Quotes from Geoffrey Willans

You can never understand one language until you understand at least two.

Reality,' sa molesworth 2, 'is so unspeakably sordid it make me shudder'.

You can never understand one language until you understand at least two.

History started badly and hav been getting steadily worse.

There is only one thing in criket and that is the STRATE BAT. Keep yore bat strate boy and all will be all right in life as in criket. So headmasters sa, but when my bat is strate i still get bowled is that an omen chizz, Aktually i usually prefer to hav a slosh: i get bowled just the same but it is more satisfactory.

It hapens very often that parents think they are worred about the progress a boy is making. they do not realise that all boys are numskulls with o branes which is not surprising when you look at the parents really the whole thing goes on and on and there is no stoping it it is a vicious circle.

Sometimes english masters make you read poems chiz chiz chiz. You have to sa the weedy words and speke them beatifully as if you knew what they meant. Fotherington-tomas thinks this is absolutely super and when he sa he wander lonely as a cloud you think he will flote out of the window.

The Only good thing about skool are the boys who are noble brave fearless etc. although you have various swots, bullies, cissies, milksops greedy guts and oiks with whom I am forced to mingle hem-hem. in fact any skool is a bit of a shambles.

All skools make some sort of show at teaching the pupils things and the headmaster pin up a huge timetable of lessons etc which make the heart sink when you look at it. I mean do the grate british nation understand that thousands of its young elizabethans are looking at latin ugh before their breakfast hav even settled. I mean to sa how would they like saing mnerer moneraris moneretur etc at that hour eh?

If you have a quiet half hour with one of your dear companions like peason or gillibrand what is nicer than a game of snakes and ladders? Aktually quite a number of things are nicer like a film of marilyn monroe a quiet cig or a plateful of roast turkey but you do not get these things at skool chiz so it have to be snakes and laders.