
“My father worked on a farm - and his father. They both got very near to ninety, I believe. They were hardy old sorts. They never had a thing amiss with them. They worked and lived, and then kind of toppled over at the end. I should have been like them but my accident made the difference to me. The horses ran away with me on the farm. It was only two fields away from this house. It was a terrible accident; it jagged me all to pieces. The horses bolted in the field and ruined me. We were using the self-binder at the time. It was the second year I was in this village and thirty-eight year ago or more. I was at the top of the field whole and then at the bottom of the field, broken, and all in minutes. I should not have come here.”
― Akenfield: Portrait of an English Village
― Akenfield: Portrait of an English Village

“There is no peace and no rest in the development of material interests. They have their law, and their justice. But it is founded on expediency, and is inhuman; it is without rectitude, without the continuity and the force that can be found only in a moral principle.”
― Nostromo
― Nostromo

“That man seems to have a particular talent for being on the spot whenever there is something picturesque to be done.”
― Nostromo
― Nostromo

“I am incapable of conceiving infinity, and yet I do not accept finity. I want this adventure that is the context of my life to go on without end.”
― La vieillesse
― La vieillesse
“There is something treasonable about a child that does well. A market gardener I know, who is now about twenty, is a lonely person because he went to the grammar school and the village women say, ‘Didn’t get him far did it? All that schooling and he’s still on the land.’ Perhaps they know there is nothing like education for breaking up an ordinary country family.”
―
―
Brandon’s 2024 Year in Books
Take a look at Brandon’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
More friends…
Favorite Genres
Polls voted on by Brandon
Lists liked by Brandon