Sue Townsend Quotes

There's only one thing more boring than listening to other people's dreams, and that's listening to their problems.

She liked people. Me, I can take them or leave them, but mostly leave them.

I have a problem. I am an intellectual, but at the same time I am not very clever.

The monarchy is finished. It was finished a while ago, but they're still making the corpses dance.

8.45 a.m. My mother is in the hospital grounds smoking a cigarette. She is looking old and haggard. All the debauchery is catching up with her.

Now I know I am an intellectual. I saw Malcolm Muggeridge on the television last night, and I understood nearly every word. It all adds up. A bad home, poor diet, not liking punk. I think I will join the library and see what happens.

Will you lie to me and promise to read them? Books need to be read. The pages need to be turned.

I don't know why women are so mad about flowers. Personally, they leave me cold. I prefer trees.

Adrian Mole's father was so angry that so many pepole got divorced nowadays. HE had been unhappilly married for 30 years, why should everybody else get away?

Adrian Mole's diary Easter Poor Jesus, it must have been dead awful for him. I wouldn't have the guts to do it myself.

I used to be the sort of boy who had sand kicked in his face, now I'm the sort of boy who watches somebody else have it kicked in their face

My skin is dead good. I think it must be a combination of being in love and Lucozade.

Personally, nothing would surprise me any more. If my father announced that he was really a Russian agent or my mother ran away with a circus knife thrower, I wouldn't raise an eyebrow.

I have realised I have never seen a dead body or a real female nipple. This is what comes of living in a cul-de-sac.

I always knew I had no small talk, and now I know I've got no big talk either.

I've always loved books. I'm passionate about them. I think books are sexy. They are smooth and solid and contain delightful surprises. They smell good. They fit into a handbag and can be carried around and opened at will. They don't change. They are what they are and nothing else. One day I want to own a lot of books and have them nbear to me in my house, so that I can stroll to my bookshelves and choose what I fancy. I want a harem. I shall keep my favourites by my bed.

Pauline: "All under-fives are mad Adrian, you used to talk to the moon. You invited it to your birthday party and cried when it didn't turn up." George: "When it went dark and the moon came up, you ran outside and threw a sausage roll at it!

Mrs O'Leary said, 'Tis the child I feel sorry for', and all the people looked up and saw me, so I looked especially sad, I expect the experience will give me a trauma at some stage in the future. I'm all right at the moment, but you never know.

To unlock the heavy outer door and to walk into the hushed interior, with the morning light spilling from the high windows on to the waiting books, gave her such pleasure that she would have worked for nothing.

I couldn't think of anything to say so I kept quiet. I still can't think of anything to say so I am going to sleep.

Had a note from Mr Cherry asking me when I can resume my paper round. I sent a note back to say that due to my mother's desertion I am still in a mental state. This is true. I wore odd socks yesterday without knowing it. One was red and one was green. I must pull myself together. I could end up in a lunatic asylum.

Mrs. Ball has got a daughter who is a writer. I asked her how her daughter qualified to be one. Mrs. Ball said that her daughter was dropped on her head as a child and has been "a bit queer" ever since.

She was alone. She missed him immediately.

I asked her about my Family Allowance today, she laughed and said she used it for buying gin and cigarettes.

My mother is now in the hospital 60 miles away, where they are treating her pneumonia. I refuse to feel guilty. Guilt is a destructive emotion and doesn't fit in with my Life Plan.

She had always been comforted by confectionery

Your trouble is, you want to be happy all the time. You're fifty years old -- haven't you realized yet that most of the time most of us just trudge through life? Happy days are few and far between.

It has just been on the news that a man has been found in the Queen’s bedroom. Radio Four said that the man was an intruder and was previously unknown to the Queen. My father said: ‘That’s her story.

I haven't used my brain for so long, the poor thing is huddled in a corner, waiting to be fed.

we all need to be loved, and we all need to love.

Women are mysterious creatures, Dr Bee.

It was three o'clock in the morning. A time when frail people die.

Sex with the gorilla went on a bit, but once he'd stumbled over my clitoris we both had good times.

perhaps there had been something a little obsessive about it, the way she’d consumed the shelves of the local library, Blyton to Jansson, C. S. Lewis to P. G. Wodehouse, Christie then du Maurier then the Brontës, reading indiscriminately but always passionately, so that even her dislikes were passionate. Dickens, she thought, was preachy and silly, like a teacher putting on funny voices, but never mind, here were Jane Austen and Sue Townsend, Ursula K. Le Guin and Jean M. Auel, and each Saturday morning she’d return her stack of library books, the maximum permitted, placing them on the counter, like a gambler cashing in chips.

