Jan Struther Quotes

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• Not that she didn't enjoy the holidays: but she always felt-and it was, perhaps, the measure of her peculiar happiness-a little relieved when they were over. Her normal life pleased her so well that she was half afraid to step out of its frame in case one day she should find herself unable to get back.

  Jan Struther

  Happiness, Holiday, One Day

  Jan Struther (1942). “Mrs. Miniver”, p.3, Prabhat Prakashan

  48 Copy quote

• In childhood the daylight always fails too soon - except when there are going to be fireworks.

  Jan Struther

  Childhood, Daylight, Failing

  Jan Struther (1942). “Mrs. Miniver”, p.8, Prabhat Prakashan

  80 Copy quote

• It's just as important to marry the right life as the right person.

  Jan Struther

  Important, Persons, Right Person

  "Mrs. Miniver".

  4 Copy quote

• For to love, loveless, is a bitter pill:But to be loved, unloving, bitterer still.

  Jan Struther

  Pills, Bitter, Loveless

  Jan Struther, “The Choice”

  19 Copy quote

• It oughtn't to need a war to make us talk to each other in buses, and invent our own amusements in the evenings, and live simply, and eat sparingly, and recover the use of our legs, and get up early enough to see the sun rise.

  Jan Struther

  War, Up Early, Civilization

  "Mrs. Miniver".

  5 Copy quote

• The importance of the ordinary citizen is very greatly underestimated - not so much by those in authority as by the ordinary citizen himself.

  Jan Struther

  Democracy, Ordinary, Citizens

  Jan Struther (1956). “A pocketful of pebbles”

  4 Copy quote

• to achieve unity without uniformity is the whole essence of the democratic way of life.

  Jan Struther

  Essence, Unity, Way

  Jan Struther (1956). “A pocketful of pebbles”

  7 Copy quote

• Things happen too quickly, crisis follows crisis, the soil of our minds is perpetually disturbed. Each of us, to relieve his feelings, broadcasts his own running commentary on the preposterous and bewildering events of the hour: and this, nowadays, is what passes for conversation.

  Jan Struther

  Running, Feelings, Mind

  Jan Struther (1942). “Mrs. Miniver”, p.88, Prabhat Prakashan

  8 Copy quote

• [Gardening] is a means by which you can attain many valuable hours of solitude without being thought unsociable.

  Jan Struther

  Mean, Solitude, Gardening

  Jan Struther (1956). “A pocketful of pebbles”

  8 Copy quote

• It took me forty years on earth To reach this sure conclusion: There is no Heaven but clarity, No Hell except confusion.

  Jan Struther

  Spiritual, Years, Confusion

  Jan Struther (1956). “A pocketful of pebbles”

  4 Copy quote

• Private opinion creates public opinion. Public opinion overflows eventually into national behavior as things are arranged at present, can make or mar the world. That is why private opinion, and private behavior, and private conversation are so terrifyingly important.

  Jan Struther

  Important, Public Opinion, Mars

  4 Copy quote

• librarianship is one of the few callings in the world for which is it still possible to feel unqualified admiration and respect.

  Jan Struther

  Admiration And Respect, Calling, World

  Jan Struther (1956). “A pocketful of pebbles”

  4 Copy quote

• Scots are born exiles, and Scotland the perfect country to be exiled from. Do not imagine that I am running down Scotland. Far from it. ... No, what I mean is that Scotland's beauties, though undeniable, are obvious ones, easy to carry in the heart, easy even to describe to the benighted members of less fortunate races. Lakes, islands and mountains, heather and rowan, broad straths and narrow glens - these are jewels easily worn in the memory.

  Jan Struther

  Running, Country, Memories

  Jan Struther (1956). “A pocketful of pebbles”

  14 Copy quote

• Physical weather certainly is beyond our control. ... But human weather - the psychological climate of the world - is not beyond our control. The human race is its own rain and its own sun. It creates its own cyclones and anti-cyclones. The ridges of high pressure which we sometimes enjoy, the troughs of low pressure which we so often endure, are of our own making and nobody else's.

  Jan Struther

  Rain, Weather, Race

  Jan Struther (1956). “A pocketful of pebbles”

  29 Copy quote

• To be entirely at leisure for one day is to be for one day an immortal

  Jan Struther

  One Day, Leisure, Immortal

  Jan Struther (1940). “Mrs. Miniver”

  4 Copy quote

• However long the horror continued, one must not get to the stage of refusing to think about it. To shrink from direct pain was bad enough, but to shrink from vicarious pain was the ultimate cowardice. And whereas to conceal direct pain was a virtue, to conceal vicarious pain was a sin. Only by feeling it to the utmost, and by expressing it, could the rest of the world help to heal the injury which had caused it. Money, food, clothing, shelter - people could give all these and still it would not be enough; it would not absolve them from paying also, in full, the imponderable tribute of grief.

  Jan Struther

  Pain, Grief, Thinking

  Jan Struther (1956). “A pocketful of pebbles”

  4 Copy quote

• Punctuality is the thief of adventure.

  Jan Struther

  Adventure, Thieves, Punctuality

  Jan Struther (1938). “Try anything twice: essays and sketches”

  7 Copy quote

• One is what one remembers: no more, no less.

  Jan Struther

  Self, Identity, Remember

  4 Copy quote

• Nature has decreed that for what men suffer by having to shave, be killed in battle, and eat the legs of chickens, women make amends by housekeeping, childbirth, and writing all the letters for both of them.

  Jan Struther

  Writing, Men, Suffering

  Jan Struther (1956). “A pocketful of pebbles”

  7 Copy quote

• Giving a party is like having a baby: its conception is more fun than its completion; and once you have begun it, it is almost impossible to stop.

  Jan Struther

  Baby, Fun, Party

  Jan Struther (1956). “A pocketful of pebbles”

  4 Copy quote

• The worst of gardening is that it's so full of metaphors one hardly knows where to begin.

  Jan Struther

  Gardening, Metaphor, Worst

  Jan Struther (1940). “Mrs. Miniver”

  7 Copy quote

• Constructive destruction is one of the most delightful employments in the world, and in civilized life the opportunities for it are only too rare.

  Jan Struther

  Opportunity, Employment, World

  Jan Struther (1942). “Mrs. Miniver”, p.79, Prabhat Prakashan

  4 Copy quote

• swans ... always look as though they'd just been reading their own fan-mail.

  Jan Struther

  Reading, Swans, Fans

  14 Copy quote

• I can't abide cats myself, but of course we have to have one in the kitchen to deal with the mice. I insisted on getting a black one, because anything else shows the dirt so in London.

  Jan Struther

  Cat, Kitchen, Black

  Jan Struther (1956). “A pocketful of pebbles”

  4 Copy quote

• A single person is a manageable entity, whom you can either make friends with or leave alone. But half of a married couple is not exactly a whole human being: if the marriage is successful it is something a little more than that; if unsuccessful, a little less. In either case, a fresh complication is added to the already intricate business of friendship: as Clem had once remarked, you might as well try to dance a tarantella with a Siamese twin.

  Jan Struther

  Couple, Successful, Trying

  4 Copy quote

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