Melindam

“Princess Margaret felt most at home in the company of the camp: the cultured and the waspish. It was to be her misfortune that such a high proportion of them kept diaries and moreover, diaries written with a view to publication. To a man they were mesmerised less by her image than by the cracks to be found in it.”
― Craig Brown, Ma’am Darling: 99 Glimpses of Princess Margaret

“There are several ways," he said shyly, "in which I'm trying to improve myself. I have a great many books and records and now I'm learning to play golf. Do you know golf, Sister? The English think it's a very serious game. I was going to learn a much more serious game called cricket, but you need twenty two people...”
― Rumer Godden, Black Narcissus

“It is Cinderella in reverse. It is hope dashed, happiness mislaid, life mishandled. Nothing is as thrilling as they said it would be: no one is amusing, as clever, as attractive or as interesting. The sun never shines as bright as it used to, and even the fiercest thunderstorm lacks any real sense of drama or pizzaz. As the curtain falls, Group Captain Charming has left her for someone more suitable and has gone to live in France, and Buttons, in his zip-up jumpsuit, has taken up with a wearying succession of younger lovers. When Cinderella dies, her little glass slipper is put up for auction, a memento of days of hope and innocence. The catalogue entry reads: 'Only worn once.”
― Craig Brown, Ma’am Darling: 99 Glimpses of Princess Margaret

“I never gave them courage,” he said. “I was able to focus theirs.”
― Erik Larson, The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz