Vauxhall Quotes

We've searched our database for all the quotes and captions related to Vauxhall. Here they are! All 19 of them:

He had been walking for a long time, ever since dark in fact, and dark falls soon in December. ("The Old House In Vauxhall Walk")
Charlotte Riddell (Gaslit Nightmares: Stories by Robert W. Chambers, Charles Dickens, Richard Marsh, and Others)
You’re hardly likely to find a Chav mating with a lady of charm, beauty and sophistication, are you? The subsidised breeding farms they live in are unlikely to attract a lady who has cultivated proper deportment, and it’s doubtful she’ll be swayed by his shell suit, Burberry cap and Vauxhall Corsa
Karl Wiggins (Wrong Planet - Searching for your Tribe)
It was a bad night to be about with such a feeling in one's heart. The rain was cold, pitiless and increasing. A damp, keen wind blew down the cross streets leading from the river. The fumes of the gas works seemed to fall with the rain. The roadway was muddy; the pavement greasy; the lamps burned dimly; and that dreary district of London looked its very gloomiest and worst. ("The Old House In Vauxhall Road")
Charlotte Riddell (Gaslit Nightmares: Stories by Robert W. Chambers, Charles Dickens, Richard Marsh, and Others)
The traffic system needs a complete rethink," mused Bryant as the unit's only allocated vehicle, a powder-blue Vauxhall with a thoroughly thrashed engine, accelerated through Belsize Park. "Look at these road signs. Ministerial graffiti." "It's no use lecturing on the problem, Arthur. That's why your driving examiner failed you thirty-seven times." "What makes you such a great driver?' "I don't hit things.
Christopher Fowler (The Victoria Vanishes (Bryant & May, #6))
He was particulary drawn to these two clerks by the fact that they both had crooked noses, one bent to the left and the other to the right. They took him finally to a pleasure garden, where he paid for their entrance. There was one lanky three-year-old pine tree and three bushes in the garden, besides a vauxhal, which was in reality a drinking-bar where tea too was served...
Fyodor Dostoevsky
He had taken a few days' leave from his army training and they had taken refuge in the Charing Cross Hotel while an unexploded bomb in the Strand was being dealt with. They could hear the naval guns that had been stationed on trolleys between Vauxhall and Waterloo--boom-boom-boom--but the bombers were looking for other targets and seemed to have moved on. 'Doesn't it ever stop?' Jimmy asked. 'Apparently not.' 'It's safer in the army,' he laughed.
Kate Atkinson (Life After Life (Todd Family, #1))
Our father Blue Bones was much the same and we brothers cowered before his fury when TRACKED-IN SAND was detected on the carpets of the VAUXHALL CRESTA and then there were such threats of whippings with razor strops, electric flex, greenhide belts, God save us, he had that mouth, cruel as a cut across his skin. As a boy I could never understand why nice clean sand would cause such terror in my dad’s bloodshot eyes, but I had never seen an hourglass and did not know that I would die. None shall be spared, and when my father’s hour was come then the eternal sand-filled wind blew inside his guts and ripped him raw, God forgive him for his sins. He could never know peace in life or even death, never understood what it might be to become a grain of sand, falling whispering with the grace of multitudes, through the fingers of the Lord.
Peter Carey
In Broadway, I suddenly found myself face to face with William de la Touche Clancey. "Well!" A long drawn-out syllable, in which fear and condescension were unpleasantly mingled. "What is the young Old Patroon about to turn his hand to next?" "The Vauxhall Gardens, I should think." My dislike of Clancey is almost physical. Yet I stare at him with fascination; note that his protuberant eyes are yellowish; that he scratches himself compulsively; that his tongue darts in and out of his mouth like a lizard's catching flies. "Of the delicious nymphs you sport with there?" "Of the delicious fauns, too — and their goatish friends." "Uh-huh..." A long, drawn-out attempt at sounding amused failed of its object. "I hope you realize that your editor's unholy passion for the Negro grows more embarrassing each day. If I were he I should beware. He might simply vanish one dark night." "Murdered? Or sold into slavery?" Clancey recently delighted his admirers by proposing that since the institution of slavery has been an integral part of every high civilization (and peculiarly well-adapted to those nations that follow the word as well as the spirit of Old and New Testaments), poor whites should be bought and sold as well as blacks. "I don't believe that poor sick Mr. Leggett would command a high price in the bazaar. Only his diseased mind would have a certain morbid interest to the special collector. You, on the other hand, ought to fetch a pretty price." "More than the usual two dollars you pay?" Two dollars is the current rate for a male prostitute. "Much more! Why, just for those pink Dutch cheeks alone!" It would be nice to record that I thought to something terminal to say but in my rage I could think of absolutely nothing and so left him with the last word.
