Dixe Wills > Quotes

“I lay on the grass with the air hanging around me, heavy and still. Not a sound disturbed the night save the trickle and truckle of two waterways, now seeming to chuckle together at some private joke. Perhaps they had seen the Devil ride out so often they found him ridiculous.”
― Dixe Wills, At Night: A Journey Round Britain from Dusk Till Dawn

“I have been afflicted too many times by that curiously bleak despair that the small hours of the night can impart not to welcome its more munificent twin with open arms.”
― Dixe Wills, At Night: A Journey Round Britain from Dusk Till Dawn

“Like most species, we have come to expect that we shall wake up more or less where we fell asleep. We associate the night with being static, becalmed. We might toss and turn a bit, and some may even sleepwalk. But as a rule it is the one period in each 24-hour shift when our frenzied movements hither and yon come to a halt. Hence there is something indefinably sneaky about popping up somewhere in the morning at a location that bears little relation to the one we were inhabiting the night before. It is perhaps the nearest most of us come to performing a magic trick.”
― Dixe Wills, At Night: A Journey Round Britain from Dusk Till Dawn

“I had evidently disturbed the bird from its perch which, on closer inspection, turned out to be something called the Bentinck Fountain. It had clearly seen glories greater than the poor laurels tossed its way now. Once it had been cherished as an effecting feature of a grand estate. Now it stood apologetically by the side of the road, its empty trough sticking out like a beggar's imploring hand.”
― Dixe Wills, At Night: A Journey Round Britain from Dusk Till Dawn