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The test of an abstract picture, for me, is not my first reaction to it, but how long I can stand it hanging on the wall of a room where I am living.
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John Piper (Penguin Books, 1944), p. 12.
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It was through looking at churches that I came to believe in the reason churches were built.
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The Best of Betjeman, John Guest, Penguin Modern Classics, 1985. Written in 1948. (Blisland)
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History must not be written with bias, and both sides must be given, even if there is only one side.
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First and Last Loves (1952).
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Hymns are the poetry of the people.
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Radio Talk: BBC Radio (4 July 1975)
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Hymn tunes are the nearest we've got to English folk music.[citation needed]
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There are two things you need for a jolly good hymn. The first is a set of words that expresses the mood or sentiment of the worshipper. The second—and perhaps even more important—is a good tune … with a simple popular melody.[citation needed]
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One mark of good verse is surprise.
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Radio Talk. BBC Radio 4 (2 August 1978)
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Topography is one of my chief themes in my poetry...about the country, the suburbs and the seaside...then there comes love...and increasingly, the fear of death.
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Radio Talk. BBC Third Programme (1949)
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I ought to warn you that my verse is of no interest to people who can think.
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Radio Talk. BBC Third Programme (1949)
Saint Pancras was a fourteen-year old Christian boy who was martyred in Rome in AD 304 by the Emperor Diocletian. In England he is better known as a railway station.
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Ghastly Good Taste, or a Depressing Story of the Rise and Fall of English Architecture.
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Title and sub-title of book (1933)
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Saint Pancras was a fourteen-year old Christian boy who was martyred in Rome in AD 304 by the Emperor Diocletian. In England he is better known as a railway station.
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London's Historic Railway Stations (1973)
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Yes, I haven't had enough sex.
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In an interview for the television do****entary Time With Betjeman (February 1983), having been asked whether he had any regrets.
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As quoted in: Ned Sherrin, Oxford Dictionary of Humorous Quotations, Oxford University Press, 2008, p. 286