Laurie Lee Quotes

Bees blew like cake-crumbs through the golden air, white butterflies like sugared wafers, and when it wasn't raining a diamond dust took over which veiled and yet magnified all things

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.

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

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

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.

She was too honest, too natural for this frightened man; too remote from his tidy laws. She was, after all, a country girl; disordered, hysterical, loving. She was muddled and mischievous as a chimney-jackdaw, she made her nest of rags and jewels, was happy in the sunlight, squawked loudly at danger, pried and was insatiably curious, forgot when to eat or ate all day, and sang when sunsets were red.

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

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.

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.

The borders of consciousness are anxious enough, raw and desperate places; we shouldn't be dragged across them like struggling thieves as if sleep was a felony.

The prospect Smiler was a manic farmer. Few men I think can have been as unfortunate as he; for on the one hand he was a melancholic with a loathing for mankind, on the other, some paralysis had twisted his mouth into a permanent and radiant smile. So everyone he met, being warmed by his smile, would shout him a happy greeting. And beaming upon them with his sunny face he would curse them all to hell.

The Welsh are not like any other people in Britain, and they know how separate they are. They are the Celts, the tough little wine-dark race who were the original possessors of the island, who never mixed with the invaders coming later from the east, but were slowly driven into the western mountains.

All civilizations at some time have fallen into this total terror, when the mystery of life was a kind of panic only to be assuaged by the spilling of blood.

But I think my most lasting impression was still the unhurried dignity and noblesse with which the Spaniard handled his drink. He never gulped, panicked, pleaded with the barman, or let himself be shouted into the street. Drink, for him, was one of the natural privileges of living, rather than the temporary suicide it so often is for others. But then it was lightly taxed here, and there were no licensing laws; and under such conditions one could take one's time.

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

We carried cut hay from the heart of the rick, packed tight as tobacco flake, with grass and wild flowers juicily fossilized within – a whole summer embalmed in our arms.

So with the family gone, Mother lived as she wished ... Slowly, snugly, she grew into her background, warm on her grassy bank, poking and peering among the flowery bushes, dishevelled and bright as they. Serenely unkempt were those final years, free from conflict, doubt or dismay, while she reverted gently to a rustic simplicity as a moss-rose reverts to a wild one.

And as I lay there listening, with the sun filtering across me, I thought this was how it should always be. To be charmed from sleep by a voice like this, eased softly back into life, rather than by the customary brutalities of shouts, knocking, and alarm-bells like blows on the head. The borders of consciousness are anxious enough, raw and desperate places; we shouldn’t be dragged across them like struggling thieves as if sleep was a felony.

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.

Night odours come drifting from woods and gardens; sweet musks and sharp green acids. In the sky the fat stars bounce up and down, rhythmically, as we trudge along. Glow-worms, brighter than lamps or candles, spike the fields with their lemon fires, while huge horned beetles stumble out of the dark and buzz blindly around our heads.

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.

At first there was nothing - a profound blue darkness running running deep, laced by skeins of starlight and pale phosphorescent flashes. This four o-clock hour was a moment of utter silence, the indrawn breath of dark, the absolute, trance-like balance between night and day. Then, when it seemed that nothing would ever move or live or know the light again, a hot wind would run over the invisible water. It was like a fore-blast of the turning world, an intimation that its rocks and seas and surfaces still stirred against the sun. One strained one's eyes, scarce breathing, searching for a sign. Presently it came. Far in the east at last the horizon hardened, an imperceptible line dividing sky and sea, sharp as a diamond cut on glass. A dark bubble of cloud revealed itself, warmed slowly, flushing from within like a seed growing, a kernel ripening, a clinker hot with locked-in fire. Gradually the cloud throbbed red with light, then suddenly caught the still unrisen sun and burst like an expanding bomb. Flares and streamers began to fall into the sea, setting all things on fire. After the long unthinking darkness everything now began to happen at once. The stars snapped shut, the sky bled green, vermillion tides ran over the water, the hills around took on the colour of firebrick, and the great sun drew himself at last raw and dripping from the waves. Scarlet, purple, and clinker-blue, the morning, smelling of thyme and goats, of charcoal, splintered rock and man's long sojourn around this lake

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.

She could grow them anywhere, at any time, and they seemed to live longer for her. She grew them with rough, almost slap-dash love, but her hands possessed such an understanding of their needs they seemed to turn to her like another sun. She could snatch a dry root from field or hedgerow, dab it into the garden, give it a shake and almost immediately it flowered. One felt she could grow roses from a stick or chair-leg, so remarkable was this gift. Our

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.

