A Quote by John Betjeman

Now if the harvest is over, And the world cold, Give me the bonus of laughter, As I lose hold. — © John Betjeman
Now if the harvest is over, And the world cold, Give me the bonus of laughter, As I lose hold.
A vast silence reigned over the land. The land itself was a desolation, lifeless, without movement, so lone and cold that the spirit of it was not even that of sadness. There was a hint in it of laughter, but of laughter more terrible than any sadness-a laughter that was mirthless as the smile of the Sphinx, a laughter cold as the frost and partaking of the grimness of infallibility. It was the masterful and incommunicable wisdom of eternity laughing at the futility of life and the effort of life. It was the Wild, the savage, frozen-hearted Northland Wild.
To our enemies all over the world who plan America's demise, please take my advice. Give up now. No matter what, you will lose. You will lose it all.
The fact that I've achieved this so soon is just a bonus, I guess. Everything from now on is a bonus for me.
Cicero is dead! Cicero is born! The laughter has filled me, filled me so very completely. I am the laughter. I am the jester. The soul that has served as my constant companion for so long has breached the veil of the Void finally and forever. It is now in me. It is me. The world has seen the last of Cicero the man. Behold Cicero, Fool of Hearts - laughter incarnate!
It's a cold world out there, and this world will pass you by if you give another man anything over yourself.
There is a kind of laughter that sickens the soul. Laughter when it is out of control: when it screams and stamps its feet, and sets the bells jangling in the next town. Laughter in all its ignorance and cruelty. Laughter with the seed of Satan in it. It tramples upon shrines; the belly-roarer. It roars, it yells, it is delirious: and yet it is as cold as ice. It has no humor. It is naked noise and naked malice.
I scooted over, patting the bed next to me. "No such luck. And now you get to watch forty straight hours of Easton Heights with me!" He turned on the first disk, shaking his head, then got onto the bed next to me. "Small price to pay for getting to hold your hand." I wasn't cold anymore.
Being cold is not debilitating. We learned that from the Eskimos. They could be cold, and they could function. And you could function better when you're cold than when you're hot. I mean, hot, you become overheated, and, you know, you lose energy. If you're cold, you could function being cold. Now, frozen is different.
You are so to put forth the power that God has given you; you are so to give, and sacrifice to give, as to earn the eulogium pronounced on the woman, "She hath done what she could." Do it now. It is not a safe thing to leave a generous feeling to the cooling influences of a cold world. If you intend to do a mean thing, wait till tomorrow; if you are to do a noble thing, do it now,--now!
This is what it is to live in the world. You have to give yourself over to the cold, at least a little bit.
Laughter, on the other hand, " Petrarch went on, "is an explosion that tears us away from the world and throws us back into our own cold solitude. Joking is a barrier between man and the world. Joking is the enemy of love and poetry. That's why I tell you yet again, and you want to keep in mind: Boccaccio doesn't understand love. Love can never be laughable. Love has nothing in common with laughter.
The seasons don't matter to most of us anymore except as spectacles. In my county and in many places around this part of the nation, the fair that once marked the harvest now takes place in late August, while tourist dollars are still in heavy circulation. Why celebrate the harvest when you harvest every week with a shopping cart?
I can prove at any time that my education tried to make another person out of me than the one I became. It is for the harm, therefore, that my educators could have done me in accordance with their intentions that I reproach them; I demand from their hands the person I now am, and since they cannot give him to me, I make of my reproach and laughter a drumbeat sounding in the world beyond.
Everybody knows from his own experience that after laughter, good laughter, a belly laugh, you almost feel that you have taken an ice-cold shower; a peace, a silence, a freshness... The same is true about crying, but very few people know the secret of crying because it is more repressed than laughter.
You plant, then you cultivate, and finally you harvest. Plant, cultivate, harvest. In today's world, everyone wants to go directly from plant to harvest.
Now, blessings light on him that first invented sleep!Ê It covers a man all over, thoughts and all, like a cloak; it is meat for the hungry, drink for the thirsty, heat for the cold, and cold for the hot.Ê It is the current coin that purchases all the pleasures of the world cheap, and the balance that sets the king and the shepherd, the fool and the wise man, even.
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