“Is there anything, apart from a really good chocolate cream pie and receiving a large unexpected cheque in the post, to beat finding yourself at large in a foreign city on a fair spring evening, loafing along unfamiliar streets in the long shadows of a lazy sunset, pausing to gaze in shop windows or at some church or lovely square or tranquil stretch of quayside, hesitating at street corners to decide whether that cheerful and homy restaurant you will remember fondly for years is likely to lie down this street or that one? I just love it. I could spend my life arriving each evening in a new city.”
― Neither Here nor There: Travels in Europe
― Neither Here nor There: Travels in Europe
“The Mediterranean, which is now only a week from us, has before our eyes shrunk into a lake; our British and Irish channels are scarcely broader than the old Firth of Forth; the Rhine, the Danube, the Thames, the Medway, the Ganges etc., have contracted their streams to infinitely less than half their lengths and breadths, and the great lakes of the world are rapidly drying into ponds!”
― The Railway Journey: The Industrialization of Time and Space in the 19th Century
― The Railway Journey: The Industrialization of Time and Space in the 19th Century
“The best that can be said for Norwegian television is that it gives you the sensation of a coma without the worry and inconvenience.”
― Neither Here Nor There: Travels in Europe
― Neither Here Nor There: Travels in Europe
“Dismissed!” shouted Irina that night in their little apartment. “How does one get fired from Communism!”
― Table for Two
― Table for Two
“At each crossing, faced with the decision of whether to go left, right, or straight ahead, the young man may rely upon the advice he has been given as a child, or the sum of his experiences, or the flip of a coin. But of all the forces that are likely to influence him as he proceeds from one fork to the next, there are few more powerful than the moderate increase in income.”
― Table for Two
― Table for Two
William’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at William’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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