The minstrel was known as Roland le Fartere and that the trick was to make a leap, a whistle and a fart

Henry II, in the twelfth century, had been so fond of the favourite party trick of one of his minstrels that he gave him a thirty-acre estate in Suffolk, on the sole condition that he and his heirs repeated it in the royal presence every Christmas. When one learns that the minstrel was known as Roland le Fartere and that the trick was to make a leap, a whistle and a fart, one can understand why his descendants had alienated the estate by the 1330s.

J. Barker Agincourt (2005), 139

For they are necessary to have above all else, especially money

First of all, he [the wise prince] will consider how much strength he has or can obtain, how many men are available and how much money. For unless he is well supplied with those two basic elements, it is folly to wage war, for they are necessary to have above all else, especially money.

Christine de Pizan, cited in J. Barker, Agincourt (2005), 103

There would be lines of barracks beneath the deanary gardens.

We wandered atop the walls: from here to Monk Bar, another medieval gatehouse, they follow the line of the Roman fortress's defences, angling round the [York] minster and affording lovely views of the soaring Norman architecture. Ottaway looked down longingly on the land he would never get to dig. There would be lines of barracks, he reckoned, beneath the deanary gardens. 'In my mind's eye I see it excavated,' he said. 'Not in my lifetime, but one day, when they build a nuclear power station here.'

C. Higgins, Under another sky (2013), 166

Flattery calms all turbulence, emotional and atmospheric

One day, before taking off from San Francisco, flight attendants summoned Hyland [the pilot] from the cockpit to deal with a frightened passenger. It turned out to be John Steinbeck, who needed several drinks to quell his fear of flying. Hyland thought the author of The grapes of wrath was America's greatest living writer, and told him so. Flattery calms all turbulence, emotional and atmospheric. Whenever Steinbeck needed to fly cross-country, he phoned Hyland to learn his schedule, and planned his flights accordingly.

A. Beam, A great idea at the time: the rise, fall, and curious afterlife of the Great Books (2008), 144

But the Bible is an oriental book. Its alien imagery has nothing to do with us.

 To my mind King James's Bible has been a very harmful influence on English prose. I am not so stupid as to deny its great beauty. It is majestical. But the Bible is an oriental book. Its alien imagery has nothing to do with us. Those hyperboles, those luscious metaphors, are foreign to our genius. I cannot but think that not the least of the misfortunes that the Secession from Rome brought upon the spiritual life of our country is that this work for so long a period became the daily, and with many the only, reading of our people. Those rhythms, that powerful vocabulary, that grandiloquence, became part and parcel of the national sensibility. 

W.S. Maugham, The summing up (1938), 34

He had crossed out in pencil all the passages in the Book of Common Prayer that praised God

It is strange that the devout should think God can be pleased when they slavishly pay them to him. When I was young I had an elderly friend who used often to ask me to stay with him in the country. He was a religious man and he read prayers to the assembled household every morning. But he had crossed out in pencil all the passages in the Book of Common Prayer that praised God. He said that there was nothing so vulgar as to praise people to their faces and, himself a gentleman, he could not believe that God was so ungentlemanly as to like it. At the time it seemed to me a curious eccentricity. I think now that my friend showed very good sense.

W.S. Maugham, The summing up (1938), 262

I have read a good many books on the art of fiction and all ascribe very small value to the plot

As a writer of fiction I go back, through innumerable generations, to the teller of tales round the fire in the cavern that sheltered neolithic men. I have had some sort of story to tell and it has interested me to tell it. To me it has been a sufficient object in itself. It has been my misfortune that for some time now a story has been despised by the intelligent. I have read a good many books on the art of fiction and all ascribe very small value to the plot. (In passing I should like to say that I cannot understand the sharp distinction some clever theorists make between story and plot. A plot is merely the pattern on which the story is arranged.) From these books you would judge that it is only a hindrance to the intelligent author and a concession that he makes to the stupid demands of the public.

W.S. Maugham, The summing up (1938), 216

The fact is that they [The English] are suspicious of form

The sermons that Henry James preached to the English on form in the novel aroused their interest, but have little affected their practice. The fact is that they are suspicious of form. They find in it a sort of airlessness; its constraint irks them; they feel that when the author has fixed upon his material a wilful shape life has slipped through his fingers.  

W.S. Maugham, The summing up (1938), 206

As soon as I could afford it I bought a house in Mayfair

It was fortunate for me that I suddenly achieved popularity as a dramatist and so was relieved of the necessity of writing a novel once a year to earn my living. I found plays easy to write; the notoriety they brought me was not unpleasing; and they earned for me enough money to enable me to live less straitly than I had been obliged to. I have never had the bohemian trait of being unconcerned for the morrow. I have never liked to borrow money. I have hated to be in debt. Nor has the squalid life had any attraction for me. I was not born in squalid circumstances. As soon as I could afford it I bought a house in Mayfair.

There are people who despise possessions. Of course when they say that it ill becomes the artist thus to cumber himself they may be right, but it is not a view that artists themselves have held. They have never lived from choice in the garrets in which their admirers like to see them. They have much more often ruined themselves by the extravagance with which they conducted themselves.

W.S. Maugham, The summing up (1938), 169-70

In France a man who has ruined himself for women is generally regarded with sympathy and admiration

English is the only modern language in which it has been found necessary to borrow from the Latin a word with a depreciatory meaning, the word uxorious, for a man's devoted love for his wife. That love should absorb a man has seemed to them unworthy. In France a man who has ruined himself for women is generally regarded with sympathy and admiration; there is a feeling that it was worth while, and the man who has done it feels even a certain pride in the fact; in England he will be thought and will think himself a damned fool. That is why Antony and Cleopatra has always been the least popular of Shakespeare's greater plays. Audiences have felt that it was contemptible to throw away an empire for a woman's sake. Indeed if it were not founded on an accepted legend they would be unanimous in asserting that such a thing was incredible.

W. S. Maugham, The summing up (1938), 137

Ibsen as we know had a meagre power of invention

Ibsen as we know had a meagre power of invention; his characters under different names are very dully repeated and his intrigue from play to play is little varied. It is not a gross exaggeration to say that his only gambit is the sudden arrival of a stranger who comes into a stuffy room and opens the windows; whereupon the people who were sitting there catch their death of cold and everything ends unhappily.

W. S. Maugham, The summing up (1938), 131

They are easily disillusioned and then they are angry with you, for it was the illusion they loved

It is dangerous to let the public behind the scenes. They are easily disillusioned and then they are angry with you, for it was the illusion they loved; they do not understand that what interests you is the way in which you have created the illusion. Anthony Trollope ceased to be read for thirty years because he confessed that he wrote at regular hours and took care to get the best price he could for his work.

