Quotes from Helene Hanff

podre ir yo a Inglaterra y explorar misma a mi librería. Si me veo con el valor para hacerlo, claro. Vengo escribiéndoles cartas de los mas descaradas desde la seguridad que me dan 5000 kilómetros que hay de por medio. Probablemente entrare un día en esa tienda y saldré de ella al cabo de un rato sin decirles quien soy.

We chose which houses we'll buy if we're born rich next time.

After supper we climbed into his car. He didn't ask what I wanted to see, he just drove me to the corner where the Globe Theatre stood. Nothing is there now, the lot is empty. I made him stop the car and I got out and stood on that empty lot and I thought the top of my head would come off.

Carmen, dear," I said, "I am not the kind of author who wants to be protected from her public. Any fan who phones might want to feed me, and I am totally available as a dinner guest. Just give out my address all over.

Lying in peaceful St. James's, I realize how much a city's parks reflect the character of its people. The parks here are tranquil, quiet, a bit reserved, and I love them. But on a long-term basis, I would sorely miss the noisy exuberance of Central Park.

I tell you it's insidious being an ersatz Duchess, people rushing to give you what you want before you've had time to want it. If I kept this up for more than a month it would ruin my moral fiber.

The sign orders flatly: COMMIT NO NUISANCE.

84, Charing Cross Road was no best seller, you understand; it didn't make me rich or famous. It just got me hundreds of letters and phone calls from people I never knew existed; it got me wonderful reviews; it restored a self-confidence and self-esteem I'd lost somewhere along the way, God knows how many years ago. It brought me to England. It changed my life.

I seem to be living in a state of deep hypnosis, every time I mail a postcard home I could use Euphoria for a return address.

BUCKINGHAM PALACE. Vacancy in the central wash-up of the main kitchen, for female applicants only. Non-residential. . . . Apply in writing to: Master of the Household, Buckingham Palace, London SW 1 Wouldn't you like to take that job for one day, just to listen to the gossip?

Tell me," said Leo. "You've written a beautiful book. Why haven't we heard from you before? What was wrong with your earlier work? Too good or not good enough." "Not good enough," I said. And he nodded and went on to something else, and I think that's when we became soul mates.

This is Great Tew. You can't find it on the map, you have to get lost on the way to Oxford.

My problem was that by this time the Colonel and I had already had thirty straight hours of Togetherness and I'm not equipped for it, not even with the best friend I have on earth, which he isn't.

You decide to stop using the word "anachronism" when a seventeenth-century carriage drives through the gates of Buckingham Palace carrying twentieth-century Russian or African diplomats to be welcomed by a queen. "Anachronism" implies something long dead, and nothing is dead here. History, as they say, is alive and well and living in London.

The things I agree to with a little gin in me.

I went down to Chemical—and after asking to see everything but my teeth, they cashed {my cheque}. Nothing infuriates me like those friendly, folksy bank ads in magazines and on TV. Every bank I ever walked into was about as folksy as a cobra.

Tal vez sea cierto, o tal vez no. Porque ahora, al mirar a mi alrededor en la alfombra, siento una certeza: está aquí.

And because I didn't have the moral backbone to say, "I don't know," I explained the whole thing to her—off the top of my head.

And I'll bet you," I said to Patsy, "that men who've never had any trouble at all saying 'charwoman' or 'cleaningwoman' will find it absolutely impossible to say 'clergywoman'.

I do think it's a very uneven exchange of presents. You'll eat yours up in a week and have nothing left to show for it by New Year's Day. I'll have mine till the day I die—and die happy in the knowledge that I'm leaving it behind for someone else to love. I shall sprinkle pale pencil marks through it pointing out the best passages to some booklover yet unborn.

I am so tired of being told what a terrible place New York is to live in by people who don't live there

Re America & Britain] we are two countries divided by a common language

Si vuestros libros costaran lo que valen, yo no podría permitirme comprarlos.

In London you shoo them away by talking to them. In New York talking to them would just get you their life stories