I am very unhappy and have once again turned to great literature for solace. It’s no surprise to me that intellectuals commit suicide, go mad or die from drink. We feel things more than other people. We know the world is rotten and that chins are ruined by spots.

She is just straight all the way up and down, including her nose and mouth and hair.

Just measured my thing. It has grown one centimetre. I might be needing it soon.

Be kind, for everybody you meet is fighting a hard battle' attributed to Plato, and many others

As a journey begins with one step, so a crowd begins to collect with one person.

You should only speak when you have something worth saying.

Eva said, Are you sure that it's my husband, Dr Brian Beaver, she's carrying on with? Only he's not the type. "He's a man, isn't he?" Said Nicola.

Goodness means telling good lies, so that people won't get hurt by true words.

I’ve been a bit worried about my maleness lately, somewhere along the line I seem to have picked up too many female hormones.

I have a problem. I am an intellectual, but at the same time I am not very clever

He had always had difficulty in recognising an emotion.

remember that conversation is like ping pong. You say something, she says something. Then you respond to something she's just said, then she bats it back. You ask her a question. She replies. Do you get the idea?

Had a long talk with Mr Vann the Careers teacher today. He said that if I want to be a vet I will have to do Physics, Chemistry and Biology for O level. He said that Art, Woodwork and Domestic Science won’t do much good. I am at the Crossroads in my life. The wrong decision now could result in a tragic loss to the veterinary world. I am hopeless at science. I asked Mr Vann which O levels you need to write situation comedy for television. Mr Vann said that you don’t need qualifications at all, you just need to be a moron.

I think Jane Austen should write something a bit more modern.

Bernard patted his arm and said, ‘Hitesh, old flower, Christmas is exactly the same, it’s you who have changed.

tarting

He was standing very still with his arms folded, staring with poached egg eyes.

What's the most important quality a person could have, something that would benefit us all?

It's amazing what you can get used to, given time.

Brian kept the photograph inside an Old Bible. He knew it would be safe there. Nobody ever opened it.

I don't know why people get so hot and bothered about sex. It's only the insertion of a penis into a nearby vagina.

food cooked without love was bad food.

I had my first wet dream!

Thatcherism

idiot boy.

Measured my ‘thing’. It was eleven centimetres.

My grandma let the dog out of the coal shed. She said my mother was cruel to lock it up. The dog was sick on the kitchen floor. My grandma locked it up again.

Nothing was true for long. In time, everything was deconstructed.

Us intellectuals keep anti-social hours. It does us good.

A. MOLE’S SCONES Ingredients 4 oz flour or metric equivalent 2 oz butter or metric equivalent 2 oz sugar or metric equivalent 1 egg (eggs are still only eggs) Method Beat up all the ingredients. Make a tin greasy, throw it all in. Turn oven to number 5. Wait until scones are higher than they were. Should be 12 minutes, but keep opening oven door every 30 seconds.

Auf dem Schulweg begegnete ich unserem Briefträger. Er sagte mir, Mutter kaeme mich am Samstag besuchen. Am liebsten wuerde ich ihn seiner Dienststelle melden, weil er Privatpost liest.

At four o’clock I had one of those rare moments of happiness that I will remember all my life. I was sitting in front of Grandma’s electric coal fire eating dripping toast and reading the News of the World. There was a good play on Radio Four about torturing in concentration camps. Grandma was asleep and the dog was being quiet. All at once I felt this dead good feeling. Perhaps I am turning religious. I think I have got it in me to be a Saint of some kind.

In my opinion it is essential to get lost in a new city, that way you are forced to walk about and discover places at a proper, natural pace. But you must have the taxi fare home, and it helps if you can remember the name of your hotel.

But a second later, she found books entering the trolley of their own will, as if commanded by a Hogwarts spell. Virginia Woolf, Iris Murdoch, Muriel Spark – the holy trio were some of the first to jump in. Milan Kundera followed Amitav Ghosh, Dostoevsky chased Mario Vargas Llosa in some kind of mad hatter’s literary tea party. Nick Hornby and Sue Townsend added some laughs. Darwin and Nietzsche kept the rest in check. Rumi’s loftiness, Calvino’s bizarreness, Arundhati’s Royness – things were getting along nicely when Fiza realized this had to end.

I remembered my resolution about helping the poor and ignorant today, so I took some of my old Beano annuals to a quite poor family who have moved into the next street. I know they are poor because they have only got a black and white telly. A boy answered the door. I explained why I had come. He looked at the annuals and said, ‘I’ve read ’em,’ and slammed the door in my face. So much for helping the poor!

