Peter Maughan > Quotes

“Love is our story, it holds within it all the dramas of the human heart, told over and over.”
― Peter Maughan

“It’s age. It makes misers of us,” he said dolefully. “Counting out our lives in small change from a thinning purse.”
― Peter Maughan, The Cuckoos of Batch Magna

“You’ll be seeing pink elephants, the way you drink.”
“I find life thirsty work, old man,” Phineas said equably. “And besides, what have you got against pink elephants?”
― Peter Maughan, Sir Humphrey of Batch Hall plus The Famous Cricket Match

“Sweetened by a tower of Norman stone, the bells of Lent, carrying on their ancient sides the names of saints and merchants, squires and parsons, rhymes and prayers, rang out over the village, their peal of eight tumbling in an avalanche of iron down and across the valley, the land from hillside to hillside drowned and ringing.”
― Peter Maughan, Under the Apple Boughs:

“Young children often lie about their world, knowing instinctively that its truth is something adults no longer understand.”
― Peter Maughan

“Humphrey’s mouth opened and shut a couple of times on things he wanted to say, wanted to ask, and then he said, “Why? Why did you lie about it, Mom?”
Shelly flapped a hand at him. “Because, because.”
Because she wanted him to believe that he could do it. Wanted him to think that if his dad could do it, so could he. That he didn’t always have to be looking on, another loser at the feast. Because she didn’t think he could do it, not without help. And lies were all she had to offer.”
― Peter Maughan, The Cuckoos of Batch Magna

“The Commander tucked the timepiece back into the fob pocket, and with the air of a conjurer brought out a full moon, as bright as a new coin, and tossed it up in the air. Heads, Humphrey called, and laughed, because he knew this trick, but just couldn’t at the moment remember how it went.
“That’s it! Time’s up! Time’s up!” the empire cried then, fussily drawing stumps.
The moon sat above the cricket ground, where it struck twelve more times than was strictly necessary, it was the umpire’s opinion, and Humphrey opened his eyes to the sound of the grandfather clock on the bottom landing chiming the half-hour.”
― Peter Maughan, Sir Humphrey of Batch Hall plus The Famous Cricket Match

“They’ll have Donald Duck and Goofy and the gang on the wallpaper ready for the first arrival in the nursery, the boy who would be conker champion, and the signed baseball bat and mitt, and his granddad’s fighter plane suspended from the ceiling. And he’ll coach him in baseball, and Phineas in cricket, and Owain will teach him to fish, and later shoot. Phineas would be one godparent, he’d decided, and Annie and Owain, and Jasmine, and the Commander and Priny, and Miss Wyndham and John Beecher, and Tom Parr, there’ll be plenty to go round, enough new trees over the years.
And they’ll grow up, their brood, like Jasmine’s and the Owens’, and there’ll be all the Hall and the grounds to chase each other round in, and the river to explore, and picnics on it, and trips to its hidden places, and all that English countryside, and the half that was in Wales, to play in.
Humphrey clamped his cigar in his mouth, and scattered sheep feeding by a field gate with a couple more blasts on the horn, singing his way down Batch Valley.”
― Peter Maughan, The Cuckoos Of Batch Magna

“Bound to happen sooner or later, I suppose,” the Commander said equably, tamping his pipe down. “It’s the times, my boy, the times. O tempora o mores. The new order. It goes under different names but always calls itself progress, and we are in its way.”
― Peter Maughan, The Cuckoos Of Batch Magna

“A week before, snow had been forecast. Snow was gathering in the north and would, by the weekend, come down on the West County like a fist. Extra food and fuel were ordered, sheep herded lower down the valley, and the bird table in the postmistress's garden was made up like the spare room. But the threatened snow had not arrived. And that evening in the village pub, the Pike, the talk had scornfully left the present to dig up winters past, their iron ghosts clanking and blowing now around the small, log-warmed bar.”
― Peter Maughan, Under the Apple Boughs:

“Fiction is truth not limited by facts.”
― Peter Maughan

“And then, as if a challenge, said: ''When I were a lad, father and mother used to tell us that on Christmas Eve, at midnight, the cattle would kneel in their stalls.''
He aimed a sudden forefinger at me. ''Now that were old Christmas Eve, mind. January the fifth. And on Christmas Day, January the sixth, the white thorn, the Holy Thorn of Glastonbury, flowered. The thorn planted by the man who buried Christ. Joseph of Arimathea. Come here to bring the good news. Yes!”
― Peter Maughan, Under the Apple Boughs:

“Jasmine thought of her powers, her real powers, as coming from a fifth element, a quintessential world that was everywhere but for most people remained just out of sight. Something there and then not there, something almost remembered and then almost instantly forgotten. A moment of sudden, releasing happiness out of nowhere, or something caught out of the corner of an eye, or felt somewhere behind them, a split second before they turned to look. For Jasmine it was just outside the door.
An unimaginable world she imagined, believed she had been led to imagine, as being like the air above a great river, the almost wordless voices from there which told her things, as free and as fleet in that element as fishes. And who teased her sometimes about that, giggling then like children, effortlessly just out of reach, catch me if you can.
And she knew that one day she would. She had no doubt that that world existed. Everything else to Jasmine was a struggle upstream until we got there. That was coming home.”
― Peter Maughan, Sir Humphrey of Batch Hall plus The Famous Cricket Match

“Beati qui durant. ‘Blessed are those who endure.”
― Peter Maughan, The Cuckoos of Batch Magna

“And he was different, this new dad. The other dad, the old dad, well, he admired him. He was a hotshot and go-getter, and a decent guy, so what’s not to admire? But he liked this new dad. To Humphrey he made much more sense. Sure, he’d have probably asked what the hell his son thought he was doing, how the hell was he going to live, and all that, like dads do. But he’d have soon kidded him out of that. His dad, his new dad, would have done just what he was doing. He knew that now. He had learned it just in time.
And now, as he saw it, they were doing it together. Travelling together, both free now.”
― Peter Maughan, The Cuckoos Of Batch Magna