I miss silence in the movies. Not silent movies—the films so called were anything but, since they relied on live music from a piano pit or an orchestra to convey mood, momentum and sound effects. What I miss in films is silence, not only as a neutral medium, or even for its powers of contrast, but…
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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.
‘Terry and I entertained hundreds of couples over the years, and I don't think we were unusual.‘
‘Is there in fact a jostling for dominance between the art forms, some barely suppressed competitiveness?’
Adam Mars-Jones on music and ceremony.
‘When I was put on Granta’s first Best of Young British Novelists list in 1983, no novel of mine had been published.’
‘Obscure repertoire is a sensible hiding-place for mediocre technique.’
‘At the end of the year, an ambulance brought Suseela home from hospital to die’.
‘He wrote: they called it the city of eternal sun. Its sun set only after the last inhabitant slept, and rose before the first got up. They were all deprived of the night. They were not even aware of its existence.’
