Laurie Lee Quotes

That last winter was a tragic story and I got no personal honour out of it but I was a witness to it. ~ Laurie Lee

I wanted to communicate what I had seen, so that others could see it. ~ Laurie Lee

God's codpiece, you're very kind ~ Laurie Lee

Here I discovered water - a very different element from the green crawling scum that stank in the garden tub. You could pump it in pure blue gulps out of the ground, you could swing on the pump handle and it came out sparkling like liquid sky. And it broke and ran and shone on the tiled floor, or quivered in a jug, or weighted your clothes with cold. You could drink it, draw with it, froth it with soap, swim beetles across it, or fly it in bubbles in the air. You could put your head in it, and open your eyes, and see the sides of the bucket buckle, and hear your caught breath roar, and work your mouth like a fish, and smell the lime from the ground. ~ Laurie Lee

Emmanuel Twinning, on the other hand, was gentle and very old, and made his own suits out of hospital blankets, and lived nearby with a horse.
Emmanuel and the skewbald had much in common, including the use of the kitchen, and one saw their grey heads, almost any evening, poking together out of the window. The old man himself, when seen alone, seemed to inhabit unearthly regions, so blue and remote that the girls used to sing:
O come, O come, E-mah-ah-ah-new-el!
An' ransom captive Is-rah-ah-ah-el! ...
At this he would nod and smile gently upon us, moving his lips to the hymn. He
was so very old, so far and strange, I never doubted that the hymn was his. He wore sky-blue blankets, and his name was Emmanuel; it was easy to think he was God. ~ Laurie Lee

I was set down from the carrier's cart at the age of three; and there with a sense of bewilderment and terror my life in the village began. ~ Laurie Lee

Eight to ten loaves came to the house every day, and they never grew dry. We tore them to pieces with their crusts still warm, and their monotony was brightened by the objects we found in them – string, nails, paper, and once a mouse; for those were days of happy-go-lucky baking. ~ Laurie Lee

A wasting memory is not only a destroyer; it can deny one's very existence. A day unremembered is like a soul unborn, worse than if it had never been. What indeed was that summer if it is not recalled? That journey? That act of love? To whom did it happen if it has left you with nothing? Certainly not to you. So any bits of warm life preserved by the pen are trophies snatched from the dark, are branches of leaves fished out of the flood, are tiny arrests of mortality. ~ Laurie Lee

In London, Man is the most secret animal on earth. ~ Laurie Lee

I felt once again the unease of arriving at night in an unknown city
that faint sour panic which seems to cling to a place until one has found oneself a bed. ~ Laurie Lee

Me dad planted that tree,' she said absently, pointing out through the old cracked window.
The great beech filled at least half the sky and shook shadows all over the house.
Its roots clutched the slope like a giant hand, holding the hill in place. Its trunk writhed with power, threw off veils of green dust, rose towering into the air, branched into a thousand shaded alleys, became a city for owls and squirrels. I had thought such trees to be as old as the earth, I never dreamed that a man could make them. Yet it was Granny Trill's dad who had planted this tree, had thrust in the seed with his finger. How old must he have been to leave such a mark? Think of Granny's age, and add his on top, and you were back at the beginning of the world. ~ Laurie Lee

I felt it was for this I had come: to wake at dawn on a hillside and look out on a world for which I had no words, to start at the beginning, speechless and without plan, in a place that still had no memories for me. ~ Laurie Lee

She leaned out of the window slow and sleepy, and the light came through her nightdress like sand through a sieve. ~ Laurie Lee

In America, even your menus have the gift of language ... The Chef's own Vienna Roast. A hearty, rich meat loaf, gently seasoned to perfection and served in a creamy nest of mashed farm potatoes and strictly fresh garden vegetables. Of course, what you get is cole slaw and a slab of meat, but that doesn't matter because the menu has already started your juices going. Oh, those menus. In America, they are poetry. ~ Laurie Lee

For the first time I was learning how much easier it was to leave than to stay behind and love. ~ Laurie Lee

