7 Quotes by John Hillaby

There is scarce a cave, an isolated rock, a lone pine tree or a pile of stones without supporting folklore.

In Mexico today the word for the ultimate, the best in anything from a straight flush to the sight of beautiful country, is a todo madre, something which is 'wholly mother'.

Either you like cats or you don't. Whole nations have been divided on what people thought of an animal that mates openly, walks in silence and keeps its own counsel.

I have often wondered how this circumpolar stars between the Drago and the Lion came to be known as the Great Bear. The ancient Egyptians called them the Unwearied Ones or the Rowers of the Ships of Ra. I prefer the Plough or the Wain or even the Big Dipper. The name of the Septriones, the proud walkers, grips the imagination, but the Great Bear is a plain misnomer.

Good wines are produced in small quantities. It is a matter of time and attention and picking only the best grapes. Today they get as much as they can out of the ground, and what can you expect? The wine has no taste.

What makes good bread? It is a question of good flour and slow fermentation. In the old days we used to leave the dough to ferment for at least three or four hours, and it wasn't necessary to put chemicals into the dough. Today the farmers get much bigger crops from the same piece of ground, but the wheat has lost its taste. And to make it look nice and white — comme un cadavre — the millers grind it up fine and sift it, so you are left with very little except starch.

Groddeck, that strange pupil of Freud, claimed that in reality our powers of smell are as sharp as those of a dog, but that we suppress them for psychosexual reasons. Maybe just as well, for if we smelled love and hostility we might become even more emotionally disturbed than we are in the presence if certain people we instinctively like or dislike.