W. S. Maugham, The summing up (1938), 77-8

I still remember the rather absurd arguments that were held about the calling I should adopt

I still remember the rather absurd arguments that were held about the calling I should adopt. A suggestion was made that I should become a civil servant and my uncle wrote to an old Oxford friend of his who held an important position in the Home Office for his advice. It was that, owing to the system of examinations and the class of persons it had introduced into the government service, it was now no place for a gentleman. That settled that. It was finally decided that I should become a doctor.

W. S. Maugham, The summing up (1938), 59-60

Immortality for literary productions lasts in any case but a few hundred years

I think few serious writers, by which I do not only mean writers of serious things, can be entirely indifferent to the fate that will befall their works after their death. It is pleasant to think, not that one may achieve immortality (immortality for literary productions lasts in any case but a few hundred years and then is seldom more than the immortality of the schoolroom) but that one may be read with interest by a few generations and find a place, however small, in the history of one's country's literature. But so far as I am concerned, I look upon this modest possibility with scepticism.

W. S. Maugham, The summing up (1938), 11-12

When I met him again years later, he still knew every joke I'd used in my debut performance and recited them back to me.

 [Bob] Monkhouse was a student of comedy who taped every comedy radio show and videoed the debut set of every comic working in television. He knew everyone's act. When I met him again years later, he still knew every joke I'd used in my debut performance and recited them back to me.

L. Henry, Who am I, again? (2019), 107-8 

It turns out that the calmer this Hulk gets, the stronger she gets

It turns out that the calmer this Hulk [She Hulk] gets, the stronger she gets ... the story’s climax involves her whaling the bejeesus out of the Dark Avengers as she meditates: “I flow with the universe. I bend like the supple reed. I envelop my enemies.”

D. Wolk, All of the Marvels (2015), 251 and footnote

its only legible words of dialogue are the few that the dog understands

One issue is presented from the point of view of Hawkeye’s dog, Lucky: its only legible words of dialogue are the few that Lucky understands, its colour palette is limited (to the yellows and blues that dogs can see!) and its ‘narration’ takes the form of associative maps of little icon-like images (a trick lifted from Chris Ware’s comics).

D. Wolk, All of the Marvels (2021), 22. footnote

The Cedar Walk has been planned and planted by someone was never going to see it

The Cedar Walk has been planned and planted by someone was never going to see it - not him, nor his children, not even his children's children, though they would have had a clearer view of what it was going to be. What amazingly generous confidence in the future those eighteenth-century landscape designers had!

D. Athill, Alive, alive oh! (2015), 23-4

The words 'folk museum' bode ill, suggesting rough brown pottery, more worthy than seductive

 Other beautiful things? Oh yes, the Folk Museum at Santa Fe. The words 'folk museum' bode ill, suggesting rough brown pottery, more worthy than seductive. But folk produce much that is not brown (the Rio carnival for example), and the stuff in this museum was collected from all over by man of the theatre, a master of the art of Display, which makes it a splendiferous palace of colour and fantasy in which you are soon running mad in your attempt to see everything, and there is so much that it's impossible do do that but you end up feeling dizzy with joy. To go to Santa Fe without visiting that museum would be a grave mistake.

D. Athill, Alive, alive oh! (2015), 5

Popular imagination likes its fast bowlers to be ale swilling extroverts

Man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upwards and John Augustine Snow, poet, thinker, introvert would surely be one of the last to disagree with the Old Arab proverb. Assaulted on the boundary edge of a great Test arena, dropped by his county for lack of effort, stood in a corner by England's selectors for barging over an Indian Test batsman at Lord's and while all this was swirling around him, writing and getting published a volume of poems -- controversy, thy name was Snow, in the early 1970's. Popular imagination likes its fast bowlers to be ale swilling extroverts, but this enigmatic cricketer refuses to be typed ... reading, music, painting, poetry are as necessary to him as food and fresh air ... He owes his inclusion in one of the most coveted sections of this Almanack to none of these things. He is here on naked merit, which first played a major part in bringing The Ashes back home to England after an absence of twelve years and then helped keep them here last summer. A haul of 55 wickets in two series against Australia is his passport to cricket immortality. 

B. Easterbrook, 'FIFTY YEARS AGO: John Snow', L. Booth (ed.), Wisden Cricketers' Almanack (2022), 1483

Looking up the original 1973 Cricketers of the year text, I discover this also brilliant anecdote: At the England team's Harrogate hotel during the fourth Test at Leeds last July, Basil d'Oliveira in an animated dinner table conversation said to him "The ultimate thing in life is to play for England." Snow replied quietly "The ultimate thing in life is death."

There's a woman in there!

Change hurts. The Daily Telegraph's E.W. "Jim" Swanton once burst out of the committee room here at Lord's, exclaiming in a hoarse and outraged whisper, "There's a woman in there!" "Yes, Jim, of course there is," it was the explained. "It's the Saturday of the Ashes Test. It's the Queen." Jim absorbed this for a second, before coming back with "Nevertheless..."

S. Fry, 'MCC Cowdrey lecture',  L. Booth (ed.), Wisden Cricketers' Almanack (2022), 124

Asked to name the current players he admired, he replied: "None."

Where the dreamy Dexter enjoyed flights of fancy, Ray Illingworth was the canny Yorkshireman. Asked by The Cricketer around the time of his appointment to name the current players he admired, he replied: "None." Nothing during his reign [as chair of selectors] suggested a change of heart.

R. Hobson, 'A history of selection', L. Booth (ed.), Wisden Cricketers' Almanack (2022), 95

That moment when French culture was at its most refined, most searching

I've finally understood what this house is about, this extraordinary attempt to make one space after another work without discomfort or falsity. You want to make a perfect stage set for conversation, enlightenment, for that moment when French culture was at its most refined, most searching.

E. de Waal, Letters to Camondo (2021), 111

A separate pantry for decanting wine

In this house one room leads onwards, unfolds, interlocks. I stand in your library and can go in three directions. The grand salon leads to four other spaces. There are alcoves and spiral staircases from bedrooms up to the servants' rooms so that clothes can appear and disappear. You catch sight of a winding staircase arcing up, bisected by a balcony. There is a hidden suite of rooms for the butler, a silver chamber, a separate pantry for decanting wine.

I think your bathroom might be the only room with one door.

