John Lewis-Stempel · 308 pages
Rating: (692 votes)
“you rise at dawn in May you can savour the world before the pandemonium din of the Industrial Revolution and 24/7 shopping.”
― John Lewis-Stempel, quote from Meadowland: the private life of an English field
“To stand alone in a field in England and listen to the morning chorus of the birds is to remember why life is precious.”
― John Lewis-Stempel, quote from Meadowland: the private life of an English field
“Almost all the things I love are to do with grass. Geese, sheep, cows, horses. Even dogs eat grass.”
― John Lewis-Stempel, quote from Meadowland: the private life of an English field
“They killed farming a year or so later. And they killed it by putting cabs on tractors. No longer was the farmer alive to the elements, or even close to the earth.”
― John Lewis-Stempel, quote from Meadowland: the private life of an English field
“I have decided to sleep under the stars... Tonight heaven is my roof, and the hedges my walls... The field folds me in soft wings.”
― John Lewis-Stempel, quote from Meadowland: the private life of an English field
“And nothing in nature is wasted. The bodies of the dead meadow ants will go to nourish the soil of the meadow. Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust. Flesh to flesh.”
― John Lewis-Stempel, quote from Meadowland: the private life of an English field
“High summer and one can hear the universe; so overwhelming is e accumulated sound of growing in the meadow and in hedges, of pollen being released, of particles moving in the heat, that all the minute motions together create a continuous him: the sound of summer.”
― John Lewis-Stempel, quote from Meadowland: the private life of an English field
John Lewis-Stempel
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“I play DJ, and you tell me what you like.”
“Got it,” I said with a firm nod, fighting little jitters of excitement.
“And who knows? Maybe something will be familiar. As long as it’s not death metal, I think we can rule you out as a potential Satan worshiper.”
― Tara Hudson, quote from Hereafter
“But I still state unhesitatingly, that for pure, vacillating stupidity, for superb incompetence to command, for ignorance combined with bad judgment --in short, for the true talent for catastrophe -- Elphy Bey stood alone. Others abide our question, but Elphy outshines them all as the greatest military idiot of our own or any other day.
Only he could have permitted the First Afghan War and let it develop to such ruinous defeat. It was not easy: he started with a good army, a secure position, some excellent officers, a disorganized enemy, and repeated opportunities to save the situation. But Elphy, with the touch of true genius, swept aside these obstacles with unerring precision, and out of order wrought complete chaos. We shall not, with luck, look upon his like again.”
― George MacDonald Fraser, quote from Flashman
“...I realized that my father, of all these men, was the most obstinate, helplessly bonded to his better instincts and their excessive demands. I only then understood that he had quit his job not merely because he was fearful of what awaited us down the line should we agree like the others to be relocated, but because, for better or worse, when he was bullied by superior forces that he deemed corrupt it was his nature not to yield--in this instance, to resist either running away to Canada, as my mother urged our doing, or bowing to a government directive that was patently unjust. There were two types of strong men: those like Uncle Monty And Abe Steinheim, remorseless about their making money, and those like my father, ruthlessly obedient to their idea of fair play.”
― Philip Roth, quote from The Plot Against America
“Raven: "Don't you notice that?"
Alexander: "Notice what?"
Raven: "The girls?"
Alexander: "What girls?"
Raven: "Hello! You were worried about bringing me to a bar when all along I should have been concerned about bringing you."
Alexander: "I don't know what you are talking about."
Raven: "The girls are drooling all over you!"
Alexander: "Well, there is only one girl I want to be with and she's right here.”
― Ellen Schreiber, quote from The Coffin Club
“The universe is so very complicated," said Dr Dimble.
"So you have said rather often before, dear," replied Mrs Dimble
"Have I?" he said with a smile. "How often, I wonder? As often as you've told the story of the pony and trap at Dawlish?"
"Cecil! I haven't told it for years."
"My dear, I heard you telling it to Camilla the night before last."
"Oh, Camilla! That was quite different. She'd never heard it before."
"I don't know if we can even be certain about that...the universe being so complicated and all." For a few minutes there was silence between them.
"But about Merlin?" asked Mrs Dimble presently.
"Have you ever noticed," said Dimble," that the universe, and every little bit of the universe, is always hardening and narrowing and coming to a point?"
His wife waited as those wait who know by long experience the mental processes of the person who is talking to them.
"I mean this," said Dimble, answering the question she had not asked. "If you dip into any college, or school, or parish, or family—anything you like—at a given point in its history, you always find that there was a time before that point when there was more elbow room and contrasts weren't quite so sharp; and that there's going to be a time after that point when there is even less room for indecision and choices are even more momentous. Good is always getting better and bad is always getting worse: the possibilities of even apparent neutrality are always diminishing.”
― C.S. Lewis, quote from That Hideous Strength
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