Most people they just er drift through life without any real aims. They are weak. But it’s no good just sitting there whining. You’ve got to get up and do something about it. Now not that it isn’t a fight, of course it is. Life is a fight. People they always seem to be against you. ibid. Laurence to Sue
Beverly: I’ll tell you what, listen, we’ll all get pissed.
Angela: Yes. We can enjoy ourselves. ibid.
I think I’m going to be sick. ibid. Sue to Beverly
He’s very quick tempered. I think it’s because of his red hair. ibid. Angela to Beverly
Was your husband violent? Oh she’s one of the lucking ones, isn’t she? ibid. Angela to Sue
Beverly: Apart from that, it’s just boring, do you know what I mean?
Angela: I think that comes from being married though doesn’t it? The fun wears off. ibid.
You know Shakespeare? At school. Well I have the complete works here. Yes, they are very well bound. They’re embossed in gold ... Of course they’re not something you can actually read. ibid. Laurence to Tony
Laurence, we are not here to hold conversations. We are here to enjoy ourselves. ibid. Beverly
We’re all getting a little bit merry, aren’t we? ibid. Angela to Laurence
Come on, Tone. Have a little dance. Come on. ibid. Beverly to Tony
You don’t mind me mauling your husband, do you, Ange? ibid. Beverly
Now who’s for another drink? ibid. Beverly
Can I have a cigarette? You see once you smoke one cigarette you want to keep on smoking, don’t you? ibid. Angela to Tony, Beverly offering
I like footballers’ legs actually. Nice and muscly, aren’t they? ibid. Beverly
[Laurence has heart attack, with Beethoven’s Fifth the backdrop]
He happens to be my husband. ibid. Beverly to Angela
Ange, angle, his face is going all blue, look. ibid.
Ange, listen to that noise he’s making. ibid.
Angela, I told him this would happen. ibid.
Sue, do you want a little drop of brandy? No? Tone? Angela, do you? ibid. Beverly
The thing is I’m very fond of him. ibid.
Abigail, it’s mummy here. Abigail? Abigail! ibid. Sue
One might fancy that day, the London day, was just beginning. Like a woman who had slipped off her print dress and white apron to array herself in blue and pearls, the day changed, put off stuff, took gauze, changed to evening, and with the same sigh of exhilaration that a woman breathes, tumbling petticoats on the floor, it too shed dust, heat, colour; the traffic thinned; motor cars, tinkling, darting, succeeded the lumber of vans; and here and there among the thick foliage of the squares an intense light hung. I resign, the evening seemed to say, as it paled and faded above the battlements and prominences, moulded, pointed, of hotel, flat, and block of shops, I fade, she was beginning. I disappear, but London would have none of it, and rushed her bayonets into the sky, pinioned her, constrained her to partnership in her revelry. Virginia Woolf, Mrs Dalloway
Parties are a kind of performance. Mrs Dalloway 1997 starring Venessa Redgrave & Sarah Badel & Amelia Bullmore & Phyllis Calvert & Alan Cox & Oliver Ford Davies & Rupoert Graves & Robert Hardy & Lena Headey & Michael Kitchen & Robert Portal et al, director Marleen Gorris, Sally Seaton
Well let’s face it, who on earth besides antique dealers and gay couples actually still give dinner parties? Nigel Slater
Going so soon? I wouldn’t hear of it. Why, my little party’s just beginning. L Frank Baum, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Wicked Witch
And it is generally understood that a party hardly ever goes the way it is planned or intended. This last, of course, excludes, those dismal slave parties, whipped and controlled and dominated, given by an ogreish professional hostess. These are not parties at all but acts and demonstrations, about as spontaneous as peristalsis and as interesting as it’s end product. John Steinbeck
On the hearth, in front of a back-brand to give substance, blazed a fire of thorns, that crackled ‘like the laughter of the fool’.