E. de Waal, Letters to Camondo (2021), 52

She had not reckoned with the sheer force of routine in a rich nineteenth-century household

Laura did not achieve the new way of living with her baby which she had wished. She had not reckoned with the sheer force of routine in a rich nineteenth-century household. Had she decided to live by herself with her illegitimate child—and this would have meant becoming a bohemian—she might have succeeded. As it was, in her mother’s house in Paris, her plans were defeated by nurse-maids, chambermaids, the housekeeper, her mother’s doctor. It was not possible for her to be with the child for more than a couple of hours a day. It was not possible for her to occupy herself with all the daily chores connected with looking after him—washing linen, ironing, cleaning the nursery, preparing his food, etc.; there were servants to do such jobs. The most that she could achieve was bathing him in the late afternoon under the eyes of the nurse and the maid who brought up the hot water.

J. Berger, G (1974), 27

I have. With icing for his beard. They were fantastic.

One of the top-selling items in Highgate's small gift shops in a cookie-cutter in the shape of Karl Marx. 'Before we had the cookie-cutter, we sold lots of The Communist Manifesto,' Nick Powell, the visitor experience manager, told me. 'The sales of those have dropped off dramatically.'
'Did you have to think carefully,' I asked 'whether it was right to stock the cookie-cutters?'
'Do you mean are we dishonouring Marx by selling these things?'
'Yes,' I said. 'By bringing capitalism to bear upon his image.'
Powell laughed. He seemed to think the question absurdly po-faced, and perhaps it was. So I tried another: Have you ever made any Marx cookies yourself?'
'I have,' he said nodding. 'With icing for his beard. They were fantastic.'  

P. Ross,  A tomb with a view (2020), 117

Their role is to sit in the pew and watch it taking place

An Anglican requiem mass (he [Julian Litten], unlike Cola, believes in life after death) will take place at All Saints, King's Lynn, at eleven o'clock on a Wednesday morning - 'Wednesdays are always good days for funerals. If anyone wants to come up from London, they can catch the 9.44 and will be in good time.'

From the balcony of the church, a trumpet, trombone, kettle drum and choir will play the Prelude to Charpentier's Te Deum - and the funeral will begin. It will be done properly, soberly, tastefully, which is to say in accordance with tradition. ... 'There will be no eulogies,' he sneered. 'Nobody standing up and talking about me. No ghastly child reading a poem and bursting into tears. No member of the laity reading any of the lessons. I think it's tish. Rubbish. It's got nothing to do with the English funeral. Their role is to sit in the pew and watch it taking place.  

P. Ross,  A tomb with a view (2020), 31

Rufa not only had the kind of hair which inspired poets, she read German theology in the original

Rufa [Elizabeth Rebecca Brabant] not only had the kind of hair which inspired poets, she read German theology in the original and enjoyed the love of a kind, clever man.

K. Hughes, George Eliot: the last Victorian (1998), 91

Revolution, liberation and upheaval were to have no place in Mary Ann’s moral world.

Revolution, liberation and upheaval were to have no place in Mary Ann’s moral world.

Nor were they to have any in her fiction. George Eliot’s heroes and heroines may struggle against their small-minded communities, but in the course of their lives they learn that true heroism entails giving up the glory of conflict. Reconciliation with what previously seemed petty is the way that leads to moral growth.

K. Hughes, George Eliot: the last Victorian (1998), 78

The idea would be to live half a life very well.

'I don't like being alone at all,; she said. 'To live a life without physical intimacy is half a life.'
I thought this was true, but if that was the case the idea would be to live half a life very well.

D. Levy, Real Estate (2021), 189

If old women are supposed to not want to cause any trouble, Celia had decided to cause as much trouble as possible

Celia was one of the few women I knew who was very like herself. She was more like herself than I was like myself. She did not try to please anyone and certainly did not fit the patriarchy's idea of what an old woman should be like: patient, self-sacrificing, servicing everyone's needs, pretending to be cheerful when she felt suicidal. If old women are supposed to not want to cause any trouble, Celia had decided to cause as much trouble as possible.

D. Levy, Real Estate (2021), 124

How would a writer set about the massive task of giving a female character no consciousness

How would a writer set about the massive task of giving a female character no consciousness, not even an unconscious life, as if that were the most normal thing in the world? Perhaps it was normal in his world. And yet it takes a lot of work to construct any sort of character in fiction.

D. Levy, Real Estate (2021), 17

No, for I do not know where I should put it

[Thomas] Blount’s execution resulted in the one of the greatest displays of wit in the face of adversity ever recorded. As he was sitting down watching his extracted entrails being burned in front of him, he was asked if he would like a drink. ‘No, for I do not know where I should put it’, he replied.

I. Mortimer, The fears of Henry IV (2007), 209

Historians have argued for many years over whether Richard went mad in 1397

Historians have argued for many years over whether Richard went mad in 1397. In the mid-twentieth century it was thought that he had indeed lost his mind, and the death of Queen Anne was identified as one of the catalyst. But really this is a modern myth.

I. Mortimer, The fears of Henry IV (2007), 136

No one, not even the king, was so well connected as Henry

Twelve of the most prominent young men of the realm were to be knighted in a special service. … If ever there was an event which demonstrated Henry’s position at the heart of English aristocracy, it was this ceremony. Imagine the oak doors to the chapel closing behind them, and each of the twelve youths casting sideways glances at each other as they stood ready to be knighted. No one, not even the king, was so well connected as Henry. He was related to all but one of them.

I. Mortimer, The fears of Henry IV (2007), 33

Henry and Richard were born rivals

Henry and Richard were born rivals. For a start, they were almost exactly the same age. Richard was born at Bordeaux, in Gascony, on 6 January 1367; Henry was born at Bolingbroke, in Lincolnshire, just three months later. Although they would not have met until they were five or six, they were regarded as a pair, on account of them both being the king’s grandchildren and the same age. Moreover, they were the only two royal children of this age; the next eldest, Roger Mortimer, was seven years younger. … they were the heirs of the two most important dynasties in England. More than a hundred years earlier, King Henry III had two sons The elder had been crowned Edward I. The younger, Edmund, has been endowed with a massive inheritance in the north of England, centred on Lancaster which gave rise to his title of earl of Lancaster.

I. Mortimer, The fears of Henry IV (2007), 19

I don't dream ... and not for "free" anyway

I once put together a book called The Tiger Garden: A Book of Writer's Dreams. Every day I sat at my desk typing up other people's dreams. Because it was a charity project intended to benefit Amnesty International, I was unable to offer payment to contributors. 'I don't dream,' wrote actor and writer Dirk Bogarde in response to my request, 'and not for "free" anyway.' The book was dismissed by critic Harry Ritchie as 'uniquely pointless and stupid', so he's not going to enjoy the current book, which will feature some of my dreams about books, writers, bookshops and critics, including at least one in which Harry Ritchie appears. 

