“501” or “scl.” “I can’t decipher this,” he said, — : 487
Polly had asked Mr. Goode to do the eulogy, remembering his sermon that day in Backbury. He spoke of Mike and his bravery at Dunkirk and then said, “We live in hope that the good we do here on earth will be rewarded in heaven. We also hope to win the war. We hope that right and goodness will triumph, and that when the war is won, we shall have a better world. And we work toward that end. We buy war bonds and put out incendiaries and knit stockings—” And pumpkin-colored scarves, Polly thought. “—and volunteer to take in evacuated children and work in hospitals and drive ambulances”—here Alf grinned and nudged Eileen sharply in the ribs—“and man anti-aircraft guns. We join the Home Guard and the ATS and the Civil Defence, but we cannot know whether the scrap metal we collect, the letter we write to a soldier, the vegetables we grow, will turn out in the end to have helped win the war or not. We act in faith. “But the vital thing is that we act. We do not rely on hope alone, though hope is our bulwark, our light through dark days and darker nights. We also work, and fight, and endure, and it does not matter whether the part we play is large or small. The reason that God marks the fall of the sparrow is that he knows that it is as important to the world as the bulldog or the wolf. We all, all must do ‘our bit.’ For it is through our deeds that the war will be won, through our kindness and devotion and courage that we make that better world for which we long. “So it is with heaven,” the vicar said. “By our deeds here on earth, in this world so far from the one we long for, we make heaven possible. We not only live in the hope of heaven but, by each doing our bit, we bring it to pass.” — 364: 7379-7392
During the London Blitz, Edward R. Murrow was startled to see a fire engine racing past. It was the middle of the day, the sirens had not gone, and he hadn’t heard any bombers. He could not imagine where a fire engine would be going. It came to him, after much thought, that it was going to an ordinary house fire, and that that seemed somehow impossible, as if all ordinary disasters should be suspended for the duration of this great Disaster that was facing London and commanding everybody’s attention. But of course houses caught fire and burned down for reasons that had nothing to do with the Blitz, and even in the face of Armageddon, there are still private armageddons to be faced. — 188: 2877-2882
Fred Astaire is my hero. He used to report to his movies six weeks before filming started and practice his dance routines, wearing out a couple of pairs of tap shoes (and Hermes Pan, who claimed he could only dance backwards the rest of his life), all so he could stand there and look like he had just made it up. In the words of almost everyone who ever saw him dance, “He makes it look easy.” That’s what I want to do, even though it looks like I’m going to wear out dozens of pairs of shoes before I even come close: make it look easy. — 242: 3710-3714
He nodded without slackening his pace. “And we’ll find them and get the boat back. Tossie and I are meant to be together, and no obstacle can keep us apart. It’s fated, like Tristan and Isolde, Romeo and Juliet, Héloïse and Abelard.” I didn’t point out that all of the aforementioned had ended up dead or severely handicapped, because it was all I could do to keep up. — 120: 2379-2382
“. . . there is no more admirably educational experience for a young fellow starting out in life than going to stay at a country house under a false name. . . .” P. G. Wodehouse — 207: 4034-4037
“Look here! I’ve an idea we’ve been working this thing from the wrong end.” Lord Peter Wimsey — 431: 8379-8381