A Quote by Penelope Lively

I have had to empty two family homes during the last few years - first, the house that had been my grandmother's since 1923, and then my own country home, which we had lived in for over twenty years.
I have had to empty two family homes during the last few years - first, the house that had been my grandmothers since 1923, and then my own country home, which we had lived in for over twenty years.
A few years ago, I was trying to buy a piece of land next to a house I had in Newfoundland. I discovered that the plot had been owned by a family, and the son had gone off to World War I and been killed. It began to interest me: What would have happened on that land if the son had lived, had brought up his own family there?
He had never liked October. Ever since he had first lay in the autumn leaves before his grandmother's house many years ago and heard the wind and saw the empty trees. It had made him cry, without a reason. And a little of that sadness returned each year to him. It always went away with spring. But, it was a little different tonight. There was a feeling of autumn coming to last a million years. There would be no spring. ("The October Game")
How sadly things had changed since she had sat there the night after coming home! Then she had been full of hope and joy and the future had looked rosy with promise. Anne felt as if she had lived years since then, but before she went to bed there was a smile on her lips and peace in her heart. She had looked her duty courageously in the face and found it a friend--as duty ever is when we meet it frankly.
If the Democratic policies had been pursued over the last two or three years... we would not have had the kind of job growth we've had.
In retrospect, I think that I've been given quite a few scripts over the years that had dark elements to them but most of them took place in the countryside with a haunted house. I think I've probably had that script about six to 10 times over the past few years. Or it was something to do with the supernatural.
The last two years, nationals have been close to home for me, so I've had big family support from friends and club support. Especially last year in Ottawa, I had a whole section my grandpa got for all my family, and the skating club (supported me). I feel like I'm a veteran at this now.
During the last 17 years... I have been working at the restoration of a once exhausted hillside. Its scars are now healed over, though still visible, and this year it has provided abundant pasture, more than in any year since we have owned it. But to make it as good as it is now has taken 17 years. If I had been a millionaire or if my family had been starving, it would still have taken 17 years. It can be better than it is now, but that will take longer. For it to live fully in its own responsibility, as it did before bad use ran it down, may take hundreds of years.
I think I've indulged in a pathological, chronic nostalgia over the years, which I've traced back to my childhood. I was the last of four children, born well after the other three, so I was left on my own in a big, quiet house where most of the people had left, and even the echoes of a happy family had all died out.
The 1994 midterms had been a shocking rout for the GOP, which picked up 54 seats in the House and eight in the Senate. No one had seen it coming. The Democratic Congress was supposed to be a permanent fact of life; it had been 40 years since Republicans had controlled the chamber.
[Turkish women] had lived free of the veil for 5,000 years, and had been covered only in the last 600 years.
I came from a working class family. We lived in a prefab. We had nothing, but we had everything. I was out of the house at 12 to live with my grandmother, who was on her own, and I was expected to be the man about the house. At 15, I was living in digs in London after signing for Tottenham.
Until I was five, my immediate family lived near my grandfather's farm where my mother had grown up and, with the exception of a few modern conveniences, had not changed a lot over the years.
I gulped, then stepped over the threshold into the house where I'd lived as a boy. After eighteen long years of wandering, I had finally come home.
I have had a few rough patches in my life, but these last few years have been among the roughest. A few years ago, I left my job as host of the television show Extra. Our parting of ways was completely amicable; they were amazing to me. I had spent over a quarter of my life at that job, and without it, I felt like I had lost my compass. People didn't know how to introduce me anymore, because in L.A., you are your job.
Me and my family, we sort of had this plan to... once we had kids, we had a plan that about every six years we'd move to a new country. So, when we had kids, we moved to Bali for six years, then we went to Australia for six years.
This site uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience. More info...
Got it!