The Oxford dictionary of modern quotations (17 page)

blossom. Is that thing alive? I hear a famisht howl.

Partisan Review (1953) vol. 20, p. 494 "Homage to Mistress Bradstreet"

We must travel in the direction of our fear.

Poems (1942) "A Point of Age"

Life, friends, is boring. We must not say so.

77 Dream Songs (1964) no. 14

And moreover my mother taught me as a boy

(repeatingly) "Ever to confess you're bored

means you have no

Inner Resources." I conclude now I have no

inner resources, because I am heavy bored.

77 Dream Songs (1964) no. 14

I seldom go to films. They are too exciting, said the Honourable Possum.

77 Dream Songs (1964) no. 53

2.71 Pierre Berton =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1920-

[Definition of a Canadian:] Somebody who knows how to make love in a

canoe.

Toronto Star, Canadian Mag. 22 Dec. 1973

2.72 Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1856-1921

He [Bethmann Hollweg] said that the step taken by His Majesty's Government

was terrible to a degree, just for a word "neutrality"--a word which in

wartime had so often been disregarded--just for a scrap of paper, Great

Britain was going to make war on a kindred nation who desired nothing

better than to be friends with her.

Report by Sir E. Goschen to Sir Edward Grey, in British Documents on

Origins of the War 1898-1914 (1926) vol. 11, p. 351

2.73 Sir John Betjeman =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1906-1984

He sipped at a weak hock and seltzer

As he gazed at the London skies

Through the Nottingham lace of the curtains

Or was it his bees-winged eyes?

He rose, and he put down The Yellow Book.

He staggered--and, terrible-eyed,

He brushed past the palms on the staircase

And was helped to a hansom outside.

Continual Dew (1937) "Arrest of Oscar Wilde at the Cadogan Hotel"

Come, friendly bombs, and fall on Slough!

It isn't fit for humans now,

There isn't grass to graze a cow.

Swarm over, Death!

Continual Dew (1937) "Slough"

Rime Intrinsica, Fontmell Magna, Sturminster Newton and Melbury Bubb,

Whist upon whist upon whist upon whist drive, in Institute, Legion and

Social Club.

Horny hands that hold the aces which this morning held the plough--

While Tranter Reuben, T. S. Eliot, H. G. Wells and Edith Sitwell lie in

Mellstock churchyard now.

Continual Dew (1937) "Dorset"

Spirits of well-shot woodcock, partridge, snipe

Flutter and bear him up the Norfolk sky:

In that red house in a red mahogany book-case

The stamp collection waits with mounts long dry.

Continual Dew (1937) "Death of King George V"

And girls in slacks remember Dad,

And oafish louts remember Mum,

And sleepless children's hearts are glad,

And Christmas -morning bells say "Come!"

Even to shining ones who dwell

Safe in the Dorchester Hotel.

And is it true? And is it true,

This most tremendous tale of all,

Seen in a stained-glass window's hue,

A Baby in an ox's stall?

The Maker of the stars and sea

Become a Child on earth for me?

Few Late Chrysanthemums (1954) "Christmas"

In the licorice fields at Pontefract

My love and I did meet

And many a burdened licorice bush

Was blooming round our feet;

Red hair she had and golden skin,

Her sulky lips were shaped for sin,

Her sturdy legs were flannel-slack'd,

The strongest legs in Pontefract.

Few Late Chrysanthemums (1954) "The Licorice Fields at Pontefract"

In the Garden City Caf� with its murals on the wall

Before a talk on "Sex and Civics" I meditated on the Fall.

Few Late Chrysanthemums (1954) "Huxley Hall"

Gaily into Ruislip Gardens

Runs the red electric train,

With a thousand Ta's and Pardon's

Daintily alights Elaine;

Hurries down the concrete station

With a frown of concentration,

Out into the outskirt's edges

Where a few surviving hedges

Keep alive our lost Elysium--rural Middlesex again.

Few Late Chrysanthemums (1954) "Middlesex"

There was sun enough for lazing upon beaches,

There was fun enough for far into the night.

But I'm dying now and done for,

What on earth was all the fun for?

For God's sake keep that sunlight out of sight.

