Pamela Hansford Johnson, Baroness Snow (1912–81) was an English novelist, playwright, poet, literary and social critic. She was born in London. Her mother, Amy Clotilda Howson, was a singer and actress, from a theatrical family. Her mother’s father, C E Howson, worked for the London Lyceum Company, as Sir Henry Irving’s Treasurer. Her father, Reginald Kenneth Johnson, was a colonial civil servant who spent much of his life working in Nigeria. Her father died when she was 11 years old, leaving debts. Her mother earned a living as a typist. Until Pamela was 22, the family lived at 53 Battersea Rise, Clapham, South London.
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You slam a politician, you make out he’s the devil, with horns and hoofs. But his wife loves him, and so did all his mistresses.
—Pamela Hansford Johnson
Topics: Politics, Politicians
The sky broke like an egg into full sunset and the water caught fire.
—Pamela Hansford Johnson
Topics: Water
We demand that people should be true to the pictures we have of them, no matter how repulsive those pictures may be: we prefer the true portrait in all its homogeneity, to one with a detail added which refuses to fit in.
—Pamela Hansford Johnson
Topics: People
Be fond of the man who jests at his scars, if you like; but never believe he is being on the level with you.
—Pamela Hansford Johnson
Topics: Humor
There are few things more disturbing than to find, in somebody we detest, a moral quality which seems to us demonstrably superior to anything we ourselves possess. It augurs not merely an unfairness on the part of creation, but a lack of artistic judgment. Sainthood is acceptable only in saints.
—Pamela Hansford Johnson
Topics: Perfection, Morality, Morals
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