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
fun moving home
I know well the delectable thrill of moving into a new house somewhere altogether else, in somebody else’s county, where the climate is different, the food is different, the light is different, where the mundane preoccupations of life at home don’t seem to apply and it is even fun to go shopping.
home europe land
Worldwide travel is not compulsory. Great minds have been fostered entirely by staying close to home. Moses never got further than the Promised Land. Da Vinci and Beethoven never left Europe. Shakespeare hardly went anywhere at all-certainly not to Elsinore or the coast of Bohemia.
home forever house
I am when the Chinese, who know everything, build a house, they consult the precepts of an ancient science, Feng Shui, which tells them exactly how, when, and where the work must be done, and so brings good fortune to the home forever.
english-writer
Its smallness is not petty; on the contrary, it is profound.
economics flickering language last manage remove seldom street
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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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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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.
ancient brash excuse halfway israelis moment origins posture reasonable
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.
future learned
I told him everything and it was from him that I learned what my future would be.
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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.
anthem fact national pride vital wonderful
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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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?
writing ideas factual
I resist the idea that travel writing has got to be factual.
taken rocks san-francisco
if there is one place in the United States where private styles make up for public images, it is San Francisco, where all lapsed lovers of America, even loyalists like me experiencing spasms of disillusionment, should be taken for refresher courses. The tides of all-American conformity beat vainly against the San Franciscan rock.