The martini which he proceeded to pour proved an agreeable surprise

The martini which he proceeded to pour proved an agreeable surprise. It did not bite like a serpent and sting like an adder, but it was not without a certain quiet authority, and he had taken it into his system and was feeling much invigorated, when the door opened and his sister Hermione appeared.

P.G. Wodehouse, Galahad at Blandings (1965), 204

Yes, but it's a good picture

On seeing Tammy Wynette's mother reading the National Enquirer, Burt Reynolds said:

My mother does the same thing. I caught her reading a story about me last week and I said, 'Mama you know those stories aren't true.' And she said, 'Yes, but it's a good picture, son.'

Tammy Wynette with J. Dew, Stand by your man (1979), 272-3

[Money] sure can take the edge off misery!

Sometimes it's hard for me to realise that I lived like that just fourteen short years ago. I would have been overjoyed then just to own an old secondhand car. Now I have a Corvette and a Thunderbird, a pickup truck and a van, a bus and an airplane. And am I any happier? You bet I am! It kills me to hear people who are well off talk about the "good old days" when they didn't have a dime. I wonder how many of them would go back to that. It's true that money cannot buy you happiness. but it can buy conveniences, and it sure can take the edge off misery!

Tammy Wynette with J. Dew, Stand by your man (1979), 57

He was a highbrow – her deadliest word

He was a highbrow–her deadliest word–a highbrow, to be classed with Lenin, A. J. Cook and the dirty little poets in the Montparnasse cafés
G. Orwell, Burmese Days (1934), 

There is a prevalent idea that the men at the ‘outposts of Empire’ are at least able and hardworking

There is a prevalent idea that the men at the ‘outposts of Empire’ are at least able and hardworking. It is a delusion. Outside the scientific services–the Forest Department, the Public Works Department and the like–there is no particular need for a British official in India to do his job competently. Few of them work as hard or as intelligently as the postmaster of a provincial town in England. The real work of administration is done mainly by native subordinates; and the real backbone of the despotism is not the officials but the Army. Given the Army, the officials and the business men can rub along safely enough even if they are fools. And most of them are fools. A dull, decent people, cherishing and fortifying their dullness behind a quarter of a million bayonets

G. Orwell, Burmese Days (1934), 

the farther its devotees were from the bleeding frontier, the more devoutly they believed it

This was the particular and very strong belief shared by many people in the civilized East that the Indian wars were principally the fault of white men. The governing idea was that the Comanches and other troublesome tribes would live in peace if only they were treated properly, and the farther its devotees were from the bleeding frontier, the more devoutly they believed it.

S.C. Gwynne, Empire of the Summer Moon (2011), Kindle ed. loc 4381

There is no essential difference between a beggar's livelihood and that of numberless respectable people

Yet if one looks closely one sees that there is no essential difference between a beggar's livelihood and that of numberless respectable people. Beggars do not work, it is said; but, then, what is work? A navvy works by swinging a pick. An accountant works by adding up figures, A beggar works by standing out of doors in all weathers and getting varicose veins, chronic bronchitis, etc. It is a trade like any other; quite useless, of course  - but, then, many reputable trades are quite useless. And as a social type a beggar compares well with scores of others. He is honest compared with the sellers of most patent medicines, high-minded compared with a Sunday newspaper proprietor, amiable compared with a hire-purchase tout - in short, a parasite, but a fairly harmless parasite

G. Orwell, Down and Out in Paris and London (1933), 154

I saw John the Baptist, on Barry John's right hand

I bought, in the sort of closing down sale at HMV, Max Boyce's classic live albums. I've been meaning to do so for ages, but I'd not heard them before. And they're brilliant. Anyway, my favourite is below, which bizarrely, I cannot find written out anywhere on the Internet (I've not looked that hard). Perhaps fitting for the eve of tomorrow's Anglo-Welsh Six Nations decider.

The Devil's marking me

I had a dream the other night; the strangest dream of all
I dreamt I was in Heaven, away from life's hard call
It was as I imagined: where peace reigned all supreme
The signs to Heaven were in all in Welsh, the signs were painted green
(refrain)

I entered through the heavenly gate; I heard the heavenly band
And there was John the Baptist, on Barry John's right hand
He plays for the Heaven Welsh Fifteen. They're very fit and keen
We'd play the Heaven English, if they could only raise a team
(refrain)

There was rugby every morning on a field of golden corn
And the referee was Gabriel and he blew on a sliver horn
They tell me we play Hell next week, in the annual charity
I wouldn't mind, but I've been told, the Devil's marking me
(refrain)

But now my dream has faded and I wake up to the morn
I find beneath my pillow a sheaf of golden corn
So I know that when I go there, beyond death's victory
I'll take my rugby jersey on that gospel train with me
(refrain)

You actually have to like jazz to follow it

Jazz is hard to follow; I mean you actually have to like jazz to follow it; and my motto is, never follow anything. I don't know what the motto of the young generation is, but I would think they have to follow their parents. I mean, what would some parents say to his kid if the kid came home with a glass eye, a Charlie Mingus record and a pocketful of feathers? He'd say: 'Who are you following?" And the poor kid would have to stand there with water in their shoes, a bow tie on his ear, and soot pouring out of his belly button and say: "Jazz, Father, I've started following jazz."

