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In the Garden City Café with its murals on the wall
Before a talk on "Sex and Civics" I meditated on the Fall.

— John Betjeman A Few Late Chrysanthemums (1954)

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Gardening

More quotes by John Betjeman

History must not be written with bias, and both sides must be given, even if there is only one side.

Stony seaboard, far and foreign,
Stony hills poured over space,
Stony outcrop of the Burren,
Stones in every fertile place.

New Bats in Old Belfries (1945)

Hymn tunes are the nearest we've got to English folk music.

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)

Safe were those evenings of the pre-war world
When firelight shone on green linoleum,
I heard the church bells hollowing out the sky,
Deep beyond deep, like never-ending stars.

Summoned by Bells (1960)

All John Betjeman quotes →

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Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?

Douglas Adams The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (1979)

Show me your garden, provided it be your own, and I will tell you what you are like.

Alfred Austin The Garden That I Love (1894)

Nothing is more completely the child of art than a garden.

Walter Scott

We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.

Eve

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: John Betjeman (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.