Mr. James Stevens Quotes

“In bantering lies the key to human warmth.”

“The atmosphere was dominated by a feeling of mutual respect . . . There existed in those days a true camaraderie in our profession, whatever the small differences in our approach.”

“Each of us harboured the desire to make our own small contribution to the creation of a better world, and saw that, as professionals, the surest means of doing so would be to serve the great gentlemen of our times in whose hands civilization had been entrusted.”

“It is quite possible, then, that my employer fully expects me to respond to his bantering in a like manner, and considers my failure to do so a form of negligence.”

“If it is necessary to convey a message, I would ask you to do so through a messenger. . . Our working relationship, I am sure, would be made a great deal easier.”

“The great butlers are great by virtue of their ability to inhabit their professional role and inhabit it to the utmost . . . They wear their professionalism as a decent gentleman will wear his suit.”

“For we were, as I say, an idealistic generation for whom the question was not simply one of how well one practiced one’s skills, but to what end one did so.”

“These errors may be trivial in themselves, but you must yourself realize their larger significance.”

“I had been rather pleased with my witticism when it had first come into my head, and I must confess I was slightly disappointed it had not been better received than it was.”

“And yet what precisely is this ‘greatness’? Just where, or in what, does it lie? . . . I would say that it is the very lack of obvious drama or spectacle that sets the beauty of our land apart.”

“I have been responsible for a series of small errors in the carrying out of my duties.”

“All those years I served him, I trusted I was doing something worthwhile.”

“Such evidently small incidents . . . render whole dreams forever irredeemable.”

“Indeed—why should I not admit it?—at that moment, my heart was breaking.”

“I should . . . try to make the best of what remains of my day.”

“And I believe it was then, looking at that view, that I began for the first time to adopt a frame of mind appropriate for the journey before me.”