bloodlands (2010), 311-2

There's more on this around 382f. He is very good on uncovering our historiographical bias on this.

This cannot be said of any other European country

A rough estimate of two million total mortal losses on the territory of present-day Belarus during the Second World War seems reasonable and conservative. More than a million other people fled the Germans, and another two million were deported as forced labour or removed from their original residence for another reason. Beginning in 1944, the Soviets deported a quarter million more people to Poland and tens of thousands more to the Gulag. By the end of the war, half the population of Belarus had either been killed or moved. This cannot be said of any other European country. 

T. Snyder, Bloodlands (2010), 251

Traditional empires had never done anything like this to Jews

Traditional empires had never done anything like this to Jews. On any given day in the second half of 1941, the Germans shot more Jews than had been killed in the entire history of the Russian Empire

T. Snyder, Bloodlands (2010), 227

Hitler, on the other hand, planned in advance to starve unwanted Soviet populations to death

As German planners saw matters, the collective farm should be used again to starve millions of people: in fact, this time, the intention was to kill tens of millions. Collectivization had brought starvation to Soviet Ukraine, first as an unintended consequence of inefficiencies and unrealistic grain targets, and then as an intended consequence of the vengeful extractions of late 1932 and early 1933. Hitler, on the other hand, planned in advance  to starve unwanted Soviet populations to death.... This was the Hunger Plan, as formulated by 23 May 1941: during and after the war on the USSR, the Germans intended to feed German soldiers and German (and west European) civilians by starving the Soviet citizens they would conquer, especially in the big cities. 

T. Snyder, Bloodlands (2010), 162

There came a moment in Ukraine when there was little or no grain, and the only meat was human

Cannibalism is a taboo of literature as well as life, as communities seek to protect their dignity by suppressing the record of this desperate mode of survival . Ukrainians outside the Soviet Union, then and since, have treated cannibalism as a source of great shame, Yet while cannibalism in soviet Ukraine in 1933 says much about the Soviet system, it says nothing about Ukrainians as a people. With starvation will come cannibalism. There came a moment in Ukraine when there was little or no grain, and the only meat was human. ... In the villages smoke coming from a cottage chimney was a suspicious sign, since it tended to mean that cannibals were eating a kill or that families were roasting one of their members.

T. Snyder, Bloodlands (2010), 51

People were trying to find anything they could that they could fix, and you couldn't fix Elvis

But unfortunately, country music was starting to suffer because of rock and roll, and some people thought it had something to do with the old timey instruments like the mandolin, It wasn't, it was Elvis, but people were trying to find anything they could that they could fix, and you couldn't fix Elvis.

C. Louvin, Satan is real: the ballad of the Louvin brothers (2012), 220-1

Waylon said it would help

George Jones was probably the worst. I worked a show with him once and we were standing in the wings waiting to go on. He was acting a little peculiar, so I asked, "You been drinking, George?"

"Naw," he said. "I been working on my drinking problem."

"How's that?"

By way of an answer, he reached in his coat pocket, pulled out a handful of cocaine, and buried his nose in it, snorting. Then, when he'd fixed up that side of his nose, he went after the other.

"How's that working for you?" I asked

"Pretty good," he said. "Waylon said it would help."

C. Louvin, Satan is real: the ballad of the Louvin brothers (2012), 194-5

He wasn't worth the gunpowder it would've taken to blow him away

Some of Papa's brothers did go bad from their raising. He had one called Hummer, and he wasn't worth the gunpowder it would've taken to blow him away. 

C. Louvin, Satan is real: the ballad of the Louvin brothers (2012), 17-18

Soccer, a game which in my opinion, might, with profit, have been reserved for girls

'There are three sports played in this area at this time of year,' Platt said. 'One is soccer, a game which in my opinion, might, with profit, have been reserved for girls; one is rugby league, which is played very largely by people for money; and the third is rugby union, a fair and equitable game, played at our oldest universities as well as by all our major public schools. It is a game conceived by and therefore, quite naturally, played by gentlemen[.]

D. Storey, Saville (1976), 148

That was a real treat - squirrel meat with gravy and biscuits

Possum meat has a real god taste. Squirrels, too. That was a real treat - squirrel meat with gravy and biscuits. Nowadays you don't hardly see a squirrel in the Appalachian Mountains. I think we ate 'em all during the Depression.

L. Lynn, Coal miner's daughter (1976), 23