Thank Heaven! the crisis, The danger, is past, And the lingering illness Is over at last— And the fever called “Living” Is conquered at last. (For Annie, Edgar Allan Poe)
May 17, 1946. The Turkish Ambassador came to see me this morning and we had a long and interesting talk. He is fairly optimistic. He thinks the Soviets made their first big mistake when they failed to evacuate Persia at the beginning of March. It was an irretrievable mistake because it resulted in the Americans developing a foreign policy. They had never had one before, but once a country adopts a foreign policy, although that policy may change, the country will never revert to not having a foreign policy at all. (The Duff Cooper Diaries)
Nobly, nobly Cape Saint Vincent to the North-West died away; Sunset ran, one glorious blood-red, reeking into Cadiz Bay; Bluish ‘mid the burning water, full in face Trafalgar lay; In the dimmest North-East distance, dawned Gibraltar grand and gray; “Here and here did England help me: how can I help England?”— Whoso turns as I, this evening, turn to God to praise and pray, While Jove’s planet rises yonder, silent over Africa. (Home-Thoughts, from the Sea, Robert Browning)
Now, Criticks, do your worst, that here are met; For, like a Rook, I have hedg’d in my Bet”. (The Rehearsal, George Villiers, 2nd Duke of Buckingham, 1672)
Whatever you do, do it 100 per cent. Unless you’re giving blood. (Bill Murray)
Perfection is the enemy of progress. (Winston Churchill)
Exudate – an elegant synonym for pus.
A stalker, sadist and nymphomaniacal lesbian, she was soused in gin from dawn to dusk. Her hatreds, which consisted of groups rather than individuals, included Catholics, Latinos, black people, the French, the Portuguese, Koreans, South Asians, Arabs and Native Americans. (Patricia Highsmith, described by Frances Wilson in The Oldie)
“Do you know, Madame,” he said with the seriousness of a Kinsey report, “that some women go all through their lives without ever achieving a mayonnaise?” (Jaques, the chef, in Himself and I, Anne O’Neill-Barna)