London Gardens Quotes

Thomas More, the Lord Chancellor, has put his signature first on all the articles against Wolsey. They say one strange allegation has been added at his behest. The cardinal is accused of whispering in the king's ear and breathing into his face; since the cardinal has the French pox, he intended to infect our monarch. When he hears this he thinks, imagine living inside the Lord Chancellor's head. Imagine writing down such a charge and taking it to the printer, and circulating it through the court and through the realm, putting it out there to where people will believe anything; putting it out there, to the shepherds on the hills, to Tyndale's plowboy, to the beggar on the roads and the patient beast in its byre or stall; out there to the bitter winter winds, and to the weak early sun, and the snowdrops in the London gardens. ~ Hilary Mantel

London is the world's Garden Capital - as Los Angeles is its film capital, Paris its fashion capital and Bogata its narcotics capital. ~ Tom Turner

Spring has always been the dearest friend to me, with her voice like a feather tossed on the wind. With a tin pail of water in hand, I set out into the gardens grown in her warmth. A straw hat shields my cheek from the rosy stain of her sunlit kiss. When the work of the day is done, I find my little shelter in her embrace. ~ Erin Forbes

When it comes to ye, lass, I doubt even my sanity ~ Julia London

After a while the scene started to fade, and I became dimly conscious, once more, that I was in London, stoned, hallucinating Agincourt on the sleeve of my dressing gown. It ~ Oliver Sacks

As a typical Londoner, Gurcan had a high tolerance for random thoughtlessness; after all, if you live in the big city there's no point complaining that it's a big city, but even that tolerance has its limit and the name of that limit is 'taking the piss'. ~ Ben Aaronovitch

The architecture of the thugs also differs from that of normal societies. It can often be recognized by the megalomaniacal style of their public buildings and facilities. The Moscow subway is a faithful copy of the London Underground, except that its stations and corridors are filled with statues of homo sovieticus, a fictitious species that stands (or sits on a tractor), chin up, chest out, belly in, heroically gazing into the distance with a look of grim determination. The Romans had similar tastes. Their public latrines were lavishly decorated with mosaics and marbles. When a particularly elaborately decorated structure at Puteoli was dug up by archaeologists in the last century, they thought at first that they had discovered a temple; but it turned out to be a public latrine. ~ Petr Beckmann

In his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, the eighteenth-century British historian Edward Gibbon describes the scene of Romans fleeing the city of Nisibis in A.D. 363 after it was handed over to the Persians......Gibbon could have been describing a photograph from the 1994 genocide in Rawanda or the crisis in Darfur, Sudan. He could have been describing any number of forced migrations that have occurred all over the world in the last ten years, even the last five. The picture has not changed much since the fourth century. ~ Charles London

At half past three, in the ditch of the night, Alice said: Oh, Mummy, too bad! Fading roses, this garden's over. ~ Stephen King

A strange thing happened to me as I walked away from Jane's house
I was finally thinking clearly. I could see what Charlotte meant. Jane knew how to fix people. Now that I'd talked through some of my issues, I'd blown out the dust and garbage out of my brain and I could think for once. I could smell the rain, heavy with iron. The cold woke me, but it didn't sting. My breath puffed out in front of me in a great white plume, and I laughed. It was like I was breathing ghosts. I wasn't in the land of long highways and big box stores and humid, endless summers. I was in London, a city of stone and rain and magic. I understood, for instance, why they liked red so much. The red buses, telephone booths, and postboxes were a violent shock against the grays of the sky and stone. Red was blood and beating hearts.
And I was strong. ~ Maureen Johnson

Lastly, it should be noted that the nostalgia which the reading public maintains for my former Baker Street address does not exist in me. I no longer crave the bustle of London streets, nor do I miss navigating the tangled mires created by the criminally disposed. ~ Mitch Cullin

This was London, after all. I had read somewhere that wherever you stand in the entire city, you're never more than twenty yards from a rat. There were 50 million of them. That was like seven rats per human. ~ Amanda Gefter

One cannot violate the promptings of one's nature without having that nature recoil upon itself. ~ Jack London

A strange night, he thought. Somewhere now there is shooting and men are being hunted and imprisoned and tortured and murdered, some corner of a peaceful world is being trampled upon, and one knows it, helplessly, and life buzzes on in the bright bistros of the city, no one cares, and people go calmly to sleep, and I am sitting here with a woman between pale chrysanthemums and a bottle of calvados, and the shadow of love rises, trembling, lonesome, strange and sad, it too an exile from the safe gardens of the past, shy and wild and quick as if it had no right ~ Erich Maria Remarque

Jack stares at me blankly. 'A what?' he asks.

