15 quotes
She is of course just an ordinary miracle, but is also the particular late wonder of my life.
I Can't Stay Long (1975)
This London, of course, with its hollow, drum-like name, is neither England nor abroad but something on its own, a walled fantasy of remembered tales.
I Can't Stay Long (1975)
Love is also disquiet, the brooding pleasures of doubt, midnights wasted by speculation, the frantic dance round the significance of the last thing she said, the need to see her to have life confirmed.
I Can't Stay Long (1975)
In the armoury of man, charm is the enchanted dart, light and subtle as a hummingbird. But it is deceptive in one thing - like a sense of humour, if you think you've got it, you probably haven't.
I Can't Stay Long (1975)
The last days of my childhood were also the last days of the village. I belonged to that generation which saw, by chance, the end of a thousand years' life.
Cider with Rosie (1959)
It is a long time now since I knew that acute moment of bliss that comes from putting parched lips to a cup of cold water. The springs are still there to be enjoyed - all one needs is the original thirst.
I Can't Stay Long (1975)
….and Rosie, having baptized me with her cidrous kisses, married a soldier and I lost her for ever.
Cider with Rosie (1959)
...because city honours are not village honours. Like certain wines, they do not travel; carry them back to the village and you find they are dust in your hands.
I Can't Stay Long (1975)
This tiny, white-washed Infants’ room was a brief but cosy anarchy. In that short time allowed us we played and wept, broke things, fell asleep, cheeked the teacher, discovered the things we could do to each other, and exhaled our last guiltless days.
Cider with Rosie (1959)
At Bognor Regis I camped out on the sands where I met a fluid young girl of sixteen, who hugged me steadily throughout one long hot day with only a gymslip on her sea-wet body.
As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning (1969)
The rabble closed in; I was encircled; grit flew in my face like shrapnel. Tall girls with frizzled hair, and huge boys with sharp elbows, began to prod me with hideous interest. They plucked at my scarves, spun me round like a top, screwed my nose and stole my potato.
Cider with Rosie (1959)
One moment I was part of the hurrying crowds, the next I stood nakedly apart, my back to the wall, my hat on the pavement before me, the violin under my chin.
As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning (1969)
These poems were written by someone I once was and who is so distant to me now that I scarcely recognize him anymore. They speak for a time and a feeling which of course has gone from me but for which I still have a close affection and kinship.
Now we go off to the office and come home in the evenings to cheap chicken and frozen peas. Very nice, but too much of it, too easy and regular, served up without effort or wanting. We eat, we are lucky, our faces are shining with fat, but we don't know the pleasure of being hungry any more.
I Can't Stay Long (1975)
Charm is the ultimate weapon, the supreme seduction, against which there are few defences. If you've got it, you need almost nothing else, neither money, looks, nor pedigree. It's a gift, only to be given away, and the more used the more there is. It is also a climate of behaviour set for the perpetual summer and thermostatically controlled by taste and tact.
I Can't Stay Long (1975)