Old Filth Quotes

“If you've not been loved as a child, you don't know how to love a child.”
― Jane Gardam, Old Filth

“Present us with a silver cup for something when you're a filthy rich lawyer, I dare say? Yes. You'll be a lawyer. Magnificent memory. Sense of logic, no imagination and no brains.”
― Jane Gardam, Old Filth

“She wanted to take his hand. Her hardest task now as she grew older in the Ministry was to deal with her longing to be touched - hugged, stroked by anyone, any human being - a friend, a lover, a child or even (and here she scented danger) a servant. Of either sex. She prayed about it, asking that God's encircling arms would bring comfort. They did not”
― Jane Gardam, Old Filth

“Judges live with shadows behind them.”
― Jane Gardam, Old Filth

“Edward Feathers QC, residing in the”
― Jane Gardam, The Man In The Wooden Hat

“The night before he was to leave for his voyage home to Malaya, Filth felt such a surge of longing for Betty that he had to sit down and close his eyes. The longing had included guilt. Why guilt? Because he was beginning to forget her. Forget his long desire. “Memory and desire,” he said aloud, “I must keep track of them or the game’s up.” Then he thought: Or maybe let them go?”
― Jane Gardam, The Man in the Wooden Hat

“The past, unless very pleasant, is not much discussed among children.”
― Jane Gardam, Old Filth

“monsters”
― Jane Gardam, The Man in the Wooden Hat

“Memory and desire—I must keep track of them. Mustn’t lose hold.”
― Jane Gardam, Old Filth

“A parhelion. A formidable and ancient omen of something”
― Jane Gardam, Old Filth

“Memory changed for both Edward and Elisabeth. There were fewer people now to keep it alive.”
― Jane Gardam, The Man in the Wooden Hat

“Yes. You’ll be a lawyer. Magnificent memory. Sense of logic, no imagination and no brains. My favourite chap, Teddy Feathers, as a matter of fact.”
― Jane Gardam, Old Filth

“She was unfailingly delighted by the surprise of each new day.”
― Jane Gardam, Old Filth

“-Laikas bėga.
-Nesu tikras, kad jis žino kur.”
― Jane Gardam, Old Filth

“Jei vaikystėje tavęs nemylėjo, tu nemokėsi mylėti vaiko. Meilę reikia patirti anksčiau. Gali įskaudinti iš nežinojimo.”
― Jane Gardam, Old Filth

“Apie praeitį, nebent ji būtų be galo laiminga, vaikai kalbėti nelinkę.”
― Jane Gardam, Old Filth

“Kai tik atsiranda merginų, egzaminų pažymiai ima blogėti. Kuo karštesnė aistra, tuo prasčiau sekasi mokslas.”
― Jane Gardam, Old Filth

“His colleagues at the Bar called him Filth, but not out of irony. It was because he was considered to be the source of the old joke, Failed In London Try Hong Kong. It was said that he had fled the London Bar, very young, very poor, on a sudden whim just after the War, and had done magnificently well in Hong Kong from the start. Being a modest man, they said, he had called himself a parvenu, a fraud, a carefree spirit.
Filth in fact was no great maker of jokes, was not at all modest about his work and seldom, except in great extremity, went in for whims. He was loved, however, admired, laughed at kindly and still much discussed many years after retirement.”
― Jane Gardam, Old Filth

“The landing stage stood on its high crooked stilts with only one person watching the boat disappear round the bend of the river—a girl of twelve called Ada, the wet-nurse’s eldest child. As”
― Jane Gardam, Old Filth

“Amy planted a glass of brandy beside the bride’s cornflakes.”
― Jane Gardam, The Man in the Wooden Hat