Few Late Chrysanthemums (1954) "Sun and Fun"

It's awf'lly bad luck on Diana,

Her ponies have swallowed their bits;

She fished down their throats with a spanner

And frightened them all into fits.

Few Late Chrysanthemums (1954) "Hunter Trials"

Oh wasn't it naughty of Smudges?

Oh, Mummy, I'm sick with disgust.

She threw me in front of the Judges

And my silly old collarbone's bust.

Few Late Chrysanthemums (1954) "Hunter Trials"

Phone for the fish-knives, Norman

As Cook is a little unnerved;

You kiddies have crumpled the serviettes

And I must have things daintily served.

Few Late Chrysanthemums (1954) "How to get on in Society"

Milk and then just as it comes dear?

I'm afraid the preserve's full of stones;

Beg pardon, I'm soiling the doileys

With afternoon tea-cakes and scones.

Few Late Chrysanthemums (1954) "How to get on in Society"

Ghastly good taste, or a depressing story of the rise and fall of English

architecture.

Title of book (1933)

Oh! Chintzy, Chintzy cheeriness,

Half dead and half alive!

Mount Zion (1931) "Death in Leamington"

The Church's Restoration

In eighteen-eighty-three

Has left for contemplation

Not what there used to be.

Mount Zion (1931) "Hymn"

Sing on, with hymns uproarious,

Ye humble and aloof,

Look up! and oh how glorious

He has restored the roof!

Mount Zion (1931) "Hymn"

Broad of Church and "broad of Mind,"

Broad before and broad behind,

A keen ecclesiologist,

A rather dirty Wykehamist.

Mount Zion (1931) "The Wykehamist"

Oh shall I see the Thames again?

The prow-promoted gems again,

As beefy ATS

Without their hats

Come shooting through the bridge?

And "cheerioh" or "cheeri-bye"

Across the waste of waters die

And low the mists of evening lie

And lightly skims the midge.

New Bats in Old Belfries (1945) "Henley-on-Thames"

Rumbling under blackened girders, Midland, bound for Cricklewood,

Puffed its sulphur to the sunset where that Land of Laundries stood.

Rumble under, thunder over, train and tram alternate go.

Shake the floor and smudge the ledger, Charrington, Sells, Dale and Co.,

Nuts and nuggets in the window, trucks along the lines below.

New Bats in Old Belfries (1945) "Parliament Hill Fields"

Miss J. Hunter Dunn, Miss J. Hunter Dunn,

Furnish'd and burnish'd by Aldershot sun,

What strenuous singles we played after tea,

We in the tournament--you against me.

Love-thirty, love-forty, oh! weakness of joy,

The speed of a swallow, the grace of a boy,

With carefullest carelessness, gaily you won,

I am weak from your loveliness, Joan Hunter Dunn.

Miss Joan Hunter Dunn, Miss Joan Hunter Dunn,

How mad I am, sad I am, glad that you won.

The warm-handled racket is back in its press,

But my shock-headed victor, she loves me no less.

New Bats in Old Belfries (1945) "Subaltern's Love-Song"

The scent of the conifers, sound of the bath,

The view from my bedroom of moss-dappled path,

As I struggle with double-end evening tie,

For we dance at the Golf Club, my victor and I.

New Bats in Old Belfries (1945) "Subaltern's Love-Song"

By roads "not adopted," by woodlanded ways,

She drove to the club in the late summer haze,

Into nine-o'clock Camberley, heavy with bells

And mushroomy, pine-woody, evergreen smells.

Miss Joan Hunter Dunn, Miss Joan Hunter Dunn,

I can hear from the car-park the dance has begun.

Oh! full Surrey twilight! importunate band!

Oh! strongly adorable tennis-girl's hand!

New Bats in Old Belfries (1945) "Subaltern's Love-Song"

We sat in the car park till twenty to one

And now I'm engaged to Miss Joan Hunter Dunn.

New Bats in Old Belfries (1945) "Subaltern's Love-Song"

Belbroughton Road is bonny, and pinkly bursts the spray

Of prunus and forsythia across the public way,

For a full spring-tide of blossom seethed and departed hence,

Leaving land-locked pools of jonquils by sunny garden fence.

