21 Quotes by John Mole

The combination of having to cooperate, the pleasure of keeping it going and the demonstration of superiority are at the heart of Greek life. You collaborate and compete at the same time.

What troubled me most is that although I was an unwilling observer, I felt guilty myself as if something in what I witnessed touched a shameful and repressed desire.

When we westerners pray we join our hands, close our eyes, kneel, hunch up and put our hands over our faces to close up our bodies. Our God is inside us, his universe inside our heads. When Orthodox Christians pray they keep their eyes open. They hold their heads up and open up their senses to the universe. Their God is outside in a real world.

It often happens that when you look at familiar things through someone else's eyes you see them as you have never seen them before.

I was sometimes irritated by the unrelenting inquisitiveness and criticism, but there was no shortage of help or advice or just someone to talk to if I needed it. It was hard to imagine a foreigner descending on an English community and being welcomed with such immediate acceptance and hospitality.

Greeks and foreigners lived in parallel universes separated by language and custom. Greeks started work at seven, foreigners at nine. Greeks finished at three and came home for lunch. Greeks went to bed for the afternoon and got up for coffee when the foreigners were having drinks. Greeks went out to dinner when the foreigners were coming out of the taverna to go home to bed.

Where I come from money isn't to be talked about or flaunted in front of strangers. But Ajax snatched up the wad and counted it out loud, ceremonially, slapping the notes down on the table while the witnesses mouthed the amounts. It was all so public and embarrassing.

One of the first lessons of life in Greece is that everything is difficult and nothing is impossible.

It often happens that when you look at familiar things through someone else’s eyes you see them as you have never seen them before.