Keep our Empire undismembered guide our Forces by Thy Hand, gallant blacks from far Jamaica, Honduras and Togoland; protect them Lord in all their fights, and even more, protect the whites. – John Betjeman
I have a Vision of the Future, chum. The workers flats in fields of soya beans tower up like silver pencils, score on score. – John Betjeman
Too many people in the modern world view poetry as a luxury, not a necessity like petrol. But to me its the oil of life. – John Betjeman
Peoples backyards are much more interesting than their front gardens, and houses that back on to railways are public benefactors. – John Betjeman
The heart may think it knows better: the senses know that absence blots people out. We really have no absent friends. The friend becomes a traitor by breaking, however unwillingly or sadly, out of our own zone: a hard judgment is passed on him, for all the pleas of the heart. – Elizabeth Bowen