N. Royle, White spines: confessions of a book collector (2020), 15

A deep, pathological loathing, for that word - 'reread'

The writer Conrad Williams, has a dislike, if not a deep, pathological loathing, for that word - 'reread'. I know what he means. At least, I think I do. You know the sort of the thing 'I'm rereading Proust.' 'I was rereading Hamlet the other day' 'This summer, when we go to Tuscany, I am looking forward to rereading Nakokov's stories.' That sort of thing. They want you to know they've read Proust or Hamlet or Nakokov's stories before. In fact they're terrified lest you think they're so ignorant and poorly read that they're only just getting round to reading Proust or Hamlet or Nakokov's stories.

N. Royle, White spines: confessions of a book collector (2020),13 

The English usually boil their vegetables to a submissive, sticky pulp

There is a great difference in the ordinary preparation of vegetables by the English and by us. The English usually boil their vegetables to a submissive, sticky pulp, in which the shape and, as some say, the flavor have long since been overcome. Our cooks do not cook their veg­etables nearly so long, are apt to like them crisp. The English do not use nearly as many onions as we do and they use practically no garlic at all. The little gardens are a kind of symbol of revolt against foreign methods.

J. Steinbeck [15 July 1943], Once there was a war (1959), 70

And it would be amusing if, after all the fuss and heiling, all the marching and indoctrination, the only contribution to the world by the Nazis was “Lilli Marlene.”

This is the story of a song. Its name is “Lilli Marlene” and it was written in Germany in 1938 by Norbert Schultze and Hans Leit. In due course they tried to publish it and it was rejected by about two dozen publishers. Finally it was taken up by a singer, Lala Anderson, a Swedish girl, who used it for her signature song. Lala Anderson has a husky voice and is what you might call the Hildegarde type.

...

Eventually Lala made a record of the song and even it was not very popular. But one night the German station in Belgrade, which sent out programs to Rommel’s Afrika Korps, found that, due to a little bombing, it did not have many records left, but among a few uninjured disks was the song “Lilli Marlene.” It was put on the air to Africa and by the next morning it was being hummed by the Afrika Korps and letters were going in demanding that it be played again.

The story of its popularity in Africa got back to Berlin, and Madame Goering, who used to be an opera singer, sang the song of the inconstant “Lilli Marlene” to a very select group of Nazis, if there is such a thing. Instantly the song was popular and it was played constantly over the German radio until Goering himself grew a little sick of it, and it is said that, since inconstancy is a subject which is not pleasant to certain high Nazi ears, it was suggested that the song be quietly assassinated. But mean­while “Lilli Marlene” had got out of hand. Lala Ander­son was by now known as the “Soldiers’ Sweetheart.” She was a pin-up girl. Her husky voice ground out of portable phonographs in the desert.

So far, “Lilli” had been solely a German problem, but now the British Eighth Army began to take prisoners and among the spoils they got “Lilli Marlene.” And the song swept through the Eighth Army. Australians hummed it and fastened new words to it. The powers hesitated, con­sidering whether it was a good idea to let a German song about a girl who did not have all the sterling virtues be­come the favorite song of the British Army, for by now the thing had crept into the First Army and the Americans were beginning to experiment with close harmony and were putting an off-beat into it. It wouldn’t have done the powers a bit of good if they had decided against the song.

It was out of hand. The Eighth Army was doing all right in the field and it was decided to consider “Lilli Marlene” a prisoner of war, which would have happened anyway, no matter what the powers thought about it. Now “Lilli” is getting deeply into the American Forces in Africa. The Office of War Information took up the problem and decided to keep the melody, but to turn new words against the Germans. Whether this will work or not remains to be seen. “Lilli Marlene” is international. It is to be suspected that she will emerge beside the barrack walls—young and fair and incorruptly inconsistent.

There is nothing you can do about a song like this ex­cept to let it go. War songs need not be about the war at all. Indeed, they rarely are. In the last war, “Madelon” and “Tipperary” had nothing to do with war. The great Australian song of this war, “Waltzing Matilda,” con­cerns itself with sheep-stealing. It is to be expected that some groups in America will attack “Lilli,” first, on the ground that she is an enemy alien, and, second, because she is no better than she should be. Such attacks will have little effect. “Lilli” is immortal. Her simple desire to meet a brigadier is hardly a German copyright. Politics may be dominated and nationalized, but songs have a way of leaping boundaries.

And it would be amusing if, after all the fuss and heiling, all the marching and indoctrination, the only contribution to the world by the Nazis was “Lilli Marlene.”

J. Steinbeck [12 July 1943], Once there was a war (1959), 61-3 

When Army Supply ordered X millions of rubber contraceptive and disease-preventing items, it had to be explained that they were used to keep moisture out of machine-gun barrels

A third sternly held rule was that five million perfectly normal, young, energetic, and concupiscent men and boys had for the period of the War Effort put aside their habitual preoccupation with girls. The fact that they carried pictures of nude girls called pin-ups, did not occur to anyone as a paradox. The convention was the law. When Army Supply ordered X millions of rubber contraceptive and disease-preventing items, it had to be explained that they were used to keep moisture out of machine-gun barrels - and perhaps they did.   

J. Steinbeck, Once there was a war (1959), 10

Defence of private enterprise, private ownership and order are the only enduring Tory positions

The tory party have often been seen as a party of consistent ideology and as defenders of core principles and interests. I am never convinced by this argument. What is remarkable about the Conservatives is not their ideological or interest tenacity, but their willingness to jettison positions which no longer appeal: laissez-faire, the House of Lords, the Union with all Ireland, the empire, have all been abandoned when it suited the party, as to some extent have been the monarchy, the Church of England and the agricultural interest. Defence of private enterprise, private ownership and order are the only enduring Tory positions.

A. Seldon (ed.), How Tory governments fall (1996), 18 

In 1974, people using subways and railroads in and around New York were still riding on tracks laid between 1904 and 1933

During the following decade —1955-1965 — federal and state governments spent on new highways in the metropolitan area — the new highways recommended in the Joint Program — about $1,200,000,000. They spent not a cent on mass transportation. ... During this decade [following], 439 miles of new highways were built - and not one mile of new railroad or subway. In 1974, people using subways and railroads in and around New York were still riding on tracks laid between 1904 and 1933, the last year before Robert Moses came to power in the city. Not a single mile had been built since.