Bob Dylan, originally in Playboy (1966), in C. Ricks, Dylan's Visions of Sin (2003), 143

When reading Dickens aloud in bed, do not, on any account, attempt to do all the voices.

There is a limit to how much pleasure you can share. Try to avoid reading aloud so many passages from your book that you ruin it for your partner when he or she has a turn at reading it; avoid reading out a witty phrase or a telling observation if it means you will have to take fifteen minutes to set the scene with an explanation of the plot and description of the characters involved. When reading Dickens (say Pickwick Papers) aloud in bed, do not, on any account, attempt to do all the voices.

O. Pritchett, 'Pillow talk' Slightly Foxed 37 (2013), 29

The Kennedys proved to be more akin to the Medici.

But all the Kennedy children were raised with the same principles: winning isn't everything, it's the only thing; anything it permissible to succeed; have no idols except for the family - the Kennedy family, that is. Why the family should want political power was not discussed; it was accepted that power was its own reward. Indicative of the prevailing attitude was Jack observation in 1960 that Eleanor Roosevelt (widow of Franklin) disliked him because 'She hated my father and can't stand it that his children turned out so much better than hers.' It never occurred to him that Eleanor Roosevelt might dislike him on principled political grounds. No doubt, worship of the family is a virtuous secondary good. But democratic rule is based on a devotion to ideas not siblings. Though they portrayed themselves as the heirs of Washington, Jefferson and Roosevelt, the Kennedys proved to be more akin to the Medici.

D. Kunz, 'Camelot continued: What if John Kennedy had lived?', N. Ferguson (ed.), Virtual History (1997), 371

History is not merely what happened

History is not merely what happened: it is what happened in the context of what might have happened,

Hugh Trevor-Roper, quoted in J. Adamson, 'England without Cromwell: What if Charles I had avoided the Civil War?', N. Ferguson (ed.), Virtual History (1997), 95

It's not difficult to get a double O number if you're prepared to kill people

Bond frowned. 'It's not difficult to get a double O number if you're prepared to kill people,' he said. 'That's all the meaning it has. It's nothing to be particularly proud of. I've got the corpses of a Japanese cipher expert in New York and a Norwegian double agent in Stockholm to thank for being a Double O. Probably quite decent people. They just got caught up in the gale of the world like that Yugoslav Tito bumped off. It's a confusing business but if it's one's profession, one does what one's told. How do you like the grated egg on your caviar?'

I. Fleming, Casino Royale (1953), 68

I had not then acquired the technique that I flatter myself now enables me to deal competently with the works of modern artist

I had not then acquired the technique that I flatter myself now enables me to deal competently with the works of modern artist. If this were the place I could write a very neat little guide to enable the amateur of pictures to deal to the satisfaction of their painters with the most diverse manifestations of the creative instinct. There is the intense ‘By God!’ that acknowledges the power of the ruthless realist, the ‘It’s so awfully sincere’ that covers your embarrassment when you are shown the coloured photograph of an alderman’s widow, the low whistle that exhibits your admiration for the post-impressionist, the ‘Terribly amusing’ that expresses what you feel about the cubist, the ‘Oh!’ of one who is overcome, the ‘Ah!’ of him whose breath is taken away.

W. Somerset Maugham, Cakes and Ale (1930), 131-132

I could never quite understand what this meant, but I knew the consequences were disastrous

My imagination played with terrible possibilities. Bigamy, murder, and forgery. Very few villains in books failed to hold the threat of exposure of one of those crimes over some hapless female. Perhaps Mrs Driffield had backed a bill; I could never quite understand what this meant, but I knew the consequences were disastrous.

W. Somerset Maugham, Cakes and Ale (1930), 71

Roy has always sincerely believed what everyone else believed at the moment

Roy has always sincerely believed what everyone else believed at the moment. When he wrote novels about the aristocracy he sincerely believed that its members were dissipated and immoral, and yet had a certain nobility and an innate aptitude for governing the British Empire; when later he wrote of the middle classes he sincerely believed that they were the backbone of the country. His villains have always been villainous, his heroes heroic, and his maidens chaste

W. Somerset Maugham, Cakes and Ale (1930), 16

As a coda, this portrait of Roy, which goes on for some time, is apparently easily identified as Hugh Walpole, who on reading it reported 'Half-dressed sitting on my bed, picked up idly Maugham's Cakes and Ale. Read on with increasing horror. Unmistakable portrait of myself. Never slept' (Ibid, xii)

The peacemakers of Vienna had attempted to reconstruct a European community in total disregard of the direction in which the Continent was moving

In fact, the peacemakers of Vienna had attempted to reconstruct a European community in total disregard of  the direction in which the Continent was moving. As a result, their new system excluded not only those, such as the liberals and revolutionaries, whom they saw as enemies: it was so thoroughly out of sympathy with the zeitgeist of the times that it alienated most educated people in Europe.

A. Zamoyski, Rites of Peace (2007), 559

Metternich was in his own opinion the light of the world, and he blinded himself with the rays

Metternich was in his own opinion the light of the world, and he blinded himself with the rays reflected in the mirror he held up continuously before his eyes. There was in him a chronic hypertrophy of the ego which developed relentlessly

Albert Sorel, quoted in A. Zamoyski, Rites of Peace (2007), 37