Brandon Goodwin

“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.”
― Ronald Blythe

“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.”
― Ronald Blythe, Akenfield: Portrait of an English Village

“I have seen young boys in this village get married. They think it all bed, poor fellows. I see it quite different to this. I’m in no hurry at all. I must work. I mustn’t be worried or distracted. Not yet. I couldn’t spend time on my work if I was married.”
― Ronald Blythe, Akenfield: Portrait of an English Village

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