R. Caro, The power broker (1974), 930

There were suddenly, with the exception of a tiny fort converted into an aquarium, no buildings at all

In the upper part of Manhattan the masses of concrete were mostly sixty feet high, or seventy; in the centre of the island, they were a hundred and fifty or two hundred. But as the island narrowed towards its southern tip, they were four hundred feet high, five hundred, cramming closer and closer together, bulking up higher and higher as they loomed southward pressing inexorably toward the island's tip - until at the very tip, at the very end of the most crowded island in the world, at the very spot in the entire world in which buildings should have been crowded most closely together, there were suddenly, with the exception of a tiny fort converted into an aquarium, no buildings at all. At a point at which a single square foot of land was worth thousands of dollars, at which the value of an acre was computed not in millions of dollars, but in the tens of millions, there sat 967,032 square metres of land - 22.2 acres - vacant except for grass and trees, pathways between them, benches, and a broad, breezy waterfront promenade.

R. Caro, The power broker (1974), 647-8

You bring in a beautiful picture ... and you can see his eyes light up

It never ceases to amaze me how you can talk and talk and talk to some guy about something you've got in mind, and he isn't very impressed, and then you bring in a beautiful picture of it or, better yet, a scale model with the bridge all in white and the water nice and blue, see, and you can see his eyes light up. 

Jack Madigan, cited in R. Caro, The power broker (1974), 623

But all the highways and parks and bridges he had built were little more than nothing next to the highways and parks and bridges that Robert Moses wanted to build

Robert Moses had built public works on a scale unmatched by any other individual in the history of America. But all the highways and parks and bridges he had built were little more than nothing next to the highways and parks and bridges that Robert Moses wanted to build. ... After a decade and a half of building public works, the public works he has not yet built loomed before him larger than ever. 

R. Caro, The power broker (1974), 619

Planners in general, he said, are "socialists," "revolutionaries" who "do not reach the masses directly but through familiar subsurface activity"

Moses applied these labels generously, branding them not only onto labor leaders ("radical, left-wing") and New Deal Brain Trusters (Rexford Tugwell he assailed as a "Planning Red") and urban planners who dared to offer suggestions for the future of New York City ("regarded in Russia as our greatest builder," was how he characterised Frank Lloyd Wright; he called Lewis Mumford "an outspoken revolutionary"; Walter Gropius, he said, was seeking to change the American system by advocating "a philosophy which doesn't belong here"; planners in general, he said, are "socialists," "revolutionaries" who "do not reach the masses directly but through familiar subsurface activity ....) but onto youthful city officials who dared to stand up to him and who had, his bloodhounds discovered once allowed enthusiasm and naïveté to lead them into membership in some organization that they later learned was a Communist front.

R. Caro, The power broker (1974), 471

230,000 dead rats were counted in a single week at the zoo site alone

In Central Park, Moses' men restored Olmstead's long-defaced buildings, replanted the Shakespeare garden, placing next to every flower a quotation from the Bard in which it was mentioned, and exterminated herds of rats; 230,000 dead ones were counted in a single week at the zoo site alone. 

R. Caro, The power broker (1974), 374

Here we were on an absolutely deserted sand bar - there was no was even to get there but by boat - ... talking about bathhouses like palaces and parking lots that held ten thousand cars

One of the famous architects standing around Moses said, "Are you crazy?" The others knew what they architect meant. As one was later to put is: "It was the scale of the thing - nothing on a scale like this had ever been done in public recreation in America. Here we were on an absolutely deserted sand bar - there was no was even to get there but by boat - and here was this guy drawing X's on the back of an envelope and talking about bathhouses like palaces and parking lots that held ten thousand cars. Why, I don't think there was a parking lot of ten thousand cards anywhere in America. And landscaping? Landscaping on a sand bar? We weren't sure anything would grow on a sand bar. We thought he was nuts." 

R. Caro, The power broker (1974), 223

But free and open debate had not made his dreams come true.

Once, no reformer, no idealist, had believed more sincerely than he in free and open discussion. No reformer, no idealist, had argued more vigorously that legislative bills should be fully debated, and that the debates should be published so that the citizenry could be informed on the issues. 

But free and open debate had not made his dreams come true. Instead, politicians had crushed them. And now he was going to make sure that, with the exception of Al Smith and Belle Moskowitz, no one — not citizenry, not press, not Legislature — was going to know what was in the bills dealing with parks that the Legislature was going to pass. The best bill drafted in Albany set to work.

R. Caro, The power broker (1974), 173

Even personality must be reduced to a number

It was the proposal of a fanatic. John Calvin specifying permissible arrangements for women's hair in sixteenth-century Geneva was not more thorough than was Bob Moses enumerating the "functions" and "responsibilities" of New York's civil servants. No aspect of conduct on the job was too small to be graded. Even personality must be reduced to a number.

R. Caro, The power broker (1974),  75

A foreign language can signify a total separation. It can represent, even today, the ferocity of our ignorance.

And yet this Italian project of mine makes me acutely aware of the immense distances between languages. A foreign language can signify a total separation. It can represent, even today, the ferocity of our ignorance. To write in a new language, to penetrate its heart, no technology helps. You can't accelerate the process, you can't abbreviate it. The pace is slow, hesitant, there are no shortcuts. The better I understand the language, the more confusing it is. The closer I get, the farther away. Even today the disconnect between me and Italian remains insuperable. It's taken almost half my life to advance barely a few steps. Just to get this far. 

J. Lahiri, In other words (2014) 91

He did not conceive of love as a nervous interchange

He did not conceive of love as a nervous interchange but as something absolute, out of the scope of thought, beyond himself, matter for a confident outward rather than anxious inward looking. He had sought and was satisfied with a few - he thought final - repositories for his emotions: his mother, country, dog, school, a friend or two, now - crowningly - Lois. Of these he asked only that they should be quiet and positive, not impinged upon, not breaking boundaries from their generous allotment. 

E. Bowen, The last September (1929), 41

Hema felt she'd tricked time; with her twentieth-century knowledge she had travelled back to an earlier epoch

Yes, it might be the era of the kidney transplant in America and a vaccine for polio due to arrive even in India, but here [Ethiopia] Hema felt she'd tricked time; with her twentieth-century knowledge she had travelled back to an earlier epoch. The power filtered down from His Majesty to the Rases, the Dejazmaches, and the letter nobility, and then to the vassals and the peons. Her skills were so rare, so needed for the poorest of the poor, and even at times in the royal palace, that she felt valued. Wasn't that the definition of home? Not where you are from, but where you are wanted?

A. Verghese, Cutting for stone (2009), 79  

Why do so many fans love it?

[Asimov's] Foundation series is much beloved by many SF fans, although it suffers from a ubiquitous and debilitating dryness of tone. It is almost entirely composed of dialogue, often of an expository or explicatory nature; there is little description, a fact which renders the sequence visually inert; and the characterisation is rudimentary. Why do so many fans love it?

