Esprit De Corps Quotes

“Bessie was News, Leaders, and Gossip; Enid was Features, Make-up and general Sub. Whenever they were at a loss for copy they would mercilessly pillage ancient copies of Punch or Home Chat. An occasional hole in the copy was filled with a ghoulish smudge - local block-making had clearly indicated that somewhere a poker-work fanatic had gone quietly out of his mind. In this way the Central Balkan Herald was made up every morning and then delivered to the composition room where the chain-gang quickly reduced it to gibberish. MINISTER FINED FOR KISSING IN PUBIC. WEDDING BULLS RING OUT FOR PRINCESS. QUEEN OF HOLLAND GIVES PANTY FOR EX-SERVICE MEN. MORE DOGS HAVE BABIES THIS SUMMER IN BELGRADE. BRITAINS NEW FLYING-GOAT.”
― Lawrence Durrell, Esprit De Corps

“But the season was well advanced and they had entirely failed to take into account the Greater Panslav Mosquito—an entomological curiosity to be reckoned with. It is the only animal I know which can bite effortlessly through trousers and underpants all in one flowing movement.”
― Lawrence Durrell, Esprit de Corps: Sketches from Diplomatic Life

“At times I could not help feeling that the Herald was more trouble than it was worth. References, for example, to “Hitler’s nauseating inversion—the rocket-bomb” brought an immediate visit of protest from Herr Schpünk the German chargé, dictionary in hand, while the early stages of the war were greeted with BRITAIN DROPS BIGGEST EVER BOOB ON BERLIN. This caused mild specuulation as to whom this personage might be.”
― Lawrence Durrell, Esprit de Corps: Sketches from Diplomatic Life

“Here Antrobus shuddered. “He said, quite distinctly, quite unequivocally, without a shadow of doubt—he said: ‘Hiya!’ and made a sort of gesture in the air as of someone running his hand listlessly over the buttocks of a chorus girl. I won’t imitate it in here, someone might see.” “I know the gesture you mean.”
― Lawrence Durrell, Esprit de Corps: Sketches from Diplomatic Life

“Of course what he meant by good English was the vaguely orotund and ornamental eighteenth-century stuff which was then so much in vogue. A sort of mental copperplate prose.”
― Lawrence Durrell, Esprit de Corps: Sketches from Diplomatic Life

“A veil of secrecy (one of the seven veils of Communist diplomacy) was drawn over the subject.”
― Lawrence Durrell, Esprit de Corps: Sketches from Diplomatic Life