I expected to be shot at any moment and if they had done I would have understood, that they couldn't take risks with someone foolhardy or so unpredictable. ~ Laurie Lee

The untarred road wound away up the valley, innocent as yet of motor-cars, wound empty away to other villages, which lay empty too, the hot day long, waiting for the sight of a stranger. We ~ Laurie Lee

Not everyone requires, nor seeks, the stimulus of the recurring image. They are content to be without directions. But for those of us who are branded by this particular mark, at least we know where we're going.
We are going, as it were, on a series of seasonal journeys, the climax of which is simply returning home. ~ Laurie Lee

Dorothy scratched her dark head, yawning wide, and white feathers floated out of her hair. ~ Laurie Lee

I shared a compartment with a half-dozen muffled-up soldiers who had only arrived the day before, including an ill-favoured young Catalan whose pox-pitted cheeks sprouted stubble like a grave in May. ~ Laurie Lee

But our waking life, and our growing years, were for the most part spent in the kitchen, and until we married, or ran away, it was the common room we shared. ~ Laurie Lee

Wilde said he felt sorry for those who never got their heart's desire, but sorrier still for those who did. ~ Laurie Lee

Granny Trill and Granny Wallon were traditional ancients of a kind we won't see today, the last of that dignity of grandmothers to whom age was its own embellishment. The grandmothers of those days dressed for the part in that curious but endearing uniform which is now known to us only through music-hall. And our two old neighbours, when setting forth on errands, always prepared themselves scrupulously so. They wore high laced boots and long muslin dresses, beaded chokers and candlewick shawls, crowned by tall poke bonnets tied with trailing ribbons and smothered with inky sequins. They looked like starlings, flecked with jet, and they walked in a tinkle of darkness.

Those severe and similar old bodies enthralled me when they dressed that way. When I finally became King (I used to think) I would command a parade of grandmas, and drill them, and march them up and down - rank upon rank of hobbling boots, nodding bonnets, flying shawls, and furious chewing faces. They would be gathered from all the towns and villages and brought to my palace in wagon-loads. No more than a monarch's whim, of course, like eating cocoa or drinking jellies; but far more spectacular any day than those usual trudging guardsmen. ~ Laurie Lee

I have been sitting watching that ever since I came back, the continuous variations of light and shadow. ~ Laurie Lee

I have got a daughter, whose life is already separate from mine, whose will already follows its own directions, and who has quickly corrected my woolly preconceptions of her by being something remorselessly different. She is the child of herself and will be what she is. I am merely the keeper of her temporary helplessness. ~ Laurie Lee

It was a world that I wanted to record because it was such a miracle visitation to me. ~ Laurie Lee

I don't know what idiocies drove me in those days, but they were naive, innocent idiocies in many ways. ~ Laurie Lee

But spring in England is like a prolonged adolescence, stumbling, sweet and slow, a thing of infinitesimal shades, false starts, expectations, deferred hopes, and final showers of glory. ~ Laurie Lee

We were living in the Slad Road when my father left us. I was about three. ~ Laurie Lee

At best, love is simply the slipping of a hand in another's, of knowing you are where you belong at last, and of exchanging through the eyes that all-consuming regard which ignores everybody else on earth. ~ Laurie Lee

Eulalia turned and smiled at me brilliantly, showing her tongue, her face cracking open like a brown snake's egg hatching. ~ Laurie Lee

My other big mistake was letting it slide when she promised me a cut of her earnings. Because it turns out not many people want to stroll through head-high piles of scrap metal and rusty baby buggies down a path lined with artificial yucca plants to have their fortune told by a chain-smoking butterball in a dirty pink sweat suit. If I had thought about it long and hard enough I could've predicted that myself. ~ Kerry-Lee Powell

I'm not really into gourmet food; I'm the kind of guy who just stops by a place that looks good rather than heading for the restaurant of the moment. ~ Lee Child

