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2026

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Jan 2026

7^th January

When making music or creating any other kind of art, one must always strive to provide something one cannot find elsewhere in the world, rather than just Joining In and diltuing instead of adding.

Dickon Edwards, entry for 4 Feb 2004, Diary at the Centre of the Earth, Vol 1 1997-2007 (2026)

14^th January

None of the experts tried to suggest that they were well up in the lore of monkeys, but when they were shown the obvious they made haste to declare that it was indeed obvious. This is one of the things experts are frequently called upon to do.

Robertson Davies, What's Bred in the Bone (The Cornish Trilogy #2) (1986)

21^st January

[H]er heart was, if not necessarily in the right place, at least somewhere in that vicinity, like a kitchen utensil not actually lost, but not in its proper drawer.

Mick Herron, Clown Town (Slough House #9) (2025)

But of course, as historians, our job is exactly that: to revise history. We don’t just regurgitate so-called facts. We do research and we create arguments. History is meant to be rewritten. It’s not fixed.

Hallie Rubenhold, ‘History is meant to be rewritten – it’s not fixed’ the Observer, 21 January 2026

Feb 2026

4^th February

It's just my soul responding
Don't you try to tell me I'm unpatriotic
I deserve an explanation
I can't help but wonder if you really got it
It's just my soul responding

Smokey Robinson, ‘Just My Soul Responding’ (1973)

11^th February

Be warned, however, if you do get stuck in on the pints in this ground-floor Guinness restaurant and need to spend a penny, the loos are on the fifth floor, and reachable only by lift. Guinness, let the record show, cannot organise a piss-up in a brewery.

Grace Dent, Restaurant Review: Absolute “will-this-do?” nonsense The Guardian 1 Feb 2026

18^th February

I do not know whether, as I wished, I have indicated by my report of his dialogue... that his conversation was not as a rule brilliant or witty, but it was easy and he laughed so much that you sometimes had the illusion that what he said was funny.

Somerset Maugham, Cakes and Ale (1930)

25^th February

In fine, he was a man, and a man inclined to be prematurely airy and gay. Perhaps superficial! Her nervousness did not in the least hamper her strongly developed critical faculty, which faculty however she always hid away from view, like a possession semi-sacred, occult, too precious for any exposure to the public gaze. Few of her equals or her superiors had even guessed the existence of that sharp, acid faculty.

Arnold Bennett, Imperial Palace (1930)

Mar 2026

4^th March

Unkindness from enemies is far, far preferable, even comparatively homely and welcome when it happens, because enemies, unlike friends, have at least the decency to be consistent in their judgement.

Dickon Edwards, entry for 12 Oct 1999, Diary at the Centre of the Earth, Vol 1 1997-2007 (2026)

11^th March

Molly realized for the first time how you could be thrilled by kindness as wildly as though it were a passionate declaration.

GB Stern, The Woman in the Hall (1939)

18^th March

The pendulum is swinging backwards, not only against feminism, but against democracy, liberty, and reason, against international co-operation and political tolerance.

Winifred Holtby, Women and a Changing Civilisation (1934)

25^th March

I say Yes, Yes, to all of this. (Discover, on thinking it over, that I do not agree with any of it, and am shocked at my own extraordinary duplicity.)

EM Delafield, Diary of a Provincial Lady (1931)

Apr 2026

1^st April

You know, however gross a subject is you can soften its unpleasantness if you treat it with dignity. But I can do nothing unless I am in complete possession of the facts.”
“Obviously you can’t cook them unless you have them.”

Somerset Maugham, Cakes and Ale (1930)

8^th April

What they seem conspicuously short of is any visible sign that they actually enjoy the thing they are critiquing. You can feel it in the prose. The pleasure is absent. What remains is the performance of authority, which is not the same thing at all.

Jim Mcleod, Stop Skipping Prologues. You’re Reading the Book Wrong 4 April 2026

4^th June