Quotessence
Home / Quotes / Quote by Rosemary Sutcliff

Quote by Rosemary Sutcliff

“One night at the Old Vicarage that winter, we listened to Ivor Novello's "Perchance to Dream" on the wireless. It was only a few years old then, and its small, haunting, fragile hit-song 'We'll Gather Lilacs' was still a tune that one heard constantly, on the wireless, from orchestras in restaurants, being whistled in the street. To this day I have only to hear the first notes, in some programme of 'Golden Oldies', to go straight back to that time. What an arid place this world would be without nostalgia.”

Quote by Rosemary Sutcliff

Book:Blue Remembered Hills: A Recollection
Create image

Work

Blue Remembered Hills: A Recollection

Browse quotes and source details for this work. more

Author

Rosemary Sutcliff
Rosemary Sutcliff

Rosemary Sutcliff was a British historical novelist renowned for her historical fiction, particularly her works set during the Roman period and the Dark Ages. Born on December 14, 1920, and passing away on July 23, 1992, Sutcliff's meticulous research and evocative storytelling have left a lasting impact on the genre. more

You May Also Like

“Eighteen years have gone by, and still I can bring back every detail of that day in the meadow. Washed clean of summer's dust by days of gentle rain, the mountains wore a deep, brilliant green. The October breeze set white fronds of head-tall grass swaying. One long streak of cloud hung pasted across a dome of frozen blue. It almost hurt to look at that far-off sky. A puff of wind swept across the meadow and through her hair before it slipped into the woods to rustle branches and send back snatches of distant barking- a hazy sound that seemed to reach us from the doorway of another world. We heard no other sounds. We met no other people. We saw only two bright, red birds leap startled from the center of the meadow and dart into the woods. As we ambled along, Naoko spoke to me of wells.”

NatureNostalgia
Author:Haruki Murakami
Create image

“Nostalgia is possibly the greatest of the lies that we all tell ourselves. It is the glossing of the past to fit the sensibilities of the present. For some, it brings a measure of comfort, a sense of self and of source, but others I fear take these altered memories too far, and because of that paralyze themselves to the realities about them. How many people wonder for that past, simpler and better world, I wonder? Without ever recognizing that truth that perhaps it was they who were simpler and better, and not the world about them.”

LifeTruthTimeAttitudePerspectiveNostalgiaPhilosophizing
Book:Streams of Silver
Create image

“It was like going back to a childhood home after decades away. You knew it intimately and saw past the changes time had wrought, the nostalgia seeping into you as forgotten memories sprang up, but it wasn’t quite right. It didn’t belong to you anymore, and you were left torn by the desire that things be as they once were, and the realization that the present was as it should be.”

ChildhoodNostalgiaThe Past
Book:The Book of Eden: The Keepers Series, Book Two
Create image

“Ni mi madre, que durmió junto a él veinte años, supo del espanto que atenazó su vida y su imaginación desde entonces y para siempre. Todos creímos que se le había olvidado. Pero ahí estaba el abismo del que nunca hablaba, ahí, en la nostalgia con que se reclinó en la puerta de nuestra casa, a ver cómo sus tres hijos mayores nos íbamos a vivir a la ciudad de México.”

NostalgiaPtsdFathers
Book:La emoción de las cosas
Create image

“Summertime! And summertime in my early twenties! And in love! No, better than that - secretly in love, coddling it up in myself. It's an odd feeling, coming rarely more than once in most of our lifetimes. In books, as often as not, they represent it as a sort of anguish but it wasn't so for me. Later perhaps, but not then.”

LovePastRomanceMemoriesRegretSummerNostalgiaUnrequited LoveYoung LoveReminiscing
Book:A Month in the Country
Create image

“To feel one’s attachment to a certain region, one’s love for a certain group of men, to know that there is always a spot where one’s heart will feel at peace – these are many certainties for a single human life. And yet this is not enough. But at certain moments everything yearns for that spiritual home. ‘Yes, we must go back there – there, indeed.”

HomeNostalgiaAttachmentHomelandReturning HomeGoing Back
Book:Summer in Algiers
Create image