Jan Morris
Jan Morris
Jan Morris, CBE, FRSLis a Welsh transgender historian, author and travel writer. She is known particularly for the Pax Britannica trilogy, a history of the British Empire, and for portraits of cities, notably Oxford, Venice, Trieste, Hong Kong, and New York City...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionNon-Fiction Author
Date of Birth2 October 1926
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I think it is vital that we know the national anthem because we, as Americans, should take pride in the fact that we live in such a wonderful country.
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Its origins are ancient but it burgeons with brash modernity, and it lounges upon its delectable shore, halfway between the Israelis and the Syrians, in a posture that no such city, at such a latitude, in such a moment of history, has any reasonable excuse for assuming.
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There it stands, with a toss of curls and a flounce of skirts, a Carmen among the cities. the last of the Middle Eastern fleshpots. a junction of intrigue and speculation.
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I told him everything and it was from him that I learned what my future would be.
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The language of economics is seldom limpid, but in H Street they usually manage to remove from it the very last flickering colophon of charm.
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Its smallness is not petty; on the contrary, it is profound.
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We're working on understanding what the words mean and the history of it as well because it's such a huge part of American history and our culture. If we don't preserve our culture, who will?
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The pride and presence of a professional football team is far more important Book lovers will understand me, and they will know too that part of the pleasure of a library lies in its very existence
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Wherever you go in life, you will feel somewhere over your shoulder a pink, castellated shimmering presence, the domes and riggings and crooked pinacles of the Serenissima
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Travel, which was once either a necessity or an adventure, has become very largely a commodity, and from all sides we are persuaded into thinking that it is a social requirement, too.
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Dublin ... is not only the capital of a nation, but the capital of an idea. The idea of Irishness is not universally beloved. Some people mock it, some hate it, some fear it. On the whole, though, I think it fair to say, the world interprets it chiefly as a particular kind of happiness, a happiness sometimes boozy and violent, but essentially innocent: and this ineradicable spirit of merriment informs the Dublin genius to this day ...
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There are only two rules. One is E. M. Forster's guide to Alexandria; the best way to know Alexandria is to wander aimlessly. The second is from the Psalms; grin like a dog and run about through the city.
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Venice is a cheek-by-jowl, back-of-the-hand, under-the-counter, higgledy-piggledy, anecdotal city, and she is rich in piquant wrinkled things, like an assortment of bric-a-brac in the house of a wayward connoisseur, or parasites on an oyster-shell.
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[Travel seems] not just a way of having a good time, but something that every self-respecting citizen ought to undertake, like a high-fiber diet, say, or a deodorant.