How long, really, does a God need to watch shit burn before he intervenes?

Don’t tell me God is watching. Cos all my wretched life he’s been watching; how long, really, does a God need to watch shit burn before he intervenes?

N. Bulawayo, Glory (2022), loc 4,056

Military custom regarding nurses is most irrational

Military custom regarding nurses is most irrational. They are made officers and therefore not permitted to associate with enlisted men. This means that they must find their social life among other officers. But most male officers are married, especially in the medical corps. And most unmarried officers are from social levels into which nurses from small towns do not normally marry. As a result of this involved social system, military nurses frequently have unhappy emotional experiences. Cut off by law from fraternizing with those men who would like to marry them and who would have married them in civilian life, they find their friendships restricted to men who are surprisingly often married or who are social snobs.

J.A. Michener, Tales of the South Pacific (1947), loc. 793

Soon as girls arrive exam results go down. Passion leads to a Lower Second

‘I don’t accept presents,’ said Sir, looking briefly at Three Men in a Boat. ‘This is a clean school. No nonsense. But yes, I’ll have this one. Send your sons here when you’ve got some. Present us with a silver cup for something when you’re a filthy rich lawyer, I dare say? Yes. You’ll be a lawyer. Magnificent memory. Sense of logic, no imagination and no brains. My favourite chap, Teddy Feathers, as a matter of fact. I dare say.’ ‘Thank you, Sir. I’ll always keep in touch.’ ‘Don’t go near Wales. And keep off girls for a while. Soon as girls arrive exam results go down. Passion leads to a Lower Second. Goodbye, old Feathers. On with the dance.’

J. Gardam, Old Filth (2004), loc. 1,061

Hitler’s invaded Poland. Don’t tell your father yet, Pat

‘Oh – tea,’ said Mrs Ingoldby. ‘You’re just in time. I’ll get them to make you some more of the little tongue sandwiches. Did you have a good walk?’ ‘Wonderful, thanks. Any news?’ ‘Yes. Hitler’s invaded Poland. Don’t tell your father yet, Pat. He can do nothing about it and there’s his favourite supper. Oxtail stew.’

J. Gardam, Old Filth (2004), loc. 913

When I sit down to write a novel I do not at all know, and I do not much care, how it is to end.

This is a long way from saying plausibly that Trollope is to any extent a crime novelist. He did write at least one murder mystery, Phineas Redux, although it's only a murder mystery for the extent of 24 pages in my edition before Trollope the narrator reveals the identity of the killer. "The maintenance of any doubt on that matter, - were it even desirable to maintain a doubt, - would be altogether beyond the power of the present writer," says Trollope, and you can't help feeling he's silently adding "and beneath my dignity".

...

Trollope couldn't abide this sort of thing [detailing clueing in detective novels], as he made clear elsewhere in his Autobiography. 

... When I sit down to write a novel I do not at all know, and I do not much care, how it is to end. Wilkie Collins seems so to construct his that he not only, before writing, plans everything on, down to the minutest detail, from the beginning to the end; but then plots it all back again, to see that there is no piece of necessary dove-tailing that does not dove-tail with absolute accuracy. The construction is most minute and most wonderful. But I can never lose the taste of the construction.

J. Kerridge, ' "Fifteen yards beyond the fourth milestone." Anthony Trollope: crime writer', Trollopiana 130 (2025), 5-6

Wherever men are found, strong liquors are met with, and are used in festivities

Wine, the most pleasant of all drinks, whether due to Noah who planted the vine, or to Bacchus who expressed the juice of the grape, dates back to the infancy of the world. Beer, which is attributed to Osiris, dates to an age far beyond history. All men, even those we call savages, have been so tormented by the passion for strong drinks, that limited as their capacities were, they were yet able to manufacture them. They made the milk of their domestic animals sour: they extracted the juice of many animals and many fruits in which they suspected the idea of fermentation to exist. Wherever men are found, strong liquors are met with, and are used in festivities, sacrifices, marriages, funeral rites, and on all solemn occasions. 

J. Brillat-Savarin, The Physiology of Taste (1825), 80

A dessert without cheese is like a beautiful woman who has lost an eye

I'm doing all of Brillat-Savarin's aphorisms together:

• A dessert without cheese is like a beautiful woman who has lost an eye. (p.22)
• Gastronomy rules all life, for the tears of the infant cry for the bosom of the nurse; the dying man receives with some degree of pleasure the last cooling drink, which, alas! he is unable to digest. (36)
• Which one of us, condemned to the fare of the fathers of the desert, would not have smiled at the idea of a well-carved chicken's wing, announcing his rapid rendition to civilized life? (49)
• Give the most hungry man you can meet with the richest possible food, he will eat with difficulty. Give him a glass of wine or of brandy, and at once he will find himself better. (79)
• I observe with pride, that gourmandise and coquettery, the two great modifications which society has effected in our imperious wants, are both of French origin. (87)
• Thousands of men, who, forty years ago would have passed their evenings in cabarets, now pass them at the theatres. Economy, certainly does not gain by this, but morality does. (138)
• Monsieur, said an old marquise to me one day, which do you like best, Burgundy or Bordeaux? Madame, said I, I have such a passion for examining into the matter, that I always postpone the decision a week. (166)
• Take a raisin-- No I thank you; I do not like wine in pills.(167)

J. Brillat-Savarin, The Physiology of Taste (1825)