Jan Struther Quotes

Librarianship is one of the few callings in the world for which is it still possible to feel unqualified admiration and respect. ~ Jan Struther

For to love, loveless, is a bitter pill:But to be loved, unloving, bitterer still. ~ Jan Struther

[T]he mechanics of life should never be allowed to interfere with living. ~ Jan Struther

It was more like a form of claustrophobia
a dread of exchanging the freedom of her own self-imposed routine for the inescapable burden of somebody else's. ~ Jan Struther

The importance of the ordinary citizen is very greatly underestimated - not so much by those in authority as by the ordinary citizen himself. ~ Jan Struther

It's as important to marry the right life as it is the right person. ~ Jan Struther

When there is a world scarcity of any commodity, whether it's food or free speech, then the whole world must go on rations in order that eventually the whole world may have it again in plenty. ~ Jan Struther

Words were the only net to catch a mood, the only sure weapon against oblivion. ~ Jan Struther

[Y]ou cannot successfully navigate the future unless you keep always framed beside it a small clear image of the past. ~ Jan Struther

One is what one remembers: no more, no less. ~ Jan Struther

Not that she didn't enjoy the holidays: but she always felt - and it was, perhaps, the measure of her peculiar happiness - a little relieved when they were over. Her normal life pleased her so well that she was half afraid to step out of its frame in case one day she should find herself unable to get back. ~ Jan Struther

Nature has decreed that for what men suffer by having to shave, be killed in battle, and eat the legs of chickens, women make amends by housekeeping, childbirth, and writing all the letters for both of them ... ~ Jan Struther

Left wing ... Right wing ... it's so limited; why doesn't it ever occur to any of them that what one is really longing for is the wishbone? ~ Jan Struther

Swans ... always look as though they'd just been reading their own fan-mail. ~ Jan Struther

However long the horror continued, one must not get to the stage of refusing to think about it. To shrink from direct pain was bad enough, but to shrink from vicarious pain was the ultimate cowardice. And whereas to conceal direct pain was a virtue, to conceal vicarious pain was a sin. Only by feeling it to the utmost, and by expressing it, could the rest of the world help to heal the injury which had caused it. Money, food, clothing, shelter - people could give all these and still it would not be enough; it would not absolve them from paying also, in full, the imponderable tribute of grief. ~ Jan Struther

Scots are born exiles, and Scotland the perfect country to be exiled from. Do not imagine that I am running down Scotland. Far from it ... No, what I mean is that Scotland's beauties, though undeniable, are obvious ones, easy to carry in the heart, easy even to describe to the benighted members of less fortunate races. Lakes, islands and mountains, heather and rowan, broad straths and narrow glens - these are jewels easily worn in the memory ... ~ Jan Struther

The worst of gardening is that it's so full of metaphors one hardly knows where to begin. ~ Jan Struther

There was one bursting now, a delicate constellation of many-coloured stars which drifted down and lingered in the still air ... The final rocket went up, a really large one, a piece of reckless extravagance. Its sibilant uprush was impressive, dragonlike; it soared twice as high as any they had had before ... The sparks from the rocket came pouring down the sky in a slow golden cascade, vanishing one by one into a lake of darkness. ~ Jan Struther

This was the cream of marriage, this nightly turning out of the day's pocketful of memories, this deft habitual sharing of two pairs of eyes, two pairs of ears. It gave you, in a sense, almost a double life: though never, on the other hand, quite a single one. ~ Jan Struther

In childhood the daylight always fails too soon
except when there are going to be fireworks; ~ Jan Struther

Clem Miniver: She was a good cook, as good cooks go. And as good cooks go, she went. ~ Jan Struther

[Gardening] is a means by which you can attain many valuable hours of solitude without being thought unsociable. ~ Jan Struther

Giving a party is like having a baby: its conception is more fun than its completion; and once you have begun it, it is almost impossible to stop. ~ Jan Struther

And I am a mockery, who was God before. ~ Jan Struther

To visit a new country for the first time is great fun; but it is even greater fun to introduce somebody else to a country that you know. ~ Jan Struther

Constructive destruction is one of the most delightful employments in the world, and in civilized life the opportunities for it are only too rare. ~ Jan Struther