I can't seem to recall if I've ever had amnesia before. ~ Stewart Lee Beck

There were many who charmed her, but only one who truly understood her mind, graced her heart, and made her feel deliciously delirious. When that lovely soul kissed her soul, her heart became a thousand times more beautiful. ~ Melody Lee

Life Insurance trusts I consider sacred. To hazard the property of the dead & to lose the scanty earnings of fathers & husbands, who have toiled & saved that they may leave something to their families deprived of their care & the support of their labour, is to my mind the worst of crimes. ~ Robert E.Lee

I don't lead a Hollywood lifestyle. ~ Ang Lee

I think you have to be crazy not to want to work on the Joker! I can't think of many characters, heroes or villains, that are as malleable as him. He really can be interpreted in so many different ways, and generally, people don't really want to scratch the surface because you can get into some really dark territory real fast. ~ Lee Bermejo

A lady?' Jem raised his head. His face was scarlet. 'After all those things she said about you, a lady?'
'She was. She had her own views about things, a lot different from mine, maybe ... son, I told you that if you hadn't lost your head I'd have made you go read to her. I wanted you to see something about her- I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you know you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do. Mrs. Dubose won, all ninety-eight pounds of her. According to her views, she died beholden to nothing and nobody. She was the bravest person I ever knew. ~ Harper Lee

I'm a big boy now, and I have to deliver. ~ Ang Lee

Get correct views of life, and learn to see the world in its true light. It will enable you to live pleasantly, to do good, and, when summoned away, to leave without regret. ~ Robert E.Lee

When people make a contract with the devil and give him an air-conditioned office to work in, he doesn't go back home easily. ~ James Lee Burke

I don't like the act of talking; it makes me slightly light-headed. ~ Hugh Laurie

I have very short hair. It's the only cute haircut I think I've ever had. ~ Jamie Lee Curtis

Too bad you can't quote the look on my face. ~ Amy Lee

After Ben leaves, I head back upstairs to my room, only to find Dad in the kitchen. He has his back toward me, sneaking a bag of Bugles from one of the baskets above the cabinets.
"Caught you," I say, switching on the light, making him jump.
"Shouldn't you be in bed?" he asks, keeping his voice low.
"Shouldn't you?" I give him a pointed look.
"Probably, but your mom actually feel asleep tonight - probably the first night all week. Meanwhile, I'm too hungry to nod off."
"So, where does that leave us?" I ask, eyeing his bag of Bugles.
"Can you be trusted?"
"That depends. Are you willing to share?" I smile. "Good hiding spot, by the way. Nobody ever uses those baskets."
"That's what you think." He gazes down the hall to make sure the coast is clear and then snags a bag of Hershey's Kisses from one of the other four overhead baskets.
We park ourselves at the kitchen island and rip both bags open. Five full minutes of lusty devouring pass before either of us speaks. ~ Laurie Faria Stolarz

History is an angel being blown backwards into the future ~ Laurie Anderson

Violent men, and men in authority over violent men, and the broader public that authorises those men, are not yet shamed by the harm of coercive control over women ... Maybe we can rest some hope on the growing activity of men of goodwill calling on each other to change. When that group hits a critical mass, the majority of men will be more likely to want to change. ~ Lee Lakeman

To some it may seem old-fashioned to speak of virtue and chastity, honesty, morality, faith, character, but these are the qualities which have built great men and women and point the way by which one may find happiness in the living of today and eternal joy in the world to come. These are the qualities which are the anchors to our lives, in spite of the trials, the tragedies, the pestilences, and the cruelties of war which bring in their wake appalling destruction, hunger, and bloodshed ~ Harold B. Lee

Even professional, paid carers aren't always models of saintly behaviour - and they know they can knock off at the end of their shift to go home, take an uninterrupted shower, and have a normal conversation with someone. ~ Laurie Graham

