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The fighter (like the writer) must stand alone. If he loses he cannot call an executive conference and throw off on a vice president or the assistant sales manager. He is consequently resented by fractional characters who cannot live outside an organization.
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You cannot have a good character today and at the same time have a small mind and a little heart. You cannot have a good character today and be merely a petty reformer.
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I never really thought of myself as being an action hero or a leading man, or any of that. I'm a character actor.
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Once upon a time, a historian told me that the most important choice a new historian could make was of his or her specialist subject. Most of the good stuff was far too overcrowded, so you had to pick about in the exotic and extinct. His recommendations were the Picts or the Minoans, because hardly anything was known about them and you could spend a happy lifetime of speculation.
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If the English language had been properly organized ... then there would be a word which meant both 'he' and 'she', and I could write, 'If John or Mary comes heesh will want to play tennis', which would save a lot of trouble.
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Freedom does not always win. This is one of the bitterest lessons of history.
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All other forms of history - economic history, social history, psychological history, above all sociology - seem to me history with the history left out.
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History does not eliminate grievances. It lays them down like landmines.
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We, while noting many things amiss about Victorian society, more often sense them judging us.
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Well, Brief Encounter is certainly one of my top five favorites of all time. I looked at Brief Encounter very closely, to be honest.