For really it was the refinement of civilized cruelty, this spick, span, and ingenious affair of shining leather and gleaming steel, which hoisted you and tilted you and fitted reassuringly into the small of your back and cupped your head tenderly between padded cushions. It ensured for you a more complete muscular relaxation than any armchair that you could buy for your own home: but it left your tormented nerves without even the solace of a counter-irritant. In the old days the victim's attention had at least been distracted by an ache in the back, a crick in the neck, pins and needles in the legs, and the uneasy tickling of plush under the palm. But now, too efficiently suspended between heaven and earth, you were at liberty to concentrate on hell. ~ Jan Struther

[M]rs. Miniver was beginning to feel more than a little weary of exchanging ideas (especially political ones) and of hearing other people exchange theirs. It's all very well, she reflected, when the ideas have had time to flower, or at least to bud, so that we can pick them judiciously, present them with a bow, and watch them unfold in the warmth of each other's understanding: but there is far too much nowadays of pulling up the wretched little things just to see how they are growing. Half the verbal sprigs we hand each other are nothing but up-ended rootlets, earthy and immature: left longer in the ground they might have come to something, but once they are exposed we seldom manage to replant them. It is largely the fault, no doubt, of the times we live in. Things happen too quickly, crisis follows crisis, the soil of our minds is perpetually disturbed. Each of us, to relieve his feels, broadcasts his own running commentary on the preposterous and bewildering events of the hour: and this, nowadays, is what passes for conversation. ~ Jan Struther

Private opinion creates public opinion. Public opinion overflows eventually into national behavior as things are arranged at present, can make or mar the world. That is why private opinion, and private behavior, and private conversation are so terrifyingly important. ~ Jan Struther

She saw every personal religion as a pair of intersecting circles ... Probably perfection is reached when the area of the two outer crescents, added together, is exactly equal to that of the leaf-shaped piece in the middle. On paper there must be some neat mathematical formula for arriving at this; in life, none. ~ Jan Struther

To be put down in this world, and given only eighty years to get to know it in, is like being let loose in the United States of America for the first time with a high-powered car and unlimited gasoline - but with a visa that is valid for only a week. It's agonizing, that's what it is. ~ Jan Struther

To be entirely at leisure for one day is to be for one day an immortal ~ Jan Struther

Mrs. Miniver suddenly understood why she was enjoying the forties so much better than she had enjoyed the thirties: it was the difference between August and October, between the heaviness of late summer and the sparkle of early autumn, between the ending of an old phase and the beginning of a fresh one. ~ Jan Struther

It seemed to her sometimes that the most important thing about marriage was not a home or children or a remedy against sin, but simply there being always an eye to catch. ~ Jan Struther

The books take a year just to do the drawing. I will travel to a country to do the research and get ideas. Sometimes I don't travel to do research, but mostly I do. It takes a long time, but do I ever get tired of it? Not really. The characters kind of grow and evolve. ~ Jan Brett

Indians love to reduce the prosaic to the mystic. ~ Jan Morris

Man is naturally lazy, therefore he invents labor-saving devices. ~ Ignacy Jan Paderewski

Even the roughest character, underneath all that hurt, is someone who wants to love and be loved. ~ Jan Karon

I knew [Timothy] Leary, but barely knew, didn't really know Jan [Kerouac]. ~ William S. Burroughs

Aunt Flo's love is not a soft thing, I think, but something hard and unyielding, which can be good or bad. ~ Jan Strnad

We no have to Dream for Seeing Dreams. ~ Jan Jansen

I personally believe that a democratic society is morally entitled to set and enforce a limit on the number of new immigrants admitted each year. ~ Jan C. Ting

No one has the right to enter literature without fresh new ideas. We've got too many dexterous drudges as it is. ~ Jan Neruda

We All Know the Difference between Sunshine and Rain. ~ Jan Jansen

Book lovers will understand me,
and they will know too that part of the pleasure
of a library lies in its very existence. ~ Jan Morris

Why can't life always be lived under the stars,' she said, 'with great music and family and friends? ~ Jan Karon

There flows throughout our whole history a stream of humanity, of generosity, of tolerance, so broad, so powerful, and so pure that it would be vain indeed to look for a similar one in the past of any other European country. ~ Ignacy Jan Paderewski