Yo era aún lo bastante pequeño para dormir con mi madre, lo cual me parecía el único objetivo de la vida. Dormíamos los dos juntos en el dormitorio de la primera planta, en una cama con barrotes de latón, cortinas y colchón de borra (…) Tras la separación del día y la amplitud de la casa, yacíamos allí los dos solos y unidos. Aquella oscuridad me parecía el fruto del endrino, blando y denso al tacto, pero era una oscuridad de beatitud y languidez sencilla, en que todas las aristas parecían redondeadas, propias y ajustadas; y resultaba que aquella presencia por la que habías gemido y suspirado no había huido, después de todo.

Our terraced strip of garden was Mother’s monument, and she worked it headstrong, without plan. She would never control or clear this ground, merely cherish whatever was there; and she was as impartial in her encouragement to all that grew as a spell of sweet sunny weather. She would force nothing, graft nothing, nor set things in rows; she welcomed self-seeders, let each have its head, and was the enemy of very few weeds. Consequently our garden was a sprouting jungle and never an inch was wasted.

Vivir allí abajo era como vivir en una vaina de habichuela. Sólo veías el lecho en el que estabas. Nuestro horizonte de bosques era el límite de nuestro mundo. El viento agitaba los árboles semanas sin fin, con un seco rugido que parecía la expresión natural del paisaje. En invierno nos cercaban con púas congeladas, y en verano se derramaban sobre los bordes de los cerros como capas de densa lava verde. Por la mañana, humeaban cubiertos de niebla o de sol y al atardecer arrojaban siempre sobre nosotros haces de luz, reflejo de crepúsculos que no podíamos ver porque estábamos demasiado hundidos.

Curiously, however, Neil performed reasonably well at school, especially in English and mathematics. The psychologists who tested his memory wondered how he managed to do so well. To find out, they asked him some questions about an audiotaped book he had been studying, Cider with Rosie, by Laurie Lee. He remembered nothing. Noting Neil’s frustration, and realizing that his class performance was based on written responses, the examiner asked Neil to write down his answers, beginning with anything that he could recall from the book. After a while he wrote: “Bloodshot Geranium windows Cider with Rosie Dranium smell of damp pepper and mushroom-growth.” “What have I written?” he then asked, unable to read his own handwriting but able to speak normally. The examiner, who was familiar with the book, immediately recognized that the phrases came directly from its pages.

Fu allora che cominciai a percepire per la prima volta qualcosa dello squallore diffuso di un paese in guerra, un'infezione così grave che sembrava corrompere la terra e privarla di colore, di vita e di suoni. Quello non era il campo di battaglia, ma vi erano stati commessi atti di guerra, piccoli omicidi, piccoli eccessi di vendetta. Il paesaggio era appestato, macchiato e screziato e tutta l'umanità sembrava essere sbiadita. La normale spinta vitale si era arrestata, non si muoveva nulla, persino gli alberi sembravano disseccati. Non si vedevano cani o bambini, cavalli o ragazze, camini fumanti o bucati stesi ad asciugare, nessuno intento a parlare sulla soglia di casa o camminare lungo il fiume, a sporgersi dalle finestre o a osservare il passaggio del treno... soltanto un sudiciume senza vita sui tetti e sui campi, come qualcosa di cancellato o in stato di coma. Peggio di un paese in guerra, quello era in guerra con se stesso... uno sciupio estremo, più permanente.

With her love of finery, her unmade beds, her litters of unfinished scrapbooks, her taboos, superstitions, and prudishness, her remarkable dignity, her pity for the persecuted, her awe of the gentry, and her detailed knowledge of the family trees of all the Royal Houses of Europe, she was a disorganized mass of unreconciled denials, a servant girl born to silk. Yet in spite of all this, she fed our oafish wits with steady, imperceptible shocks of beauty. Though

Sometimes, leaving the road, I would walk into the sea and pull it voluptuously over my head and stand momentarily drowned in the cool blind silence, in a salt-stung neutral nowhere.

My theory is that a strong and healthy man isn't likely to be creative. It is illness and pain that encourages him to live another life. (pp24)

Such a simple obsession may be the refuge of one's years, the desire to keep a finger in time, a brief hand in creation, to play a minor god, or even to come to terms with death. I only know that small as my garden is I again have a living root, that even for me something can come to perfection; that I still have a place on earth. (pp 46)

History and progress has changed the emphasis of our lives, and it is too late to complain. (pp 132)

For the handmade object is one of the last visible defences of humanism left to us, and the craftsman ministers to out most basic needs. (pp 135)

I don't say that this way happiness lies (believing mere happiness to be one of life's shallower experiences). (pp147)

Laurie picks up a briefcase and places it on the table. He opens the lid and his head disappears under the top. Oh god. Is he about to introduce me to a cat of nine tails, or some bizarre tickling stick? Brace yourself Liz. Cate told you to always carry your pepper spray, you fool.

