Quotes by British Authors - Page 120

Do you mean ter tell me," he growled at the Dursleys, "that this boy—this boy!—knows nothin' abou'—about ANYTHING?"Harry thought this was going a bit far. He had been to school, after all, and his marks weren't bad."I know some things," he said. "I can, you know, do math and stuff.
J.K. Rowling
I've committed to nothing...and that's just suicide...by tiny, tiny increments.
Nick Hornby
In the fluid world of 1919, it was possible to dream of great change, or have nightmares about the collapse of order.
Margaret MacMillan
Has it never struck you that a man who does next to nothing but hears men's real sins is not likely to be wholly unaware of human evil?
G.K. Chesterton
Killing rips the soul apart.
J.K. Rowling
Mephistopheles: Within the bowels of these elements,Where we are tortured and remain forever.Hell hath no limits, nor is circumscribedIn one self place, for where we are is hell,And where hell is must we ever be.And, to conclude, when all the world dissolves,And every creature shall be purified,All places shall be hell that is not heaven.
Christopher Marlowe
There is only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that's your own self.
Aldous Huxley
Only in art will the lion lie down with the lamb, and the rose grow without thorn.
Martin Amis
I have not loved the world nor the world me I have not flatter'd its rank breath nor bow'd To its idolatries a patient knee.
Lord Byron
It was good, and nothing good is truly lost. It stays part of a person, becomes part of their character. So part of you goes everywhere with me. And part of me is yours, forever
Rosamunde Pilcher
There's always a moment when you start to fall out of love, whether it's with a person or an idea or a cause, even if it's one you only narrate to yourself years after the event: a tiny thing, a wrong word, a false note, which means that things can never be quite the same again.
Douglas Adams
The act of creation, the impetus to undertake it, is always some kind of feeble attempt to understand one’s own creation, the nature of creation itself.
Glenn Haybittle
Maybe art itself was a kind of voodoo, possessing you, giving you supernatural power, letting you see in the dark.
Philip Pullman
Christ for the world, for the world needs Christ!
Eric Liddell
I’m not sure we’re quite the monsters you want us to be.
Gavin G. Smith
The cattle crouched round them in soft shadowy clumps, placidly munching, and dreaming with wide-open eyes. The narrow zone of colour created by the firelight was like the planet Earth - a little freak of brightness in a universe of impenetrable shadows
Hope Mirrlees
Also I didn't habe 20/20 vision whch you needed to be a pilot. But I said you could still want something that is very unlikely to happen.
Mark Haddon
...he is thinking about thoughts; so many thoughts piled up, such a quantity of half-remembered knowledge, so many emotions brought up from the well to spill out: the unrolling of history - a river into which you can't step twice, a collection of biographies end to end, a hilltop to survey the surrounding plains and so on - but also, more so, the anxieties prompted by the spooling of time and the awareness of its unstoppable nature; and random thoughts...
Justin Cartwright
God rest ye little children let nothing you affright For Jesus Christ your Saviour was born this happy night Along the hills of Galilee the white flocks sleeping lay When Christ the Child of Nazareth was born on Christmas day.
Dinah Mulock Craik
Call me sentimental, but there's no-one in the world that I'd like to see get dysentery more than you
David Nicholls
First, I do not sit down at my desk to put into verse something that is already clear in my mind. If it were clear in my mind, I should have no incentive or need to write about it. We do not write in order to be understood; we write in order to understand.
Cecil Day-Lewis
Droll thing life is -- that mysterious arrangement of merciless logic for a futile purpose. The most you can hope from it is some knowledge of yourself -- that comes too late -- a crop of inextinguishable regrets.
Joseph Conrad
My body was a Pandora’s box of aches and pains. When Grandpa died all the ailments came jumping out. I was forever twitching and shaking. I had a persistent sore throat and had difficulty swallowing except when I was taking nips from my illicit cocktail. I was constantly constipated, holding everything in — a disorder that had started when I was two years old. It burned when I passed urine, and my migraines were so severe it felt on occasions as if I were going blind.
Alice Jamieson
Verence would rather cut his own leg off than put a witch in prison, since it'd save trouble in the long run and probably be less painful.
Terry Pratchett
Government scientists are commonly as corrupt as the corporate government that employs them.
Steven Magee
When all that's left mediocrity and each day just bleeds into the next.
Andy Carrington
He had a theory that musicians are incredibly complex, and know far less than other artists what they want and what they are; that they puzzle themselves as well as their friends; that their psychology is a modern development, and has not yet been understood.
E.M. Forster
One of the first lessons life teaches us is that on these occasions of back-chat between the delicately-natured, a man should retire into the offing, curl up in a ball, and imitate the prudent tactics of the opossum, which, when danger is in the air, pretends to be dead, frequently going to the length of hanging out crêpe and instructing its friends to gather round and say what a pity it all is.
P.G. Wodehouse
Yet she belongs, finally and truly, only to God. The hijab is a symbol of freedom from the male regard, but also, in our time, of freedom from subjugation by the iron fist of materialism, deterministic science, and the death of meaning. It denotes softness, otherness, inwardness. She is not only caught in a world of power relations, but she inhabits a world of love and sacrifice. This freedom, which is of the conscience, is hers to exercise as she will.
Abdal Hakim Murad
[Phoebe Broome] 'Well,' she said at last. 'You've now met my father. At his worst.'[Lord Vladimir] 'Being myself widely considered my family's most difficult member, I would not presume to comment.''That is... gentlemanly of you.
Alison Sinclair
I was much affected by the internal troubles of the Punch family; I thought that with a little more tact on the part of Mrs. Punch and some restraint held over a temper, naturally violent, by Mr. Punch, a great deal of this sad misunderstanding might have been prevented.
