Books are not about passing the time. They’re about other lives. Other worlds. Far from wanting time to pass, Sir Kevin, one just wishes one had more of it.
Still as I’ve said all along, you can’t polish a turd.
Unlike today’s ideologues, whom I would call single-minded if mind came into it at all, I have no fear of the state.
Stava scoprendo che un libro tira l’altro; ovunque si voltava si aprivano nuove porte e le giornate erano sempre troppo corte per leggere quanto avrebbe voluto.
The closest she got to pretence was politeness.
Stava anche scoprendo che un libro tira l’altro; ovunque si voltava si aprivano nuove porte e le giornate erano troppo corte per leggere quanto avrebbe voluto. Ma era dispiaciuta, e anche mortificata, al pensiero di tutte le occasioni che si era lasciata sfuggire.
But ma’am must have been briefed, surely?’ ‘Of course,’ said the Queen, ’but briefing is not reading. In fact it is the antithesis of reading. Briefing is terse, factual and to the point. Reading is untidy, discursive and perpetually inviting. Briefing closes down a subject, reading opens it up.
30 November. My dustbin has been on its last legs for some time, and after the binmen have called this morning I find no trace of it. Never having heard of tautology, the binmen have put the dustbin in the dustbin.
Had she been asked if reading had enriched her life she would have had to say yes, undoubtedly, though adding with equal certainty that it had at the same time drained her life of all purpose.
Yet still the unresting castles thresh In fullgrown thickness every May. Last year is dead, they seem to say, Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.
Thus it was that the dawn of sensibility was mistaken for the onset of senility.
One has given one’s white-gloved hand to hands that were steeped in blood and conversed politely with men who have personally slaughtered children. One has waded through excrement and gore; to be Queen, I have often thought the one essential item of equipment a pair of thigh-length boots.
One does try not to be an Old Git but they don’t make it easy.
Shut up this minute, you silly little creatures...
When he dipped his cake in his tea – a disgusting business – the whole of his life came back to him. When I did it nothing happened.
I cannot heave my heart into my mouth, is a sentiment I can readily endorse. Her predicament is mine.
When dead she would exist only in the memories of people. She, who had never been subject to anyone would now be on the par with everybody else. Reading could not change that. Though writing might.
She found that after she had written something down, she was happy. Happy as if she had been reading. And it came to her again that did not want to simply be a reader. A reader was next door to being a spectator where as when she was writing she was doing. And doing was her duty.
She had always been good at duty until she started reading.
A few years ago she never would have noticed what Norman was doing. Or anyone else either. And if she took note of it now it was because she knew more of people’s feelings than she used it. And could put herself in someone else’s place.
Asked where his inspiration came from, he said fiercely: ‘It doesn’t come, Your Majesty. You have to go out and fetch it.