I made it to Oxford, but it is not that I am particularly clever, much more that I am a worker bee.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I got into New College, Oxford. The ethos was that you could work - or not.
Contrary to popular belief, Oxford has the highest concentration of dull-witted, stupid, narrow-minded people anywhere in the British Isles.
The clever men at Oxford, know all that there is to be knowed. But they none of them know one half as much, as intelligent Mr. Toad.
The truth is that Oxford is simply a very beautiful city in which it is convenient to segregate a certain number of the young of the nation while they are growing up.
Oxford is a funny place, as it is a mixture of town and gown. You have the students at the main university and at Oxford Brookes, but there is also a big working-class community.
There's something awful about Oxford, I think. It's such a little ghetto.
Oxford has a slightly mythical rep, particularly for people who haven't been there.
I didn't know a thing about Oxford and had never been to Britain. My father suggested it because in 1939 he had been about to take up a place at Wadham College, but the war broke out, and he joined the Army instead.
I really wasn't equipped to be a writer when I left Oxford. But then I set out to learn. I've always had the highest regard for the craft. I've always felt it was work.
I was a modest, good-humoured boy. It is Oxford that has made me insufferable.