Richard Vernon: Oldenshaw

Quotes 

• Oldenshaw : You strike me as somewhat mature for a ballet man, Dimmock.

  Dimmock : Oh, well, it makes me laugh sometimes: the triumph of trained muscle over common sense.

• Oldenshaw : If I seem to address you, Dimmock, it is merely from habit.

• Oldenshaw : [Oldenshaw exasperatedly listens to Dr Boddington chattering on the telephone]  I considered Norton voluble but this is ridiculous, listen.

  Dimmock : I thought the art of conversation died long ago?

  Oldenshaw : He's giving it artificial respiration.

• Oldenshaw : [Dimmock tries to recollect Peter Mandel]  You probably saw his name in one of those melodramatic colour supplements that we have nowadays instead of Sunday newspapers. Art photography of famine victims closely juxtaposed to the latest fashions.

• Oldenshaw : I gave up believing in Hell in my very early 20s. Took to beer instead.

• Oldenshaw : I once had occasion to walk through an Oxford college - I won't say which - at three o'clock on a sunny afternoon, when I heard with distinctness a light female voice declare out of the obscurity of an upper window, "If you don't behave, Jeremy, I shall put your pyjamas back on again!"