Nineteen persons were gathered here. Of these, five women, wearing gowns of various bright hues, sat in chairs along the wall; girls shy and not shy filled the window-bench; four men, including Charley Jake the hedge-carpenter, Elijah New the parish-clerk, and John Pitcher, a neighboring dairyman, the shepherd’s father-in-law, lolled in the settle; a young man and maid, who were blushing over tentative pourparlers on a life companionship, sat beneath the corner-cupboard; and an elderly engaged man of fifty or upward moved restlessly about from spots where his betrothed was not to the spot where she was. Enjoyment was pretty general, and so much the more prevailed in being unhampered by conventional restrictions. Absolute confidence in each other’s good opinion begat perfect ease, while the finishing stroke of manner, amounting to a truly princely serenity, was lent to the majority by the absence of any expression or trait denoting that they wished to get on in the world, enlarge their minds, or do any eclipsing thing whatever – which nowadays so generally nips the bloom and bonhomie of all except the two extremes of the social scale. Thomas Hardy, The Three Strangers
I get half a million just to show up at parties. My life is, like, really, really fun. Paris Hilton
A lot of people say to me, ‘Why did you kill Christ?’ I dunno. It was one of those parties, got out of hand, you know. Lenny Bruce
Memorial services are the cocktail parties of the geriatric set. Harold Macmillan
Sometimes I’ve been to a party where no-one spoke to me for a whole evening. The men, frightened by their wives or sweeties, would give me a wide berth. And the ladies would gang up in a corner to discuss my dangerous character. Marilyn Monroe
You come home, and you party. But after that, you get a hangover. Everything about that is negative. Mike Tyson
Hear no evil, Speak no evil – and you’ll never be invited to a party. Oscar Wilde
Tonight I’m in Mexico where every Spring 2,000,000 revellers flock to the resort of Cancun to party, to drink and to pull. Stacey Dooley: Crime, Carnage & Cancun, BBC 2013
The crime here is like nowhere else in the world. ibid.
Spring break is all about breaking the rules. ibid.
I’ve never seen this type of controlled, contrived partying. ibid.
Spring Breakers seem to be getting drugs from somewhere. ibid.
Around 12 tourists die every year in Cancun. ibid.
Thousands of stag parties come here. They’re here for the cheap beer and beautiful women. Stacey Dooley: Sex, Stags and Prague, BBC 2013
Easy targets for a host of petty criminals. ibid.
95,415. One of the many ways they liked to flaunt their wealth was by throwing extravagant parties. A prominent oil executive threw a Soviet Union Nostalgia Party in a château outside Paris in the summer of 2004 ... French peasants dressed as Soviet collective-farmworkers from the 1930s were driving their tractors around the fountain in front of the mansion ... Inside, skipping between the fountains of champagne and lines of coke (carefully chopped and ready for use), women with miniskirts split to reveal their buttocks would writhe occasionally to the marching beat ... The Soviet Union Nostalgia Party was a mere side-order in the movable orgiastic feast that was in constant preparation for the oligarchs and their entourages. Misha Glenny, McMafia
The ‘Pandorama’ consisted of a stage-front made of painted cardboard and fixed on the front of a wooden box about three feet long by two feet six inches high, and about one foot deep from back to front. The ‘Show’ was a lot of pictures cut out of illustrated weekly papers and pasted together, end to end, so as to form a long strip or ribbon. Bert had coloured all the pictures with watercolours.
Just behind the wings of the stage-front at each end of the box – was an upright roller, and the long strip of pictures was rolled up on this ... ‘Our next picture is called ‘An Englishman’s ome’. ’Ere we see the inside of another room in Slumtown, with the father and mother and four children sitting down to dinner – bread and drippin’ and tea. It says underneath the pitcher that there’s Thirteen millions of people in England always on the verge of starvation. Robert Tressell, The Ragged Trouserered Philanthropist
‘Here we see another unemployment procession,’ continued Bert as he rolled another picture into sight; ‘2,000 able-bodied who are not allowed to work … Ere we see a lot of small boys about twelve and thirteen years old being served out with their Labour Stiffcats.’ ibid.
‘One of the most historic cultural gatherings the world has ever seen.’ Decadence and Downfall: The Shah of Iran’s Ultimate Party, BBC 2016, caption, Orson Welles, BBC 2016
‘There were two queues – one of kings and queens and one of lesser mortals – like presidents and prime ministers: unbelievable!’ ibid. commentator