I choke back the laugh. 'A boy. You know? A Y-chromosome holder? You don't seem to notice them as much as you do the X-carriers.'

'What are you talking about?' Jack asks, 'A boy? She's just a kid.'

I hesitate, wondering how Jack is only just doing the maths on this one now. 'She's seventeen. She's not a kid anymore.'

Jack looks like he's about to go all Incredible Hulk and burst out of his clothes before rampaging through the bar. He jumps off the stool. 'If any boy ever lays a finger on my sister, I'm going to kill him,' he says.

Again I stare at him in silence, thinking of all the girls Jack has laid fingers and much more of his anatomy on besides. Poor Lila. If she ever wants to have a shot at a normal life, as in one that doesn't require a vow of celibacy, she needs to stay in London. ~ Sarah Alderson

The only thing that relaxes me is archery. That's why I have to have apartments with gardens. ~ Paulo Coelho

He made two or three peculiar observations; as when shewn the botanical garden, 'Is not EVERY garden a botanical garden? ~ James Boswell

Sled shot downhill at their heels. ~ Jack London

For you little gardener and lover of trees, I have only a small gift. Here is set G for Galadriel, but it may stand for garden in your tongue. In this box there is earth from my orchard, and such blessing as Galadriel has still to bestow is upon it. It will not keep you on your road, nor defend you against any peril; but if you keep it and see your home again at last, then perhaps it may reward you. Though you should find all barren and laid waste, there will be few gardens in Middle-earth that will bloom like your garden, if you sprinkle this earth there. Then you may remember Galadriel, and catch a glimpse far off of Lórien, that you have seen only in our winter. For our spring and our summer are gone by, and they will never be seen on earth again save in memory. ~ J.R.R. Tolkien

London in the '70s was a pretty catastrophic dump, I can tell you. We had every kind of industrial trouble; we had severe energy problems; we were under constant terrorist attack from Irish terrorist groups who started a bombing campaign in English cities; politics were fantastically polarized between left and right. ~ Ian McEwan

I'll fly Away took place in the 50's and 60's in America's South, and there are a couple of scenes where me and my friends are supposed to be skinny dipping with these girls. ~ Jeremy London

In London it's easy not to be the focus of attention, especially when Sting lives in the house just behind you. ~ Victoria Wood

The mass of the rich and the poor are differentiated by their incomes and nothing else,and the average millionaire is only the average dishwasher dressed in a new suit. ~ George Orwell

The Life of Sir Thomas Munro, by the Rev. G. R. Gleig, in two volumes, a new edition (London, 1831), vol. ii, p. 175. ~ William Sleeman

The heavy spacesuits are spectacular to look at but very hot. Putting one on was like going from chilly London winter weather to the Bahamas in just minutes. ~ Kathleen Quinlan

On the whole, when I travel to different countries, I like to find the hidden places, so I tend to avoid the cities - but in terms of the ease of getting about, finding what you need, the excitement, that undercurrent of whatever you want it to be, it's got to be London. ~ Will Tudor

As a boy, in my own backyard I could catch a basket of blue crabs, a string of flounder, a dozen redfish, or a net full of white shrimp. All this I could do in a city enchanting enough to charm cobras out of baskets, one so corniced and filigreed and elaborate that it leaves strangers awed and natives self-satisfied. In its shadows you can find metal work as delicate as lace and spiral staircases as elaborate as yachts. In the secrecy of its gardens you can discover jasmine and camellias and hundreds of other plants that look embroidered and stolen from the Garden of Eden for the sheer love of richness and the joy of stealing from the gods. In its kitchens, the stoves are lit up in happiness as the lamb is marinating in red wine sauce, vinaigrette is prepared for the salad, crabmeat is anointed with sherry, custards are baked in the oven, and buttermilk biscuits cool on the counter. ~ Pat Conroy

