One Of The Hardest Things

No Mention Of God. They Keep Him Up Their Sleeves For As Long As They Can, Vicars Do. They Know It Puts People Off.

My Experience Came Before Most Of You Were Born. My School Was A State School In Leeds And The Headmaster Usually Sent Students To Leeds University But He Didn't Normally Send Them To Oxford Or Cambridge. But The Headmaster Happened To Have Been To Cambridge And Decided To Try And Push Some Of Us Towards Oxford And Cambridge. So, Half A Dozen Of Us Tried - Not All Of Us In History - And We All Eventually Got In. So, To That Extent, It [the History Boys] Comes Out Of My Own Experience.

Mark My Words, When A Society Has To Resort To The Lavatory For Its Humour, The Writing Is On The Wall.

The Appeal Of Reading, She Thought, Lay In Its Indifference: There Was Something Undeferring About Literature. Books Did Not Care Who Was Reading Them Or Whether One Read Them Or Not. All Readers Were Equal, Herself Included. Literature, She Thought, Is A Commonwealth; Letters A Republic.

... Once I Start A Book I Finish It. That Was The Way One Was Brought Up. Books, Bread And Butter, Mashed Potato - One Finishes What's On One's Plate. That's Always Been My Philosophy.