There Is, They Say, No Fool Like

Malcolm Bradbury Made The Point, And I Don't Know Whether It's A Valid One Or Not, That The Real English At The Moment Is Not The English Spoken In England Or In America Or Even In Canada Or Australia Or New Zealand. The Real English Is The English Which Is A Second Language, So That It's Rather Like Latin In The Days Of The Roman Empire When People Had Their Own Languages, But Had Latin In Order To Communicate.

His Mind Was Crowded With Memories; Memories Of The Knowledge That Had Come To Them When They Closed In On The Struggling Pig, Knowledge That They Had Outwitted A Living Thing, Imposed Their Will Upon It, Taken Away Its Life Like A Long Satisfying Drink.

I Will Tell You What Man Is. He Is A Freak, An Ejected Foetus Robbed Of His Natural Development, Thrown Out Into The World With A Naked Covering Of Parchment, With Too Little Room For His Teeth And A Soft Bulging Skull Like A Bubble. But Nature Stirs A Pudding There.

Among The Virtues And Vices That Make Up The British Character, We Have One Vice, At Least, That Americans Ought To View With Sympathy. For They Appear To Be The Only People Who Share It With Us. I Mean Our Worship Of The Antique. I Do Not Refer To Beauty Or Even Historical Association. I Refer To Age, To A Quantity Of Years.

It Wasn't Until I Was 37 That I Grasped The Great Truth That You've Got To Write Your Own Books And Nobody Else's, And Then Everything Followed From There.