If I had had any intimation that the self I was going to find would turn out to be only the same self from which I had spent so much time in flight, I would have stayed at home.

I wanted to find myself. This is an interesting phrase, not current as far as I know in the language of any other people, which certainly does not mean what it says but betrays a nagging suspicion that something has been misplaced. I think now that if I had had any intimation that the self I was going to find would turn out to be only the same self from which I had spent so much time in flight, I would have stayed at home.

J. Baldwin, Giovanni's Room (1956), 21

You can’t stop a committee once it’s made up its mind to waste money

‘She can’t take on the government,’ Blatt and Unwin agreed at lunchtime the next day. ‘Not when it’s in spending mood. You can’t stop a committee once it’s made up its mind to waste money. She’ll just have to compromise and climb down in face of competition,

P. Fitzgerald, At Freddie’s (1982), 155

Directors realise that audiences are not likely to have much grip on Shakespeare’s King John

Directors realise that audiences are not likely to have much grip on Shakespeare’s King John. They hardly know what to expect, except perhaps something about Magna Carta, which doesn’t figure in the play at all. Perhaps Shakespeare had never heard of it. In any case, he presents King John as a patriot, misguided, certainly, when he connives at the torture of his nephew little Prince Arthur, but standing out to his last breath against France. In the high Victorian theatre the actor playing the king used to sweep the crown from his head during his death scene and even hurl it into the wings, partly to indicate magnificent failure, and partly to keep some attention for himself. By that time the audience had already seen little Arthur die and his mother Constance run mad, their handkerchiefs were soaked, they had no more tears to shed. King John himself was left ranting on, against unfair competition.

P. Fitzgerald, At Freddie’s (1982), 89

Most of them are rubbish and do not help me understand him

Got some of Hardy's poems out of Holborn library ... Most of them are rubbish and do not help me understand him. They make me think of him as wallowing and moaning and wishing for the olden days and that he hadn't been such a cunt to his wife.

N. Stibbe, cited in J. Rogers, 'Living in someone else's life', SF88 (2025), 55

Heaven might comprise eating foie gras to the sound of trumpets.

Meanwhile, Smith's Christianity was one we might all enjoy. With God he was on good terms. God is, he wrote, best served by 'regular tenour of good actions ... the luxury of a false religion is to be unhappy'. And, on a trip to Brussels, he noted 'I think, possibly correctly, that Heaven might comprise eating foie gras to the sound of trumpets.'

S. Bayley, 'Taking the short view', SF87 (2025), 25

Freddie herself had fulfilled the one sure condition of being loved by the English nation, that is, she had been going on a very long time

Freddie had no need to depend upon her friends in the theatre. Neither did she have to dread time’s encroachments. The place could hardly get any shabbier, and Freddie herself had fulfilled the one sure condition of being loved by the English nation, that is, she had been going on a very long time. She had done so much for Shakespeare, one institution, it seemed, befriending another. Her ruffianly behaviour had become ‘known eccentricities’. Like Buckingham Palace, Lyons teashops, the British Museum Reading Room, or the market at Covent Garden, she could never be allowed to disappear. While England rested true to itself, she need never compromise.

P. Fitzgerald, At Freddie’s (1982), 53

Not precisely disagreeable, it suggested a church vestry where old clothes hang and flowers moulder in the sink, but respect is called for just the same

Everyone who knew the Temple School will remember the distinctive smell of Freddie’s office. Not precisely disagreeable, it suggested a church vestry where old clothes hang and flowers moulder in the sink, but respect is called for just the same. It was not a place for seeing clearly. Light, in the morning, entered at an angle, through a quantity of dust. When the desk lamp was switched on at length the circle of light, although it repelled outsiders, was weak.

P. Fitzgerald, At Freddie’s (1982), 4