A. Roberts, The history of Science Fiction (2005), 197

I love it. It's proper grand concept Science Fiction, though the maths is all wrong. 

[Tinsel] possessed all the qualities of silver plus one more – pathos

Flaubert once said that he liked tinsel better than silver  because it possessed all the qualities of silver plus one more – pathos. … Of all the pulps, SF pulp is the most tinselly: partly in the sense that its content was more dazzling, starry, most likely to lift its readers’ eyes, metaphorically, to the brilliances above us; but partly also in the sense that it was aware and even revelled in its own cheapness.

A. Roberts, The history of Science Fiction (2005), 175

My nose lost track of honey and citrus, but still held a wisp of cool, clean peel, an ideal of sweetness, a thin hit of rose

I could say this quince smelled like roses and citrus and rich women's perfume, but that isn't quite true. I could call this fruit  "the stranger," based on what John Gardner called one of two possible plots in all of fiction - "a stranger comes to town." (man goes on a journey being the other.) Calling quince "the stranger" could be fitting for a tale about the fruit of rooted things written by a woman whose female forebears did not make journeys. ... I inhaled this stranger, my first quince, until my nose lost track of honey and citrus, but still held a wisp of cool, clean peel, an ideal of sweetness, a thin hit of rose. 

K. Lebo, The book of difficult fruit (2021), 219-20

The word "garnet" comes from "pomegranate," as does "grenade"

 The word "garnet" comes from "pomegranate," as does "grenade," so named for the way a shrapnel-scattering grenade imitates the seed-scattering explosion of a smashed pomegranate.

K. Lebo, The book of difficult fruit (2021), 210

Literature and cider making took a hammering

The Dark Ages are indeed a little dark, what with plagues, famines, bad weather and invasions by Saxons, Vikings and Danes. Literature and cider making took a hammering. A black hole in other words, though religious houses like Ely had orchards in Saxon times. There was hope.

J. Crowden, Cider country (2021), 96

Persian apples were peaches

A word of warning: in Greek the word ‘melon’ is always taken to mean apples, but ‘melon’ covers a number of other fruits including pomegranates: ‘Armenian apples’ were apricots, still grown on the northern side of Mount Ararat. ‘Cydonian apples’ were quinces. Cydonia was an ancient city state near Chania in Crete. Persian apples were peaches.

J. Crowden, Cider country (2021), 36

Butterfly evolved from breaststroke in the 1930s

Butterfly, strangely enough, evolved from breaststroke in the 1930s, when practitioners discovered that an out-of-the-water arm pull was faster than an in-the-water arm pull.

B. Tsui, Why we swim (2020), 196

The second is a house for one of her relatives whose job it is to look after her wigs

[Dolly Parton's] house itself is less revealing than the two buildings alongside it, out of range of my camera. If we are to trust our guide (and that is a big if), the first of these is a chapel where Dolly renewed her wedding vows. The second is a house for one of her relatives whose job it is to look after her wigs. 

H. Morales, Pilgrimage to Dollywood (2014), 71

The Coal Miner's Daughter Museum is one of the oddest museums I have ever visited

The Coal Miner's Daughter Museum is one of the oddest museums I have ever visited. Perhaps the oddest thing about it is that half the labels used to identify and describe the objects are typical professional display labels, but the other half are handwritten in felt-tipped pen on little white boxes and signed "Loretta Lynn" or "LL." ... It is as if a mad curator broke into the building during the night and defiantly stuck up her own thoughts about the exhibits. Imagine the improvements to the New York Met and the British Museum if this were to happen there. Out with solemn labels detailing sources and provenances; in with personal memories and anecdotes. By a cream Cadillac parked against a Grand Ole Opry backdrop was the notice: "this is my favorite car. It's a 1977 Cadillac. I wrote most of my songs in it while driving to and from town. I'm still gonna get it out and drive it. Loretta Lynn." In front of a display of her children's paraphernalia, including as cast from a broken arm and wedding dresses, is a note saying. Jenny is my graddaughter. Patsy is going to bring me hers to." I wondered how long this notice had been here, and what level of frustration lies behind the public reminder to her daughter Patsy.

H. Morales, Pilgrimage to Dollywood (2014), 58-9

It's like abroad: no one would want to go there if they hadn't been told it existed

'The three reasons for it [marriage] given in the Prayer-book have always seemed to me quite inadequate,' agreed Mr Prendergast. 'I have never had the smallest difficulty about the avoidance of fornication, and the other two advantages seem to me nothing short of disastrous.'

...

'It has always been a mystery to me why people marry,' said Mr Prendergast. 'I can't see the smallest reason for it. Quite happy, normal people. Now I can understand it in Grimes' case. He has everything to gain by the arrangement, but what does Flossie expect to gain? And yet she seems more enthusiastic about it than Grimes. It has been the tragedy of my life that whenever I start thinking about any quite simple subject I invariably feel myself confronted by some flat contradiction of this sort. Have you ever thought about marriage—in the abstract, I mean, of course?'

'Not very much, I'm afraid.'

'I don't believe,' said Mr Prendergast, 'that people would ever fall in love or want to be married if they hadn't been told about it. It's like abroad: no one would want to go there if they hadn't been told it existed. Don't you agree?'

E. Waugh (1928), 101-3

I can think of no entertainment that fills me with greater detestation than a display of competitive athletics

'Frankly,' said the Doctor, 'I am at a loss to understand my own emotions. I can think of no entertainment that fills me with greater detestation than a display of competitive athletics, none—except possibly folk dancing.

E. Waugh, Decline and fall (1928), 60

Epileptic royalty from their villas of exile

This was the first meeting since then, and from all over Europe old members had rallied for the occasion. For two days they had been pouring into Oxford: epileptic royalty from their villas of exile; uncouth peers from crumbling country seats; smooth young men of uncertain tastes from embassies and legations; illiterate lairds from wet granite hovels in the Highlands; ambitious young barristers and Conservative candidates torn from the London season and the indelicate advances of debutantes; all that was most sonorous of name and title was there for the beano.'

E. Waugh, Decline and fall (1928), 9

Small nondescript German States of which five-sixths of the subjects are Palace officials, and the rest charcoal burners or innkeepers

The millionaire thought he had once heard of Posen, but he wasn't sure; he rather fancied it was one of those small nondescript German States of which five-sixths of the subjects are Palace officials, and the rest charcoal burners or innkeepers.