I have been chosen and trained to carry the gift of the gods for the good and protection of the people, and against all enemies of the clan, no matter their strength or numbers. I join myself to the fellowship of jade warriors, freely and with my whole being, and I will call them my brothers-in-arms. Should I ever be disloyal to my brother, may I die by the blade. Should I ever fail to come to the aid of my brother, may I die by the blade. Should I ever seek personal gain at the expense of my brother, may I die by the blade. Under the eyes of all the gods in Heaven, I pledge this. On my honor, my life, and my jade. ~ Fonda Lee

The father figure is something I love, but also suffocate from and want to work against. ~ Ang Lee

The challenge in fiction is to write a terrific story. The challenge in journalism is to communicate solid, objective information. The challenge in creative non-fiction is to do it both and to do it well. ~ Lee Gutkind

The spiritual kinship between Lincoln and Whitman was founded upon their Americanism, their essential Westernism. Whitman had grown up without much formal education; Lincoln had scarcely any education. One had become the notable poet of the day; one the orator of the Gettsyburg Address. It was inevitable that Whitman as a poet should turn with a feeling of kinship to Lincoln, and even without any association or contact feel that Lincoln was his. ~ Edgar Lee Masters

Nicole can do anything that involves a ball and whistle. ~ Laurie Halse Anderson

I still don't look at myself as a star. I've always had a thankful heart. ~ Brenda Lee

We believed optimistically that Laurie was a reformed character. I told my husband, on the last day of Laurie's confinement, that actually one good scare like that could probably mark a child for life, and my husband pointed out that kids frequently have an instinctive desire to follow the good example rather than the bad, once they find out which is which. We agreed that a good moral background and thorough grounding in the Hardy Boys would always tell in the long run.
("Arch-Criminal") ~ Shirley Jackson

It gets dangerous when you start allowing people to validate your work ... ~ Spike Lee

Colored or not, we all pick the white man's cotton. ~ James Lee Burke

Bring the mind to a sharp focus and make it alert so that it can immediately intuit truth, which is everywhere. ~ Bruce Lee

Christmas is more stressful with present buying and making sure everyone gets included, but Thanksgiving is really not that. I don't ever really get stressed out about the food. ~ Sandra Lee

I enjoy personal injury cases. I've tried quite a few of those. And, frankly, any kind of litigation that is trouble-shooting, whether it's equities, suits and injunctions, or whatever. ~ F. Lee Bailey

When the mind no longer sees itself as a body, forever in bondage to the body, the mind can be free and at peace even when we are physically sick. ~ Lee L Jampolsky

What had happened, for instance, at one of the war's biggest battles, the Battle of Midway? It was in the Pacific, there was something about aircraft carriers. Wasn't there a movie about it, one of those Hollywood all-star behemoths in which a lot of admirals look worried while pushing toy ships around a map? (Midway, released in 1976 and starring Glenn Ford, Charlton Heston, and -- inevitably -- Henry Fonda.) A couple of people were even surprised to hear that Midway Airport was named after the battle, though they'd walked past the ugly commemorative sculpture in the concourse so many times. All in all, this was a dispiriting exercise. The astonishing events of that morning, the "fatal five minutes" on which the war and the fate of the world hung, had been reduced to a plaque nobody reads, at an airport with a vaguely puzzling name, midway between Chicago and nowhere at all. ~ Lee Sandlin

I am primarily a writer of books, and I enjoy that. But I come to realize that a lot of people prefer a visual medium. ~ Lee Strobel

Think about it, Lee - we already know that intelligent minds produce finely tuned devices. Look at the space shuttle. Look at a television set. Look at an internal combustion engine. We see minds producing complex, precision machinery all the time.

So the existence of a supermind - or God - as the explanation for the fine - tuning of the universe makes all sense in the world. ~ Lee Strobel

The Kel unsheathed their swords, each tinted differently, blank bars of light. Cheris's ran from blue near the hilt to red at the tip. As they closed with the enemy, numbers blazed to life along the lengths of the blades: the day and the hour of your death, as the Kel liked to say. ~ Yoon Ha Lee

No one talked, but they all said plenty. ~ Lee Child