And a constant sound of flushing runneth from windows where

The toothbrush too is airing in this new North Oxford air.

New Bats in Old Belfries (1945) "May-Day Song for North Oxford"

Bells are booming down the bohreens,

White the mist along the grass.

Now the Julias, Maeves and Maureens

Move between the fields to Mass.

New Bats in Old Belfries (1945) "Ireland with Emily"

The gas was on in the Institute,

The flare was up in the gymn,

A man was running a mineral line,

A lass was singing a hymn,

When Captain Webb the Dawley man,

Captain Webb from Dawley,

Came swimming along in the old canal

That carries the bricks to Lewley.

Old Lights for New Chancels (1940) "A Shropshire Lad"

Pam, I adore you, Pam, you great big mountainous sports girl,

Whizzing them over the net, full of the strength of five:

That old Malvernian brother, you zephyr and khaki shorts girl,

Although he's playing for Woking,

Can't stand up to your wonderful backhand drive.

Old Lights for New Chancels (1940) "Pot Pourri from a Surrey Garden"

Think of what our Nation stands for,

Books from Boots' and country lanes,

Free speech, free passes, class distinction,

Democracy and proper drains.

Lord, put beneath Thy special care

One-eighty-nine Cadogan Square.

Old Lights for New Chancels (1940) "In Westminster Abbey"

The dread of beatings! Dread of being late!

And, greatest dread of all, the dread of games!

Summoned by Bells (1960) ch. 7

Balkan Sobranies in a wooden box,

The college arms upon the lid; Tokay

And sherry in the cupboard; on the shelves

The University Statutes bound in blue,

Crome Yellow, Prancing Nigger, Blunden, Keats.

Summoned by Bells (1960) ch. 9

As one more solemn of our number said:

"Spiritually I was at Eton, John."

Summoned by Bells (1960) ch. 9

2.74 Aneurin Bevan =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

1897-1960

He [Winston Churchill] is a man suffering from petrified adolescence.

In Vincent Brome Aneurin Bevan (1953) ch. 11

Listening to a speech by Chamberlain is like paying a visit to

Woolworth's: everything in its place and nothing above sixpence.

In Michael Foot Aneurin Bevan (1962) vol. 1, ch. 8

I know that the right kind of leader for the Labour Party is a desiccated

calculating machine who must not in any way permit himself to be swayed by

indignation. If he sees suffering, privation or injustice he must not

allow it to move him, for that would be evidence of the lack of proper

education or of absence of self-control. He must speak in calm and

objective accents and talk about a dying child in the same way as he would

about the pieces inside an internal combustion engine.

In Michael Foot Aneurin Bevan (1973) vol. 2, ch. 11

Damn it all, you can't have the crown of thorns and the thirty pieces of

silver.

In Michael Foot Aneurin Bevan (1973) vol. 2, ch. 13

This island is made mainly of coal and surrounded by fish. Only an

organizing genius could produce a shortage of coal and fish at the same

time.

Speech at Blackpool 24 May 1945, in Daily Herald 25 May 1945

I do not think Winston Churchill wants war, but the trouble with him is

that he doesn't even know how to avoid it. He does not talk the language

of the 20th century but that of the 18th. He is still fighting Blenheim

all over again. His only answer to a difficult situation is send a

gun-boat.

Speech at Scarborough 2 Oct. 1951, in Daily Herald 3 Oct. 1951

If you carry this resolution you will send Britain's Foreign Secretary

naked into the conference chamber.

Speech at Brighton, in Daily Herald 4 Oct. 1957

The worst thing I can say about democracy is that it has tolerated the

Right Honourable Gentleman [Neville Chamberlain] for four and a half

years.

Hansard 23 July 1929, col. 1191

Why read the crystal when he can read the book?

Hansard 29 Sept. 1949, col. 319

I am not going to spend any time whatsoever in attacking the Foreign

Secretary. Quite honestly, I am beginning to feel extremely sorry for

him. If we complain about the tune, there is no reason to attack the

monkey when the organ grinder is present.

Hansard 16 May 1957, col. 680

We know what happens to people who stay in the middle of the road. They