Finally, I am encouraged to note that the Security Council issued a statement today expressing its concern about the massive humanitarian crisis in Darfur and calling on all parties to the conflict to protect civilians and reach a ceasefire. ~ Jan Egeland

Plan Colombia was supposed to reduce Colombia's cultivation and distribution of drugs by 50 percent, but 6 years and $4.7 billion later, the drug control results are meager at best. ~ Jan Schakowsky

December 21, 1970 well, the amateur drunks have taken over and will hold this town until Jan. 2 ... driving on the wrong side of the street, running red lights, bellowing the same songs. figs of people, twigs of people, shits of people ... MERRY CHRISTMAS, HAPPY NEW YEAR. Christomighty, yeah. ~ Charles Bukowski

I knew it wasn't the right kind of love, because it required nothing of me. I did not need to worry about keeping it alive or putting it out since it was kept alive quite independently of anything I might or might not do. He would not be someone who demanded anything of me. He would hold on to whatever pieces I offered him, however flawed they might be. It did not bind me to him - somehow, it freed me. Louise ~ Jan Ellison

Father, he prayed silently, thank you for sending this boy into my life. Thank you for the joy and the sorrow he brings. Be with him always, to surround him with right influences, and when tests of any kind must come, give him wisdom and strength to act according to your will. Look over his mother, also, and the other children, wherever they are. Feed and clothe them, keep them from harm, and bring them one day into a full relationship with your Son. ~ Jan Karon

When I open many books, or most leading women's magazines, or see almost all TV shows, I don't find myself at all. I am completely anonymous. My value system is not there. ~ Jan Karon

In his bachelor's heart of hearts, he loved pie with an intensity that alarmed him. Yet, when he was offered seconds, he usually refused. "Wouldn't you like another piece of this nice coconut pie, Father?" he might be asked. "No, I don't believe I'd care for anymore," he'd say. An outright lie! ~ Jan Karon

Well, I went to school with Jan and Dean, Ryan O'Neal, some of the Beach Boys we all use to party together. ~ Tommy Rettig

My optimism has helped me through some hard times. If you try to send out good things, good things come back to you. ~ Jan Brett

Community health centers do a great deal with limited resources. They provide critical medical care services to many who would otherwise have no other place to go or would end up in an emergency room. ~ Jan Schakowsky

The scientific name for an animal that doesn't either run from or fight its own enemies is lunch. ~ Michael Jan Friedman

As we women awaken and actually love our funky chunky bodies, as is, imagine how many consumer industries will go out of business. What freedom and soul free dance lovin' fun! P.S. our ancestral sisters will be sooo proud! ~ Jan Porter

Sometimes a Change in LIfe can Bring Us Happiness. ~ Jan Jansen

If a man has found his dream woman, the joy will determine his life. ~ Jan Jansen

The historical resonances are sharp. [Louis] Brandeis is nominated on Jan. 28, 1916. Confirmed on June 1. Waits 125 days between nomination and confirmation, which remains an unbroken record, although Merrick Garland will surpass it in July, if my math is right. Anti-Semitism was definitely not the central reason for the opposition, which tended to focus more on his anti-corporate radicalism, but it was a theme. ~ Jeffrey Rosen

I will explain You why I'm a dreamer, because in my dream everything is possible and I'm always positive nothing bad will happen in my dream only love is there with me.
Jan Jansen ~ Jan Jansen

Many retail stores have consumer trackers that study how long your eyes linger on one product, whether you follow it through by touch, and things that you buy. You can redesign things on a shelf, all by tracking such information. ~ Jan Chipchase

Jill, a comprehensive school teacher in her early thirties, has put her dark past behind her to become a lady in control of her own life. Successful in her career, soon to be divorced and with no emotional ties, she is content. Except that one morning, while trying to find work for a recalcitrant Year 9 class, she finds herself in a dark and murky street in Victorian England. The image soon disappears and she is back in the classroom, but the children she was teaching have gone and so has an hour of her life. Soon Jill finds herself living two parallel lives, one as a teacher and the other as a Victorian governess. And this is just the beginning ~ Jan Hunter

We can live in and from the Nature and these Will accept us.

Wij kunnen in en van de natuur leven en deze accepteert ons. ~ Jan Jansen

Be Happy with what we Have Now in the Future it can change, but that is not Always to Better. ~ Jan Jansen