Few writers who have managed to acquire his reputation can have been so much at the mercy of crude emotion. - Alan Sillitoe

Makes Room at the Top look like a vicarage tea-party.

I realized it might be possible to do such a thing, run for money, trot for wages on piece work at a bob a puff rising bit by bit to a guinea a gasp and retiring through old age at thirty-two because of lace-curtain lungs, a football heart, and legs like varicose beanstalks.

Government wars aren't my wars; they've got nowt to do with me, because my own war's all that I'll ever be bothered about.