“Nor had I any illusions about Algernon Charles Swinburne, who often used to stop my perambulator when he met it on Nurses’ Walk, at the edge of Wimbledon Common, and pat me on the head and kiss me: he was an inveterate pram-stopper and patter and kisser.”
“About this business of being a gentleman: I paid so heavily for the fourteen years of my gentleman’s education that I feel entitled, now and then, to get some sort of return.”
“Cuinchy bred rats. They came up from the canal, fed on the plentiful corpses, and multiplied exceedingly. While I stayed here with the Welsh, a new officer joined the company... When he turned in that night, he heard a scuffling, shone his torch on the bed, and found two rats on his blanket tussling for the possession of a severed hand.”
“Swinburne, by the way, when a very young man, had gone to Walter Savage Landor, then a very old man, and been given the poet’s blessing he asked for; and Landor when a child had been patted on the head by Dr Samuel Johnson; and Johnson when a child had been taken to London to be touched by Queen Anne for scrofula, the King’s evil; and Queen Anne when a child...”
“This is a story of what I was, not what I am.”
“England looked strange to us returned soldiers. We could not understand the war-madness that ran wild everywhere, looking for a pseudo-military outlet. The civilians talked a foreign language. I found serious conversation with my parents all but impossible.”
“...but [I] had sworn on the very day of my demobilization never to be under anyone’s orders for the rest of my life. Somehow I must live by writing.”
“I bet it’s scary sometimes, traveling in a new place. But you take along maps and a cell phone, and you know help is there if you need it. —IB”
“The dream recedes, but leaves a residue.”
“Sometimes if you want to know for sure whether the stove is hot, the only way to find out is to touch it.”
“You’re a pure, holy angel of goodness, and I’m Satan’s evil whore of a daughter. So yeah, we can’t work. Thanks for pointing that out, Captain Obvious. But we can fuck.”
“He swallowed. “Have you no modesty?” Never in his life had he encountered a female so quick to be naked. Of course, he’d never in his life encountered a female who should so utterly be naked at any chance.”
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