The End of World War One
Out of the scraped surface of the land
men began to emerge, like puppies
from the slit of their dam. Up from the trenches
they came out upon the pitted, raw earth
wobbling as if new-born.
They could not believe they would be allowed to live,
the orders had come down: no more killing.
They approached the enemy, holding out chocolate
and cigarettes. They shook hands, exchanged
souvenirs
mess-kits, neckerchiefs.
Some even embraced, while in London
total strangers copulated
in doorways and on the pavement, in the ecstasy
of being reprieved. Nine months later,
like men emerging from the trenches, first the head,
then the body, there were lifted, newborn, from these mothers,
the soldiers of World War Two. ~ Sharon Olds

I reckon you've called the turn, Bill. That wolf's a dog, an' it's eaten fish many's the time from the hand of man. (ch. 2.) ~ Jack London

I spent a long time in London on the stage, and you knew exactly what you were going to be doing. You not only knew the performance, but you also knew exactly where you would stand. ~ Daniel Sharman

I think what's great about your community is that it's different than anyone else's. Look around. What do you want to change? What needs to be built, or what's valuable and needs to be maintained? Is it the people? Local animals? Your parks or gardens? Hospitals? ~ Debby Ryan

In London, there is a section in a newspaper, the Metro, where people write in and thank strangers for their lovely or kind actions throughout the week. It brings me such happiness reading it and makes me know that, ultimately, human beings are amazing. ~ Rosie Fellner

He belonged to a certain breed of gentlemen, only to be met with in London, whose main occupation is the wearing of expensive and fashionable clothes; how they pass their lives in ostentatious idleness, gambling and drinking to excess and spending months at a time in Brighton and other fashionable watering places; how in recent years this breed seemed to have reached a sort of perfection in Christopher Drawlight. Even his dearest friends would have admitted that he possessed not a single good quality.1 ~ Susanna Clarke

I sometimes think the chef end of cooking is not the real end of cooking. Cooking is all about homes and gardens, it doesn't happen in restaurants. ~ Delia Smith

As a relatively young woman - I'm 33 - I hope to one day have a family and already have commitments. If and when I'm elected as an MP, I would face a choice: take my family with me to London each week or be apart for four, maybe five, nights a week. ~ Lucy Powell

Everywhere I go, I see young people: Confident, forward looking. I have seen them in Lagos, in Rwanda, in the suburbs of London. ~ Binyavanga Wainaina

The gardens of our childhood are all beautiful. ~ Barbara Grizzuti Harrison

She was thrilling to a desire that urged her to go forward, to be in closer to that fire, to be squabbling with the dogs, and to be avoiding and dodging the stumbling feet of men. ~ Jack London

I went out with a promiscuous impressionist - she did everybody. ~ Jay London

Announcer - "And where are you from Pete?"
Pete Townshend - "London, I'm from London."
Announcer - "London where, exactly?"
Pete - "London, England ~ Pete Townshend

I spent seven years in France. Then, I went to Asia for five years. I came to London in 1984 and then America in 1985. In 1991, I opened my first restaurant in New York City. ~ Jean-Georges Vongerichten

I have a few friends that have inspired me since I was a young kid. When I watch old films or modern movies - particularly 'Gladiator,' 'New Jack City' and 'The Skin I Live In' - I'll also get ideas. ~ Theophilus London

He wondered if anyone really ever changed, or if stuff just piled on and on, covering up, but never erasing all the different parts. How deep would you have to dig to find who you started out as? ~ Alex London

The Beatles were hard men too. Brian Epstein cleaned them up for mass consumption, but they were anything but sissies. They were from Liverpool, which is like Hamburg or Norfolk, Virginia
a hard, sea-farin' town, all these dockers and sailors around all the time who would beat the piss out of you if you so much as winked at them. Ringo's from the Dingle, which is like the f***ing Bronx. The Rolling Stones were the mummy's boys
they were all college students from the outskirts of London. They went to starve in London, but it was by choice, to give themselves some sort of aura of disrespectability. I did like the Stones, but they were never anywhere near the Beatles
not for humour, not for originality, not for songs, not for presentation. All they had was Mick Jagger dancing about. Fair enough, the Stones made great records, but they were always s**t on stage, whereas the Beatles were the gear. ~ Lemmy Kilmister

I've always thought that if I bury my feelings now, I can dig them up later when I have time to deal with them. ~ J.A. London