J.L. Carr Quotes & Sayings

And, at such a time, for a few of us there will always be a tugging at the heart - knowing a precious moment had gone and we not there. We can ask and ask but we can't have again what once seemed ours for ever - the way things looked, that church alone in the fields, a bed on belfry floor, a remembered voice, a loved face. They've gone and you can only wait for the pain to pass. — J.L. Carr

CONGS CATASTROPHE
In their primal gladiatorial tourney N. Baddesley jousting on their own bailiwick encountered the full and furious blast of Steeple Sinderby's New Look Lads spearheaded by Sid Swift, long-lost Shooting Star idol of Brum fans a handful of time ago. The Ringers clocked up eleven strikes and only the inexorable march of time muffled a full peal of twelve. — J.L. Carr

The first breath of autumn was in the air, a prodigal feeling, a feeling of wanting, taking, and keeping before it is too late. — J.L. Carr

You have not had thirty years' experience ... You have had one year's experience 30 times. — J.L. Carr

I'm an apple expert. Apples are the only exam I could ever hope to pass. — J.L. Carr

People one doesn't care for, even dislike, make most of us feel uneasy when they appeal against their sentence. — J.L. Carr

We can ask and ask but we can't have again what once seemed ours for ever - the way things looked, that church alone in the fields, a bed on a belfry floor, a remembered voice, the touch of a hand, a loved face. They've gone and you can only wait for the pain to pass.
All this happened so long ago. And I never returned, never wrote, never met anyone who might have given me news of Oxgodby. So, in memory, it stays as I left it, a sealed room furnished by the past, airless, still, ink long dry on a put-down pen.
But this was something I knew nothing of as I closed the gate and set off across the meadow. — J.L. Carr

Novel-writing can be a cold-blooded business. One uses whatever happens to be lying around in memory and employs it to suit one's end ... .Then, again, during the months whilst one is writing about the past, a story is colored by what presently is happening to its writer. So, imperceptibly, the tone of voice changes, original intentions slip away. And I found myself looking through another window at a darker landscape inhabited by neither the present nor the past. — J.L. Carr

If I'd stayed there, would I always have been happy? No, I suppose not. People move away, grow older, die, and the bright belief that there will be another marvelous thing around each corner fades. It is now or never; we must snatch at happiness as it flies. — J.L. Carr