Poppies Quotes

In Flanders fields the poppies blow Between the crosses, row on row, That mark our place, and in the sky, The larks, still bravely singing, fly Scarce heard among the guns below.

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow: In Flanders fields.

In Europe and Australia, there is something called the Tall Poppy Syndrome: People like to cut the tall poppies. They don't want you to succeed, and they cut you down - especially people from your own social class.

I always found the extraordinary loss of life in the First World War very moving. I remember learning about it as a very young child, as an eight- or nine-year-old, asking my teachers what poppies were for. Every year the teachers would suddenly wear these red paper flowers in their lapels, and I would say 'What does that mean?'