Jan Struther

Things happen too quickly, crisis follows crisis, the soil of our minds is perpetually disturbed. Each of us, to relieve his feelings,…

— Jan Struther

“It was more like a form of claustrophobia -- a dread of exchanging the freedom of her own self-imposed routine for the…

— Jan Struther

“Mrs. Miniver suddenly understood why she was enjoying the forties so much better than she had enjoyed the thirties: it was the…

— Jan Struther

To be put down in this world, and given only eighty years to get to know it in, is like being let…

— Jan Struther

“...[Y]ou cannot successfully navigate the future unless you keep always framed beside it a small clear image of the past.”

— Jan Struther

One is what one remembers: no more, no less.

— Jan Struther

In childhood the daylight always fails too soon -- except when there are going to be fireworks;

— Jan Struther

I can't abide cats myself, but of course we have to have one in the kitchen to deal with the mice. I…

— Jan Struther

swans ... always look as though they'd just been reading their own fan-mail.

— Jan Struther

It seemed to her sometimes that the most important thing about marriage was not a home or children or a remedy against…

— Jan Struther

Physical weather certainly is beyond our control. ... But human weather - the psychological climate of the world - is not beyond…

— Jan Struther

Scots are born exiles, and Scotland the perfect country to be exiled from. Do not imagine that I am running down Scotland.…

— Jan Struther

It took me forty years on earth To reach this sure conclusion: There is no Heaven but clarity, No Hell except confusion.

— Jan Struther

It's just as important to marry the right life as the right person.

— Jan Struther

Giving a party is like having a baby: its conception is more fun than its completion; and once you have begun it,…

— Jan Struther

And I am a mockery, who was God before.

— Jan Struther

“...[A] certain degree of un-understanding (not mis-, but un-) is the only possible sanctuary which one human being can offer to another…

— Jan Struther

Punctuality is the thief of adventure.

— Jan Struther

“...[F]ireworks had for her a direct and magical appeal. Their attraction was more complex than that of any other form of art.…

— Jan Struther

Not that she didn't enjoy the holidays: but she always felt-and it was, perhaps, the measure of her peculiar happiness-a little relieved…

— Jan Struther

“The fact that we are now crusaders needn't blind us to the fact that for a very long time we have been,…

— Jan Struther

It oughtn't to need a war to make us talk to each other in buses, and invent our own amusements in the…

— Jan Struther

She saw every personal religion as a pair of intersecting circles. . . . Probably perfection is reached when the area of…

— Jan Struther

“Left wing...Right wing...it's so limited; why doesn't it ever occur to any of them that what one is really longing for is…

— Jan Struther

O love's a simple word to sayWith nature aiding and abetting

— Jan Struther