quote · Legacy record
People who try to tell you what the blitz was like in London start with fire and explosion and then almost invariably end up with some very tiny detail which crept in and set and became the symbol of the whole thing for them. . . . "It's the glass," says one man, "the sound in the morning of the broken glass being swept up, the vicious, flat tinkle." ... An old woman was selling little miserable sprays of sweet lavender. The city was rocking under the bombs and the light of burning buildings made it like day. . . . And in one little hole in the roar her voice got in—a squeaky voice. "Lavender!" she said. "Buy Lavender for luck."The bombing itself grows vague and dreamlike. The little pictures remain as sharp as they were when they were new.
People who try to tell you what the blitz was like in London start with fire and explosion and then almost invariably end up with some very tiny detail which crept in and set and became the symbol of the whole thing for them. . . . "It's the glass," says one man, "the sound in the morning of the broken glass being swept up, the vicious, flat tinkle." ... An old woman was selling little miserable sprays of sweet lavender. The city was rocking under the bombs and the light of burning buildings made it like day. . . . And in one little hole in the roar her voice got in—a squeaky voice. "Lavender!" she said. "Buy Lavender for luck."The bombing itself grows vague and dreamlike. The little pictures remain as sharp as they were when they were new.
Approximate author period: c. 1935 AD · modern
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- Author or tradition
- John Steinbeck
Attribution: attributed - Country attributed
- Not established
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- Approximate author period: c. 1935 AD · modern
Approximate author-period anchor from life dates 1902 to 1968; Wikidata Q39212, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q39212 (accessed 2026-10-08). Not a quotation composition date.
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Supplied reference C; CSV row 77596; supplied attribution, independently unverified
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