I am packing my belongings in the shawl my mother used to wear when she went to the market. And I am going from my valley. But thi...s time I shall never return. I am leaving behind me my 50 years of memory--memory. Strange that the mind will forget so much of what only this moment has passed and yet hold clear and bright the memory of what happened years ago of men and women long since dead. Yet who shall say what is real and what is not. Can I believe this all gone when their voices are still a glory in my ears. No. And I will stand to say no and no again, for they remain within my mind. There is no fence nor hedge around time that is gone. You can go back and have what you like of it, if you can remember. So I can go close my eyes on my valley as it is today and it is gone. And I see it as it was when I was a boy--green it was and possessed of the plenty of the earth. In all Wales there was none so beautiful.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
In those days, the blag slag, the waste of the coal pits, had only begun to cover the side of our hill. Not enough to mar the coun...tryside nor blacken the beauty of our village. For the colliery had only begun to poke its skinny black fingers between the green.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Everything I ever learned as a small boy came from my father. And I never found anything he ever told me to be wrong or worthless.... The simple lessons he taught me are as sharp and clear in my mind, as if I had heard them only yesterday.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Twenty-two weeks the men were out as the strike moved into winter. It was strange to go out into the street and find the men there... in the daytime. It had a feeling of fright in it. And always the mood of the men grew uglier as empty bellies and desperation began to conquer reason. Any man who was not their friend became their enemy. They knew my father had opposed the strike, and now it was they who opposed him.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Revolutions are notorious for allowing even non- participants--even women!--new scope for telling the truth since they are themsel...ves such massive moments of truth, moments of such massive participation.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
It is not women's fault if we are so tender. It is in the nature of the lives we live. And further, it would be a terrible catastr...ophe if men had to live men's lives and women's also. Which is precisely what has happened today--to women.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
We have needed to define ourselves by reclaiming the words that define us. They have used language as weapons. When we open oursel...ves to what they say and how they say it, our narrow prejudices evaporate and we are nourished and armed.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
He was naturally so sensitive, and so kind. But he had the insidious modern disease of tolerance. He must tolerate everything, eve...n a thing that revolted him.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
She could give herself up to the written word as naturally as a good dancer to music or a fine swimmer to water. The only difficul...ty was that after finishing the last sentence she was left with a feeling at once hollow and uncomfortably full. Exactly like indigestion.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »