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“That spring was the start of everything, for me. Before then, I might have been half-asleep, drifting through life.”
― Lucy Foley, The Invitation

“He turns toward the voice. It is as though the darkness itself has spoken. But when he looks closer he can make her out - the very pale blonde hair first, gleaming in what little light there is, then the shimmering stuff of her dress.”
― Lucy Foley

“It's nice to watch television but it's even nicer when you've got a drink in your hand,' Gregory Ratcliffe, a Birmingham shopkeeper, told Reynolds News. 'Makes it more intimate somehow. Gives you the feeling that you're in a posh cabaret.”
― David Kynaston, Modernity Britain: Opening the Box, 1957-59

“Mr. Offerman clasps his hand on top of hers. “It’s a good hobby for you, dear. It gets you out of the kitchen.â€�

I straighten my spine. Are we in the fifties here? “Out of the kitchen?”
― Lauren Blakely, Big Rock

“There were two streets: Main ran along the oceanfront with a row of shops; the Piggly Wiggly grocery at one end, the Western Auto at the other, the diner in the middle. Mixed in there were Kress's Five and Dime, a Penney's (catalog only), Parker's Bakery, and a Buster Brown Shoe Shop. Next to the Piggly was the Dog-Gone Beer Hall, which offered roasted hot dogs, red-hot chili, and fried shrimp served in folded paper boats. No ladies or children stepped inside because it wasn't considered proper, but a take-out window had been cut out of the wall so they could order hot dogs and Nehi cola from the street.”
― Delia Owens, Where the Crawdads Sing

“COOKBOOK FOR
THE MODERN HOUSEWIFE

The cover was red with a subtle crosshatch pattern and distressed, the book's title stamped in black ink- all of it faded with age. Bordering the cookbook's cover were hints of what could be found inside. Alice tilted her head as she read across, down, across, and up the cover's edges. Rolls. Pies. Luncheon. Drinks. Jams. Jellies. Poultry. Soup. Pickles. 725 Tested Recipes.
Resting the spine on her bent knees, the cookbook dense yet fragile in her hands, Alice opened it carefully. There was an inscription on the inside cover. Elsie Swann, 1940. Going through the first few, age-yellowed pages, Alice glanced at charts for what constituted a balanced diet in those days: milk products, citrus fruits, green and yellow vegetables, breads and cereals, meat and eggs, the addition of a fish liver oil, particularly for children. Across from it, a page of tips for housewives to avoid being overwhelmed and advice for hosting successful dinner parties. Opening to a page near the back, Alice found another chart, this one titled Standard Retail Beef Cutting Chart, a picture of a cow divided by type of meat, mini drawings of everything from a porterhouse-steak cut to the disgusting-sounding "rolled neck."
Through the middle were recipes for Pork Pie, Jellied Tongue, Meat Loaf with Oatmeal, and something called Porcupines- ground beef and rice balls, simmered for an hour in tomato soup and definitely something Alice never wanted to try- and plenty of notes written in faded cursive beside some of the recipes. Comments like Eleanor's 13th birthday-delicious! and Good for digestion and Add extra butter. Whoever this Elsie Swann was, she had clearly used the cookbook regularly. The pages were polka-dotted in brown splatters and drips, evidence it had not sat forgotten on a shelf the way cookbooks would in Alice's kitchen.”
― Karma Brown, Recipe for a Perfect Wife

“The fifties is a decade when every year is markedly different from the one before and after. That doesn't happen every decade. 1983 isn't that much different from 1986. But 1953 is very different from 1956.”
― Sara Sheridan

“The 1950s is a key decade in the 20th Century. Each year has a distinctive flavour.”
― Sara Sheridan

“I'm drawn to the 1950s for lots of reasons - everything from the fashion to the increasing sense of freedom and modernity that builds throughout the decade.”
― Sara Sheridan

“In western societies many people become sick in their thirties, develop serious medical conditions in their forties and are disabled in their fifties.”
― Steven Magee

“Tonight, Nellie had put on quite a spread: a vegetable platter to start things off, with radish roses and olives pierced with embellished toothpicks and fresh tomatoes from her garden; canapés and shrimp cocktail and Vienna sausages and deviled eggs; then her Chicken à la King, and when they were all nearly too full to eat another thing, Baked Alaska for dessert. The conversation had been pleasant, the men discussing the upcoming election and General Electric-Telechron's new "revolutionary" snooze alarm clock, the women swooning about Elvis Presley and gossiping about Marilyn Monroe's recent wedding to Arthur Miller, which everyone agreed was an odd pairing.”
― Karma Brown, Recipe for a Perfect Wife

“The pièce de résistance, put into the can on the very first day, owed its inspiration to Little Richard, who would whip audiences to further frenzy between numbers by self-congratulatory cries of “Well...all right!â€� Buddy turned the phrase into a gentle love song infused with all his special quality of patience and optimism and his developing ability to make personal sentiments into universal ones. “Well, All Rightâ€� is a riposte to all the criticism and condescension that teenagers faced from their elders in the rock 'n' roll fifties—and have in every decade since. The setting is as adventurously simple as that of “Everydayâ€�: Buddy plays flamenco-accented acoustic guitar, with only a plashing cymbal for company. The mood is not one of youthful anger and defiance but of maturity before its time: calm, stoical, steadfast in affirming its “dreams and wishes.â€� The intimacy in the voice could equally be that of lover or elder brother. Girl or boy, you can imagine you and he are alone together, gazing into the fire and imagining a bright future when the young will “live and love with all our might,â€� which could almost be a prophecy of the sixties' hippie culture.”
― Philip Norman, Rave On: The Biography of Buddy Holly

“Writing about the 1950s has given me tremendous respect for my mother's generation.”
― Sara Sheridan

“In the doorway of Fortnum & Mason a young couple were kissing, oblivious to the world. The neon signs mounted on the buildings cast a glossy veneer over the streetscape, glowing through the smog. Around the statue of Eros there were crowds of youngers. The girls were a mass of bobby pins and ribbons, hardly dressed for the cold weather. The boys wore suits with thin ties. They were bantering on their way from the cinemas and theatres to the bars, dance halls and music clubs further along.
“I fancy you, Kitty Dawson,â€� a lone boy shouted.”
― Sara Sheridan, London Calling

“He’s more a shape in a drape than a hep cat”
― Sara Sheridan, London Calling

“The nice thing about dating in your fifties is the people that are going to age well are easy to spot!”
― Steven Magee

“I take a daily cocktail of nutrients to maintain good health in my fifties.”
― Steven Magee

“Shell shock victims tend to go crazy in their fifties.”
― Steven Magee

“The fifties onward will be remembered as the era of the pharmaceutical industry taking control of the mental health industry and treating basic nutrient deficiencies with potent brain drugs that often make the patient sicker, psychotic or suicidal.”
― Steven Magee