Мужика белобрысого зовут Дункан Макинтош, а его партия называется “Пусть катятся, откуда пришли”. Этот Макинтош хочет всех из Британии насильно выгнать: черных, коричневых, желтых, красных, евреев, ирландцев, уэльсцев, шотландцев, кельтов и потомков норманнов. В общем, останутся только чистокровные блондинистые саксонцы, и больше никого. Мама высчитала, что если этот Макинтош к власти придет, то он и будет населением Британии.

He had a face like the north face of the Eiger by the time we’d got to the bit where the three wise men were reviled as capitalist pigs. He took Miss Elf into the showers and had a ‘Quiet Word’. We all heard every word he shouted. He said he wanted to see a traditional Nativity play, with a Tiny Tears doll playing Jesus and three wise men dressed in dressing gowns and tea towels. He threatened to cancel the play if Mary, alias Pandora, continued to go into simulated labour in the manger. This is typical of Scruton, he is nothing but a small-minded, provincial, sexually-inhibited fascist pig. How he rose to become a headmaster I do not know. He has been wearing the same hairy green suit for three years.

me and Nigel

After what I seen today, I’ll never sleep again.

poncy’, and the tea, saying it was ‘as weak as a sailor's arsehole’. Eventually,

Mrs Ball. They

said he ‘would rather go without’.

Abba

Beirut

ere mate

Rosie Germaine Mole.

George Mole

yobs.

vandal, Mole,

Since I learned to read I've used them as a kind of anaesthetic.

Trinity

Я всегда любила книги. Я их просто обожаю. По-моему, в книгах есть что-то очень сексуальное. Они гладкие, плотные, они полны восхитительных сюрпризов. Они хорошо пахнут. Их можно положить в сумочку, носить с собой и открывать когда вздумается. Они не меняются. Они такие, какие есть, и больше никакие.

Hitesh, old flower, Christmas is exactly the same, it’s you

I have a problem. I am an intellectual, but at the same time I am not very clever.

Norway

lovely inlets

My father wouldn’t give me a note excusing me from Games so I spent nearly all morning dressed in pyjamas diving into a swimming pool and picking up a brick from the bottom. I had a bath when I came home but I still smell of chlorine. I just don’t see the point of the above lesson. When I am grown up I am hardly going to walk along a river bank in my pyjamas, am I? And who would be stupid enough to dive into a river for a boring old brick? Bricks are lying around all over the place!

But I must say that I take my hat off to Sainsbury’s, they seem to attract a better class of person. I saw a vicar choosing toilet paper; he chose a four-roll pack of purple three-ply. He must have money to burn! He could have bought some shiny white and given the difference to the poor. What a hypocrite!

Lady Diana melted my heartstrings in her dirty white dress. She even helped an old man up the aisle. I thought it was very kind of her considering it was her wedding day. Loads of dead famous people were there. Nancy Reagan, Spike Milligan, Mark Phillips, etc., etc. The Queen looked a bit jealous. I expect it was because people weren’t looking at her for a change.

Paul walked with something screwed up tight inside him … yet he chatted away with his mother. He would never have confessed to her how he suffered over these things and she only partly guessed.” D.H. Lawrence, Sons and Lovers

У меня кошмарные проблемы с половой жизнью. Они сводятся к тому простому факту, что никакой половой жизни у меня нет. По крайней мере — с другим человеком

Похоже, я схожу с ума: моя жизнь напоминает кино, и я в ней — простой зритель

Что делать, если меня призовут сражаться за родину? Покрою ли я себя славой или обмочусь от страха при первых же раскатах вражеской канонанды?

Ответ у меня готов сейчас, в три минуты первого ночи, но, очевидно, уже слишком поздно

События в мире меня больше не интересуют. Я не могу никак повлиять на них, так чего ж суетиться?

Уборная в вагоне неописуема. Тем не менее, я постараюсь ее описать. Я же романист, в конце концов. Представьте себе, что двадцать бизонов с расстройством желудка заперли в одной уборной на две недели. Теперь постарайтесь представить, что по полу пролегает открытая сточная канава. Добавьте сюда политзаключенного из ИРА, объявившего грязную забастовку и отказавшегося мыться. Нужного запаха можно добиться, откопав несколько разложившихся трупов, добавив парочку здоровых молодых скунсов — и тогда вы довольно близко подойдете к тому, на что похожа и чем пахнет уборная в этом вагоне