'I met Ian Fleming at Cape's annual party. Jonathan Cape made no secret of disliking Fleming, had read only the first chapter of Casino Royale and nothing whatever of his subsequent books.'
I met Ian Fleming at Cape’s annual party. Jonathan Cape made no secret of disliking Fleming, had read only the first chapter of Casino Royale and nothing whatever of his subsequent books, but reluctantly accepted that he was likely to become the firm’s best-selling author since T. E. Lawrence.
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‘I think there should be a National Service of Hospitality. The best way to see the true face of humanity is to serve it a plate of chips.’
Camilla Grudova on bad-mannered customers.
‘Anyone who has ever worked night shifts will understand the vertiginous feeling that comes with staring down the day from the wrong end.’
A.K. Blakemore on working nights.
‘I was constantly reading job ads, trying to find my holy grail – a job I could stand to do, and someone foolish enough to hire me.’
Sandra Newman on learning how to play professional blackjack.
‘I loved being a receptionist. What I loved about it was playing the part of being a receptionist.’
Emily Berry on being a temporary office worker.
‘Every part of you would swell, including your eyeballs, and no matter how much water you drank, you were always dehydrated.’
Junot Díaz on working for a steel mill.
‘It was a time for enmities to be put aside, and alliances cemented wherever they could be found, but Farol and Sort turned their backs on one another, and went their separate ways towards an obscure fate.’
‘In the 1930s I wanted to travel and I wanted to write. In 1935, I published my first book—about a journey to Spain’.
‘From the age of five I attended Forty Hill Church School. Studies began every day with half an hour's catechism.’
‘In the winter of 1957, I went to Liberia for the New Yorker.’
‘Little surprise was aroused when the model chosen for the new Hat Yai was Dodge City of the 1860s as revealed by the movies.’
‘The Russian people suffer from a victim complex: they believe that nothing depends on them, and by them nothing can be changed.’