Gore Vidal (Burr: A Novel)
She drifted down the walk carelessly for a moment, stunned by the night. The moon had come out, and though not dramatically full or a perfect crescent, its three quarters were bright enough to turn the fog and dew and all that had the power to shimmer a bright silver, and everything else- the metal of the streetlamps, the gates, the cracks in the cobbles- a velvety black. After a moment Wendy recovered from the strange beauty and remembered why she was there. She padded into the street before she could rethink anything and pulled up her hood. "Why didn't I do this earlier?" she marveled. Sneaking out when she wasn't supposed to was its own kind of adventure, its own kind of magic. London was beautiful. It felt like she had the whole city to herself except for a stray cat or two. Despite never venturing beyond the neighborhood much by herself, she had plenty of time with maps, studying them for someday adventures. And as all roads lead to Rome, so too do all the major thoroughfares wind up at the Thames. Names like Vauxhall and Victoria (and Horseferry) sprang from her brain as clearly as if there had been signs in the sky pointing the way. Besides Lost Boys and pirates, Wendy had occasionally terrified her brothers with stories about Springheel Jack and the half-animal orphan children with catlike eyes who roamed the streets at night. As the minutes wore on she felt her initial bravery dissipate and terror slowly creep down her neck- along with the fog, which was also somehow finding its way under her coat, chilling her to her core. "If I'm not careful I'm liable to catch a terrible head cold! Perhaps that's really why people don't adventure out in London at night," she told herself sternly, chasing away thoughts of crazed, dagger-wielding murderers with a vision of ugly red runny noses and cod-liver oil. But was it safer to walk down the middle of the street, far from shadowed corners where villains might lurk? Being exposed out in the open meant she would be more easily seen by police or other do-gooders who would try to escort her home. "My mother is sick and requires this one particular tonic that can only be obtained from the chemist across town," she practiced. "A nasty decoction of elderberries and slippery elm, but it does such wonders for your throat. No one else has it. And do you know how hard it is to call for a cab this time of night? In this part of town? That's the crime, really." In less time than she imagined it would take, Wendy arrived at a promenade that overlooked the mighty Thames. She had never seen it from that particular angle before or at that time of night. On either bank, windows of all the more important buildings glowed with candles or gas lamps or even electric lights behind their icy panes, little tiny yellow auras that lifted her heart. "I do wish I had done this before," she breathed. Maybe if she had, then things wouldn't have come to this...
Liz Braswell (Straight On Till Morning)
Vauxhall. I like to use the public housing a few blocks away for my little adventures.
Jeff Abbott (Adrenaline (Sam Capra, #1))
Vauxhall. ‘I did not scruple to accept, my
Georgette Heyer (Arabella)
Gemma was buzzing by the time they arrived at Vauxhall. They had taken a boat across the river to get to the pleasure gardens, and she had never felt more exotic. She’d wanted to draw a lazy hand through the river, even though she knew that would not have been a smart idea. But it wasn’t just the excitement of the adventure that was making her blood hum and her pulse skitter. It was him. She hadn’t even tried to deny it or justify it to herself. She just let her eyes have free rein over his features. Something pulsed deep within her when a lock of dark hair fell over his eyes. The feeling was so new to her that she could barely put a name to it. But in the quiet of the night she recognized it for what it was. Desire.
Brianna Labuskes (One Step Behind)
At the Royal Vauxhall Tavern, there are mirrors but, because of the tone of the place, they seem more flirty than licentious. An attractive man glanced at me with a smile and said cutely, Now I can’t go. Soon after, I saw him on the dance floor, whispering to his friend and nodding at me. We all knew he still had to pee. Fleeting, gently pervy interactions like that may be the closest I get to experiencing a sense of gay community. It was last call at the RVT. Famous stole away to the toilets. ‘Family Affair’ by Mary J. Blige began to play—a song meant for the start of the night. I danced on my own by the door, near the shelf of condoms and literature. I recalled another time I’d been there recently. I’d given my coat check ticket to the most boyish and poised of the bartenders, the one who moves with a distinct admixture of flirtatiousness and efficiency. He brought my jacket from the cloakroom, the blue nylon I wear when I predict I’ll end up going out, because it promises to wipe clean easily. About to hand it to me over the bar, he said, You know what…and brought himself around the hatch, with shoulders alert like a pantomime butler. He held up my jacket with alacrity to indicate I should turn around so he could slip me into it. I momentarily forgot that I don’t smile in gay bars. He both served and took the upper hand: to get into the jacket, I had to turn my back to him, and yet into the sleeves it was I who inserted. I submitted, but he received. On this night, I glanced over and saw that the bartender was busy, holding someone else’s attention in a brief exchange. He fetched them their extraneous last drink. Famous bounced forth. I caught his eye and pointed my index finger to the speakers. This song, I mouthed. Famous tilted his head. We pushed through the doors into the wind. I’d put my jacket on myself this time, without ceremony. But leaving on a good song also makes a fine exit. Mary J. Blige sang at our backs about starting the party as we took long strides down the street.
Jeremy Atherton Lin (Gay Bar: Why We Went Out)
He had held her thus that night at Vauxhall, folded against himself, almost into himself. She had been heart of his heart, almost flesh of his flesh. Had he not loved her quite so dearly, perhaps he would have made her just that among the denser trees beyond the dark path. She would not have resisted. She would have opened for him, received him, trusted him. The human soul yearned always for completeness. He had been within a heartbeat of finding wholeness on that evening. But honor had held him back. And so the restless yearning, the incompleteness, unrecognized, firmly denied, had driven him like a scourge ever since.
Mary Balogh (The Last Waltz (Signet Regency Romance))
On October 17, 1995, I was invited to the post-modern London headquarters of the Secret Intelligence Service (better known as SIS or MI6) at Vauxhall Cross on the banks of the Thames to be briefed on one of the most remarkable intelligence coups of the late twentieth century.
Christopher Andrew (The Sword and the Shield: The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB)
Patrick G. Cox’s book “Ned Farrier Master Mariner: Call of the Cape” is a compelling piece of historical fiction about a young seafarer named Ned Farrier. The story takes place in South Africa and England in the middle of the 19th century. The author, Cox, does a great job of showing how sailors and settlers lived in this time period. He or she tells an interesting story that teaches readers about sailing terms, harsh realities, and the new frontiers of South Africa. Ned Farrier, the main character of the book, is a likeable person who has changed a lot since his time in the London workhouse and the Vauxhall gentleman’s club. He has learned a lot about how to sail and is now the captain of his own merchant ship. But he just lost his young wife and child to consumption, which has left him with a strong desire for a better life. Ned moves up in his job and with his bosses over the course of the book, but his heart is always drawn to Sally Hudsmith, who is married and has her own problems. The author does a great job building up Sally’s character and showing how hard it is for her to be a passenger on Ned’s ship. When Sally’s husband dies, she is once again a passenger, headed back to England, which no longer feels like home. The story follows their parallel lives as they write letters to each other. Their love for each other is clear. Cox makes a true picture of how people lived on sailing ships and the new steamships of the time. The book is interesting to read because it tells about the difficulties of settling down in South Africa, which was then a new frontier, and the excitement of dating outside of England. Overall, “Ned Farrier Master Mariner: Call of the Cape” is a fun and interesting book that people who like historical fiction, sailing, and South African history will enjoy. Cox has done a great job of making a world that feels real and is filled with interesting characters and a compelling story.
Proreviews
Cards on the table, girls? Karl has served a sentence at Exeter prison for assault; Antony for theft. Karl was merely sticking up for a friend, you understand, and – hand on heart – would do the same again. His friend was being picked on in a bar and he hates bullying. Me, I am struggling with the paradox – bullying versus assault, and do we really lock people up for minor altercations? – but the girls seem fascinated, and in their sweet and liberal naivety are saying that loyalty is a good thing and they had a bloke from prison who came into their school once and told them how he had completely turned his life around after serving time over drugs. Covered in tattoos, he was. Covered. ‘Wow. Jail. So what was that really like?’ It is at this point I consider my role. Privately I am picturing Anna’s mother toasting her bottom by her Aga, worrying with her husband if their little girl will be all right, and he is telling her not to fuss so. They are growing up fast. Sensible girls. They will be fine, love. And I am thinking that they are not fine at all. For Karl is now thinking that the safest thing for the girls would be to have someone who knows London well chaperoning them during their visit. Karl and Antony are going to stay with friends in Vauxhall and fancy a big night to celebrate their release. How about they meet the girls after the theatre and try the club together? This is when I decide that I need to phone the girls’ parents. They have named their hamlet. Anna lives on a farm. It’s not rocket science. I can phone the post office or local pub; how many farms can there be? But now Anna isn’t sure at all. No. They should probably have an early night so they can hit the shops tomorrow morning. They have this plan, see, to go to Liberty’s first thing because Sarah is determined to try on something by Stella McCartney and get a picture on her phone. Good girl, I am thinking. Sensible girl. Spare me the intervention, Anna. But there is a complication, for Sarah seems suddenly to have taken a shine to Antony. There is a second trip to the buffet and they swap seats on their return – Anna now sitting with Karl and Sarah with Antony, who is telling her about his regrets at stuffing up his life. He only turned to crime out of desperation, he says, because he couldn’t get a job. Couldn’t support his son. Son? It sweeps over me, then. The shadow from the thatched canopy of my chocolate-box life –
Teresa Driscoll (I Am Watching You)
the Passat and provide perimeter security, with what, he did not know. Alistair Hughes, MI6’s Vienna Head of Station, had expressly forbidden him to carry a weapon. Keller had a well-deserved reputation for violence; Hughes, for caution. He had a nice life in Vienna—a productive network, long lunches, decent relations with the local service. The last thing he wanted was a problem that would result in him being recalled to a desk at Vauxhall Cross. Just then,
Daniel Silva (The Other Woman (Gabriel Allon, #18))
So Clarke was in her Vauxhall Astra, on her way to the Royal Infirmary. The hospital sat on the southern edge of the city, plenty of space in the car park at this hour. She showed her ID at the Accident and Emergency desk and was shown where to go. She passed cubicle after cubicle, and if the curtains were closed, she popped her head around each. An old woman, her skin almost translucent, gave a beaming smile from her trolley. There were hopeful looks from others, too – patients and family members. A drunk youth, blood still dripping from his head, was being calmed by a couple of male nurses. A middle-aged woman was retching into a cardboard bowl. A teenage girl moaned softly and regularly, knees drawn up to her chest
Ian Rankin (Rather Be the Devil (Inspector Rebus, #21))