A. Bennett, The Grand Babylon Hotel (1902), 19 

The mucous discharge of some old cow's guts, allowed to putrefy

Cheese, of course, was almost inconceivable. ... Although in the late twentieth century Chinese parents started feeding milk to their children, cheese is still widely regarded as disgusting: it was memorably described by one informant of the American anthropologist E.N. Anderson as 'the mucous discharge of some old cow's guts, allowed to putrefy'. Some Chinese friends of mine claim, with a grimace, to be able to smell milk in the sweat of Westerners.

F. Dunlop, Shark's fin soup and Sichuan pepper (2008), 65

In Chinese, the word for animal is dong wu, meaning 'moving thing'

It was the sheer nonchalance of it, the way people scaled fish as though they were simply peeling potatoes, skinned live rabbits while smoking a cigarette, joking with a friend as the blood drained from the throat of a bewildered duck. They didn't kill animals before they cooked and ate them. They simply went about the process of preparing a creature for the pot and table, and at some random point it died. But there, perhaps, is the crux of the matter, embedded almost invisibly in those two sentences. In English, as in most European languages, the words for the living things we eat are mostly derived from the Latin anima, which means air, breath, life. 'Creature', from the Latin for 'created', seems to connect animals with us human beings in some divinely fashioned universe. We too are creatures, animated. In Chinese, the word for animal is dong wu, meaning 'moving thing'. Is it cruel to hurt something that (unless you are a fervent Buddhist) you see as simply a 'moving thing', scarcely even alive.

F. Dunlop, Shark's fin soup and Sichuan pepper (2008), 49

There is no conceptual divide between 'meat' and 'inedible rubbery bits' when butchering an animal carcass

 The Chinese don't generally divide the animal world into the separate realms of pets and edible creatures: unless you are a strict Buddhist (and bearing in mind certain regional preferences), you might as well eat them all. Likewise, there is no conceptual divide between 'meat' and 'inedible rubbery bits' when butchering an animal carcass: in China they traditionally favour the kind of nose-to-tail eating of which restaurateur Fergus Henderson, the notorious English purveyor of offal, could only dream. 

F. Dunlop, Shark's fin soup and Sichuan pepper (2008), 12

England is the only country where the oldest age group has higher proficiency in both literacy and numeracy than the youngest

A PISA survey report in 2013 found that in almost every country in the developed world younger adults performed better than older people, with the biggest gaps seen in South Korea, Finland and Spain. These nations have dramatically improved basic skills in the last few decades.

However, the report said, ‘In England and Northern Ireland, the differences in proficiency between younger and older generations are negligible. Although young people in these countries are entering a much more demanding labour market, they are not much better equipped with literacy and numeracy skills than those who are retiring,’

‘in fact, England is the only country where the oldest age group has higher proficiency in both literacy and numeracy than the youngest.’ 

B. Lenon, Much promise: successful schools in England (2017), 93

But I belong to the other English, who don't like the right pigeon-hole used for the wrong papers, or the wrong label on the right box

How happy everybody was, we were told, and I suppose they were - some English love improvisation and 'do it yourself'. But I belong to the other English, who don't like the right pigeon-hole used for the wrong papers, or the wrong label on the right box. I chafed under all this glorious dissolution, chafed for law and order.

A. Wilson, The old men at the zoo (1961), 278

Winchester, New College, and the Treasury are the three places where they know everything

Anyway you know it all. You were at the Treasury. Winchester, New College, and the Treasury are the three places where they know everything.

A. Wilson, The old men at the zoo (1961), 71

The problem is that while it's true that "Gospel" has lost its original sense and, in fact, now has now meaning at all, writing "good news" in its place is a cure that's worse than the disease

Most people today think that "Gospel" designates a literary genre, the story of Jesus' life, and that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John wrote Gospels the way that Racine wrote tragedies or Ronsard sonnets. But that meaning only established itself about the second century. The word that Mark wrote at the start of his narrative meant "good news." When Paul wrote to the Galatians and Corinthians thirty years earlier about "my Gospel," it meant: what I preached to you, my personal version of this good news. The problem is that while it's true that "Gospel" has lost its original sense and, in fact, now has now meaning at all, writing "good news" in its place is a cure that's worse than the disease: it has a "nice Catholic" ring to it, you instantly imagine the priest's syrupy smile and voice.

E. Carrere, The Kingdom (2014), tr. J, Lambert, 333

Intoxicated: beastly work, but how can I help it?

[The diary of the Marquess of Dalhousie]

Take for example, a few typical entries during the first six months of 1830. 'Dined in Hall at 5. Could get nothing to eat.' Chapel: 'beastly music and singing';  or again, 'skipped chapel; my character for regularity may perhaps carry me through'. Then came the wine parties. 'Intoxicated: beastly work, but how can I help it?' Once more: 'Fourteen of us had supper in my rooms. the most tremendous row was created till 1/2 past one, when we went out to walk, and on my return I found Cunningham sitting eating the leg-bone of a turkey by the fire, with all my glasses in shivers round him. Never will have a party in my rooms again if I can help it.'

K. Feiling, In Christ Church Hall (1960), 163-4 [chapter on Dalhousie] 

A reservoir for the landed aristocracy, whose sons were inclined to treat college life as a blend of a wine-party and a hunting-box

[Christ Church] stood in particular for two things, each of them narrow, complacent and outworn. First it was held to be a reservoir for the landed aristocracy, whose sons were inclined to treat college life as a blend of a wine-party and a hunting-box, and when they matured translated their college toasts of 'Church and King' into policies defensible in the House of Commons. In sober fact, of course, so far as undergraduates went, till the middle of the last century a second and much larger element were candidates for holy orders, so fulfilling one main purpose of their founders.

...

Certainly for the first half of it [the later nineteenth century] the two elements of Church and Land were so fused and and interpenetrated that they made almost one substance. 

K. Feiling, In Christ Church Hall (1960), 129 [chapter on Edward Bouverie Pusey] 

But you are absolutely correct, Mr Prime Minister

CHIRAC: Allow me to say that tonight, I am not Prime Minister and you are not the President. We are two candidates who are equal and who are submitting ourselves to the judgement of the French people. You will permit me to call you Mr Mitterrand.

MITTERRAND: But you are absolutely correct, Mr Prime Minister

French presidential debate, 1988, cited in P. Short, Mitterrand: a study in ambiguity (2013), 461 

Have you never been struck by the fact that communists are more numerous in Catholic than in Protestant countries?

You have to understand what communism represents in a Catholic country. Have you never been struck by the fact that communists are more numerous in Catholic than in Protestant countries? It is because the Roman Church instilled discipline among Catholics with the result that when they joined a a different 'church' they did not question its orders. Protestants have to find their own salvation. There is no hierachy to tell them what to think.

