Todd

“Time, plenty of it came to the rescue here: Kelly was to engage in self-expression. In Jake's vocabulary this was a vague term applied to activities like swearing and children's art but in the present context it evidently meant something more specific. The girl at once left her chair, sat down on one of the more affluent patches of carpet and clasped her knees.”
― Kingsley Amis

“And why did this Probert pretend to be so Welsh? I remembered that like me he’d been awarded nought for Welsh in School Certificate. Such a result, in that language, means an almost psychotic ignorance. It’s standard practice, of course, with writers of Probert’s allegiance to pretend to be wild valley babblers, woaded with pit-dirt and sheep-shit, thinking in Welsh the whole time and obsessed by terrible beauty, etc., but in fact they tend to come from comfortable middle-class homes, have a good urban education, never go near a lay preacher and couldn’t even order a pint in Welsh, falling back, as Probert had done earlier in the evening, on things like the Welsh for big Jesus. (And don’t tell me they can think in Welsh without knowing the language. Ever tried thinking in Bantu?)”
― Kingsley Amis, That Uncertain Feeling

“They went outside and stood where a sign used to say Taxi and now said Taxi/Tacsi for the benefit of Welsh people who had never seen a letter X before.”
― Kingsley Amis, The Old Devils

“It might even be said one pulls himself together to disintegrate. The scattered particles of self - love, wood thrush calling, homework sums, broken nerves, rag dolls, one Phi Betta Kappa key, gold stars, lamplight smiles, night cries, and the shambles of contemplation - are collected for a split moment like scraps of shrapnel before they explode.”
― Peter De Vries, The Blood of the Lamb