John Betjeman quotes

Childhood is measured out by sounds and smells and sights, before the dark hour of reason grows. (John Betjeman)
And behind their frail partitions Business women lie and soak, Seeing through the draughty skylight Flying clouds and railway smoke.Rest you there, poor unbelov'd ones, Lap your loneliness in heat, All too soon the tiny breakfast, Trolley-bus and windy street!
John Betjeman
Gracious Lord, oh bomb the Germans. Spare their women for Thy Sake, And if that is not too easy, We will pardon Thy Mistake. But, gracious Lord, whate'er shall be, Don't let anyone bomb me.
John Betjeman
History must not be written with bias, and both sides must be given, even if there is only one side.
John Betjeman
I ought to warn you that my verse is of no interest to people who can think.
John Betjeman
Hymns are the poetry of the people.
John Betjeman
Topography is one of my chief themes in my poetry...about the country, the suburbs and the seaside...then there comes love...and increasingly, the fear of death.
John Betjeman
Hymn tunes are the nearest we've got to English folk music.
John Betjeman
There are two things you need for a jolly good hymn. The first is a set of words that expresses the mood or sentiment of the worshipper. The second-and perhaps even more important-is a good tune ... with a simple popular melody.
John Betjeman
One mark of good verse is surprise.
John Betjeman
It's strange that those we miss the most Are those we take for granted. (John Betjeman)
But I'm dying now and done for, What on earth was all the fun for? I am ill and old and terrified and tight.
John Betjeman
In the licorice fields at Pontefract My love and I did meet And many a burdened licorice bush Was blooming round our feet; Red hair she had and golden skin, Her sulky lips were shaped for sin, Her sturdy legs were flannel-slack'd The strongest legs in Pontefract.
John Betjeman
Now if the harvest is over, And the world cold, Give me the bonus of laughter, As I lose hold.
John Betjeman
People's backyards are much more interesting than their front gardens, and houses that back on to railways are public benefactors.
John Betjeman
He would have liked to say goodbye, Shake hands with many friends. In Highgate now his finger-bones Stick through his finger-ends.You, God, who treat him thus and thus, Say, "Save his soul and pray." You ask me to believe You and I only see decay.
John Betjeman
I am a young executive. No cuffs than mine are cleaner; I have a Slimline brief-case and I use the firm's Cortina.
John Betjeman
Sing on, with hymns uproarious, Ye humble and aloof, Look up! and oh how glorious He has restored the roof!
John Betjeman
The test of an abstract picture, for me, is not my first reaction to it, but how long I can stand it hanging on the wall of a room where I am living.
John Betjeman
Ghastly Good Taste, or a Depressing Story of the Rise and Fall of English Architecture.
John Betjeman
Miss J. Hunter Dunn, Miss J. Hunter Dunn, Furnish'd and burnish'd by Aldershot sun, What strenuous singles we played after tea, We in the tournament - you against me! (John Betjeman)
No hope. And the X-ray photographs under his arm Confirm the message. His wife stands timidly by. The opposite brick-built house looks lofty and calm, Its chimneys steady against the mackerel sky.
John Betjeman
We sat in the car park till twenty to one And now I'm engaged to Miss Joan Hunter Dunn.
John Betjeman
Stony seaboard, far and foreign, Stony hills poured over space, Stony outcrop of the Burren, Stones in every fertile place.
John Betjeman
Saint Pancras was a fourteen-year old Christian boy who was martyred in Rome in AD 304 by the Emperor Diocletian. In England he is better known as a railway station.
John Betjeman