My theory is that a strong healthy man isn't likely to be creative. It is illness and pain that encourages him to live another life.

When he’d assumed custody of his best friend and business partner’s orphaned daughter six months ago, his patience countdowns had begun at ten. He’d always had a soft spot for Haley, but while caring for her through her dad’s illness and death, he’d grown to love her as much as if she were his. Nonetheless, after weeks of arguing night and day with F. Lee Haley, his cool-off time had stretched to fifty seconds. Then last month, she’d secretly begun cutting school to lie in bed all day and stare at the ceiling, and he’d had to raise it to a hundred.

Ay, cómo trabajaban las chicas entonces; antes del amanecer ya estaban en pie, muertas de sueño, para disponer veinte o treinta fuegos. Barrer, fregar, limpiar y pulir se hacía sólo para volver a hacerlo. Lavar montañas de vajilla y cubertería, corretear escaleras arriba y abajo; y aquellas campanillas irascibles que empezaban a resonar como en una rabieta… Justo cuando lograbas sentarte un instante.

When I judged it to be tea-time I sat on an old stone wall and opened my tin of treacle biscuits. As I ate them I could hear mother banging the kettle on the hob and my brothers rattling their tea-cups. The biscuits tasted sweetly of the honeyed squalor of home – still only a dozen miles away.

By early summer the flats were almost completed, and I knew I would soon be out of a job. There was no prospect of another, but I wasn’t worried; I never felt so beefily strong in my life. I remember standing one morning on the windy roof-top, and looking round at the racing sky, and suddenly realizing that once the job was finished I could go anywhere I liked in the world. There was nothing to stop me, I would be penniless, free, and could just pack up and walk away. I was a young man whose time coincided with the last years of peace, and so was perhaps luckier than any generation since. Europe at least was wide open, a place of casual frontiers, few questions and almost no travellers.

It never occurred to me that others had done this before me.

I was at that age which feels neither strain nor friction, when the body burns magic fuels, so that it seems to glide in warm air, about a foot off the ground, smoothly obeying its intuitions. Even exhaustion, when it came, had a voluptuous quality, and sleep was caressive and deep, like oil. It was the peak of the curve of the body’s total extravagance, before the accounts start coming in.

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.

The village in fact was like a deep-running cave still linked to its antic past, a cave whose shadows were cluttered by spirits and by laws still vaguely ancestral. This cave that we inhabited looked backwards through chambers that led to our ghostly beginnings; and had not, as yet, been tidied up, or scrubbed clean by electric light, or suburbanized by a Victorian church, or papered by cinema screens. It was something we just had time to inherit, to inherit and dimly know - the blood and beliefs of generations who had been in this valley since the Stone Age. That continuous contact has at last been broken, the deeper caves sealed off forever. But arriving, as I did, at the end of that age, I caught whiffs of something old as the glaciers. There were ghosts in the stones, in the trees, and the walls, and each field and hill had several. The elder people knew about these things and would refer to them in personal terms, and there were certain landmarks about the valley - tree clumps, corners in the woods - that bore separate, antique, half-muttered names that were certainly older than Christian.

We were as merciless and cruel as most primitives are. But we learnt at that school the private nature of cruelty; and our inborn hatred for freaks and outcasts was tempered by meeting them daily.

The state of our fire became as important to us as it must have been to a primitive tribe. When it sulked and sank we were filled with dismay; when it blazed all was well with the world; but if – God save us – it went out altogether, then we were clutched by primeval chills.

But if you survived melancholia and rotting lungs it was possible to live long in this valley.

Our village was clearly no pagan paradise, neither were we conscious of showing tolerance. It was just the way of it. We certainly committed our share of statutory crime. Manslaughter, arson, robbery, rape cropped up regularly throughout the years. Quiet incest flourished where the roads were bad; some found their comfort in beasts; and there were the usual friendships between men and boys who walked through the fields like lovers. Drink, animality, and rustic boredom were responsible for most. The village neither approved nor disapproved, but neither did it complain to authority. Sometimes our sinners were given hell, taunted, and pilloried, but their crimes were absorbed in the local scene and their punishment confined to the parish.

He held the landlordship of an inn to be the same as Shaw’s definition of marriage – as something combining the maximum of temptation with the maximum of opportunity.