John Betjeman Quotes
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People's backyards are much more interesting than their front gardens, and houses that back on to railways are public benefactors.
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He sipped at a weak hock and seltzerAs he gazed at the London skiesThrough the Nottingham lace of the curtainsOr was it his bees-winged eyes?
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Yes, I haven't had enough sex.
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But I'm dying now and done for,What on earth was all the fun for?I am ill and old and terrified and tight.
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Hymn tunes are the nearest we've got to English folk music.
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I ought to warn you that my verse is of no interest to people who can think.
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There are two things you need for a jolly good hymn. The first is a set of words that expresses the mood or sentiment of the worshipper. The second-and perhaps even more important-is a good tune … with a simple popular melody.
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Gracious Lord, oh bomb the Germans.Spare their women for Thy Sake,And if that is not too easy,We will pardon Thy Mistake.But, gracious Lord, whate'er shall be,Don't let anyone bomb me.
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He would have liked to say goodbye,Shake hands with many friends.In Highgate now his finger-bonesStick through his finger-ends.You, God, who treat him thus and thus,Say, 'Save his soul and pray.'You ask me to believe You andI only see decay.
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One mark of good verse is surprise.
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Too many people in the modern world view poetry as a luxury, not a necessity like petrol. But to me it's the oil of life.
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History must not be written with bias, and both sides must be given, even if there is only one side.
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Oh shall I see the Thames again?The prow-promoted gems again,As beefy ATSWithout their hatsCome shooting through the bridge?And 'cheerioh' and 'cheeri-bye'Across the waste of waters die,And low the mists of evening lieAnd lightly skims the midge.
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Hymns are the poetry of the people.
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No hope. And the X-ray photographs under his armConfirm the message. His wife stands timidly by.The opposite brick-built house looks lofty and calm,Its chimneys steady against the mackerel sky.
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It's strange that those we miss the mostAre those we take for granted.
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Childhood is measured out by sounds and smells and sights, before the dark hour of reason grows.
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Topography is one of my chief themes in my poetry...about the country, the suburbs and the seaside...then there comes love...and increasingly, the fear of death.
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We sat in the car park till twenty to oneAnd now I'm engaged to Miss Joan Hunter Dunn.
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Saint Pancras was a fourteen-year old Christian boy who was martyred in Rome in AD 304 by the Emperor Diocletian. In England he is better known as a railway station.
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Ghastly Good Taste, or a Depressing Story of the Rise and Fall of English Architecture.
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Safe were those evenings of the pre-war worldWhen firelight shone on green linoleum,I heard the church bells hollowing out the sky,Deep beyond deep, like never-ending stars.
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Silver and ermine and red faces full of port wine.
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Miss J. Hunter Dunn, Miss J. Hunter Dunn,Furnish'd and burnish'd by Aldershot sun,What strenuous singles we played after tea,We in the tournament - you against me!