Mitterrand to George Bush , cited in P. Short, Mitterrand: a study in ambiguity (2013), 324

He always hung on to a position far longer than was reasonable and then made a sudden, bold, reckless leap into the unknown

It [opposing the return of De Gaulle] was typical of him. He always hung on to a position far longer than was reasonable and then made a sudden, bold, reckless leap into the unknown. ... At Vichy, he hesitated, equivocated and agonised for more than a year before committing himself to the Resistance with an excessive, defiant act of bravado at Salle Wagram in Paris.

 P. Short, Mitterrand: a study in ambiguity (2013), 197

I did not marry you under the regime of the Inquisition

Mitterrand was more than difficult as a husband: he was often impossible. He demanded absolute freedom and found the slightest constraint impossible. Not long after the wedding, [Danielle] asked him brightly, when he came home one evening, 'How did your day go, darling?' The reply drew blood: 'I did not marry you under the regime of the Inquisition.'

P. Short, Mitterrand: a study in ambiguity (2013), 115

Our imbecile grandchildren will think they are beautiful because they are old

Vichy is a dreadful place (not disagreeable, not boring, but ugly). There is nothing to attract the eye  - bloated, jowly hotels, built in ridiculous straight lines, pretentious villas planted here and there to accord with the doubtful taste of fat women. These watering places should be razed, [otherwise] our imbecile grandchildren will think they are beautiful because they are old.

Letter from Mitterrand to his cousin, cited in P. Short, Mitterrand: a study in ambiguity (2013), 64

Stubbornly held his finger a millimetre away from an object he had been forbidden to touch, insisting he was not disobedient and was doing nothing wrong

His brothers recalled a different Francois [Mitterrand], who slid down banisters; fidgeted so much in church that he caused a scandal by falling off his chair; and stubbornly held his finger a millimetre away from an object he had been forbidden to touch, insisting he was not disobedient and was doing nothing wrong.

P. Short, Mitterrand: a study in ambiguity (2013), 18

De Gaulle represented 'mastery over oneself, which meant mastery over history'

 To Mitterrand, de Gaulle represented 'mastery over oneself, which meant mastery over history'. After the General's death, he compared him to Henri IV, the great sixteenth-century King who ended the Wars of Religion, and Cardinal Richelieu, Chief Minister to his son Louis XIII, who laid the foundations of modern Western statecraft.

...

The French stateman Mitterrand most admired was the seventeenth-century Cardinal Mazarin, preceptor and First Minister of Louis XIV, after whom he named his daughter, Mazarine.

P. Short, Mitterrand: a study in ambiguity (2013), 10 and 12

I wonder if it matters that what they have aimed at is illusion

'Supposing there is no life everlasting? Think what it means if death is really the end of all things? They've [the nuns] given it all up for nothing. They've been cheated. They're dupes.'

Waddington reflected fir a little while.

'I wonder. I wonder if it matters that what they have aimed at is illusion. Their lives are in themselves beautiful. I have an idea that the only thing which makes it possible to regard this world we live in without disgust is the beauty which now and then men create out of the chaos. The pictures they paint, the music they compose, the books they write, an the lives they lead. Of all these the richest in beauty is the beautiful life. That is the perfect work of art.'

W.S. Maugham, The painted veil (1925), 169-70 

Missionaries always have large dining-tables

The dining-room was small and the greater part of it was filled by an enormous table. On the walls were engravings of scenes from the Bible and illuminated texts.

'Missionaries always have large dining-tables,' Waddington explained. 'They get so much a year more for every child they have and they buy their tables when they marry so that there shall be plenty of room for little strangers.'

W.S. Maugham, The painted veil (1925), 77-78

 

Margaret is listening to The Archers and every time I try to say something she just says, "Shh!"

One day, the Queen came to tea with Princess Margaret. I stayed in the drawing room so that they could have some time together and she went off to the bedroom to find Princess Margaret. Quite soon after she had gone in, she reappeared.

'Oh, Ma'am, is everything all right?' I asked.

'No, it isn't,' the Queen replied. 'Margaret is listening to The Archers and every time I try to say something she just says, "Shh!"

A. Glenconner, Lady in Waiting (2019), 283-4

But, then, we were going to kill him - which, I suppose, was rather unlike the Mitfords

We had decided to make Hitler fall in love with us, which, when I think about it now, was rather like the Mitfords. But, then, we were going to kill him - which, I suppose, was rather unlike the Mitfords.

A. Glenconner, Lady in Waiting (2019), 23

The Letter to the Galatians is like the Rhône river before Lake Geneva, and the Letter to the Romans is like the Rhône river after Geneva

In fact, the key idea of the Letter to the Romans is already found in the Letter to the Galatians - but as one Swiss exegete nicely says, the Letter to the Galatians is like the Rhône river before Lake Geneva, and the Letter to the Romans is like the Rhône river after Geneva: above a mountain torrent, below a majestic river. The Letter to the Galatians was written in anger in one brilliant sitting, while the Letter to the Romans was written slowly, after dipping the pen repeatedly in the inkwell

E. Carrere, The Kingdom (2014), tr. J, Lambert, 169

Infuriatingly, this is a classic example of Carrere's lack of footnotes. Which Swiss exegete? Was it one of the dodgy ones?

One thing that surprises me as I advance in this story is that it has done so little to inspire religious imagery

One thing that surprises me as I advance in this story is that it has done so little to inspire religious imagery. Before getting started I would have sworn that everything in the New Testament had been depicted, again and again, in art. But while that's true of the life of Jesus and those of the saints who followed him - preferably if they suffered some gruesome martyrdom - leaving aside the conversion of Paul on the road to Damascus, almost the entire book that I scour page after page, the Acts of the Apostles, strangely escapes representation.

E. Carrere, The Kingdom (2014), tr. J, Lambert, 138

Bustamente had a teasing nature, which in his case took the form of leading a bloody revolution against colonial rule

The Jamaican Prime Minister, Sir Alexander Bustmente, was the living double of Obbie [12th Duke of] St Albans, and whenever I saw one of them, I always thought it was the other. Like Obbie, Bustamente had a teasing nature, which in his case took the form of leading a bloody revolution against colonial rule

D. Devonshire, Wait for me (2010), 212

You will not find a word in this to offend your protestant sympathies.

[Evelyn Waugh sends the Duchess of Devonshire a copy of his Life of Monsignor Ronald Knox]

The inscription read, 'To darling Debo with love from Evelyn. You will not find a word in this to offend your protestant sympathies.' There were no words - all the pages were blank. The perfect present for a non-reader.

D. Devonshire, Wait for me (2010), 156