Edmund Gosse
All women love semi-rape. They love to be taken.It was his sweet brutality against my bruised body that made his act of love so piercingly wonderful.
Ian Fleming
Gómez had suggested I steal a fish to achieve more courage and purpose. I regarded this task as an anthropological experiment, though it crossed a border into something approaching magic, or perhaps magical thinking. When I googled how to gut a fish, there were over 9 million results.
Deborah Levy
A colleague like Barnabas could comfort him (Paul) in illness and keep him from overstrain when fit.
John Charles Pollock
It's as important to marry the right life as it is the right person.
Jan Struther
A hundred francs! Oh, dear me! It is worth millions of francs, my child. But my -- dealer -- here tells me that in fact a picture is worth only what someone will give for it. How much money do you have?"Julia took out her purse and counted. "Four francs and twenty sous," she said, looking up at him sadly."Is that all the money you have in the world?"She nodded."Then four francs and twenty sous it is.
Iain Pears
Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self.", February 25, 1933]
Cyril Connolly
Then I told myself that as I never gave the Church a thought when I was feeling happy, I could hardly expect it to do anything for me when I wasn't. You can't get insurance money without paying in premiums.
Dodie Smith
We are, for all our polish, of littlestature, and, as human lives,compared with authentic martyrs,of no account.
W.H. Auden
You do not win a war by dying for your country. You win a war by making sure that some poor bastard dies for his.
Mal Peet
Being himself was more exhausting than impersonating a stage character.
Claire Tomalin
I hope you're pleased with yourselves. We could all have been killed - or worse, expelled. Now if you don't mind, I'm going to bed.
J.K. Rowling
Have a seat with me,” Caine said, hopping down from the wall. “How have you been, Taylor?”“Life’s one big party,” she said.He laughed appreciatively at her joke. “Things must be pretty bad for Edilio to send for me, huh?”“Things are always pretty bad,” she said. “We’re at a new level of bad. I saw those bugs.”Caine mustered all his sincerity. “I have to go and fight these creatures. But I don’t know much about them.”Taylor told him what she knew. Caine felt some of his confidence drain away as she laid out the facts in gruesome detail and with complete conviction.“Well, this should be fun,” Diana said dryly. “I’m so glad we came back.
Michael Grant
I feel my griefs too, and there scarce is groundUpon my flesh t'inflict another wound.Yet dare I not complain, or wish for deathWith holy Paul; lest it be thought the breathOf discontent; or that these prayers beFor weariness of life, not love of thee.
Ben Jonson
However, on one occasion, several years ago, I was idiot enough to take a dose of LSD. (I did it to please a woman.) I had what is known as a 'bad trip'. It was a very bad trip. I shall not attempt to describe what I experienced on that dreadful and rather shameful occasion. (I will only add: it concerned entrails.) In fact it would be extremely hard, even impossible, to put it properly into words. It was something morally, spiritually horrible, as if one's stinking inside had emerged and become the universe: a surging emanation of dark half-formed spiritual evil, something never ever to be escaped from. 'Undetachable,' I remember, was a word which somehow 'came along' with the impression of it. In fact the visual images involved were dreadfully clear and, as it were, authoritative ones and they are rising up in front of me at this moment, and I will not write about them. Of course i never took LSD again.
Iris Murdoch
You are a pool of clear water where the light plays
Jeanette Winterson
...the incarnation is the complete refutation of every human system and institution that claims to control, possess, and distribute God. Whatever any church or religious leader may claim in regard to their particular access to God or control over your experience of God, the incarnation is the last word: God loves the world. God came into the world in the form of the people he created, the human race (including you and me), who bear his image. God's creation of humanity in his image gives hints of who he is, since we all are marked by his fingerprints.But as flawed humans, we give only a vague hint of God. Our broken reflection of God's image is easily drowned out by our broken humanity. then, two thousand years ago, God came in his fullness. He came to all of us in Jesus. The incarnation is not owned, trademarked, or controlled by any church. It belongs to every human being. The incarnation is not something that requires a distributor or middleman. It is a gracious gift to every person everywhere, religious or not. God gave himself to us in Jesus.
Michael Spencer
I reckon that blaming people fixes nothing. You're the only person who is going to sort you out. No-one else really can - or really cares, enough. That's what Nepalis know - better than anyone. That's our Western disease. Don't take responsibility. Take on a lawyer!
Jane Wilson-Howarth
Inthe scientific community, the adjective ‘theological’ is some-times used pejoratively to refer to a vague or ill-formulatedbelief. I believe this usage to be very far from the truth. It sad-dens me that some of my colleagues remain unaware of thetruth-seeking intent and rational scrupulosity that character-ise theological discourse at its best.
John Polkinghorne
Victory! Catherine wanted to pull the front of her top over her head and run around the office making V-signs. Of course she wouldn’t do that
Michele Gorman
I don't care about the little guy. I just hate the big guy. I hate big smug people who think they can get away with things.
Lee Child
The difference between my beliefs and having a religious faith is that I am prepared to change my views in light of new evidence, but someone of a religious faith will just stick their fingers in the ears and say: 'I'm not listening, there's nothing you can say that will make me change my mind.
Jim Al-Khalili
He IS just a normal boy.
Molly Looby
She was looking for something I could never give her." Again his dark eyes bored into Julia's mind. "You have something of the same about you, young woman. Take my advice: Don't think you will find it in another person. You won't. It's not there. You must find it in yourself.
Iain Pears
Pay no attention to haters,attention is what they crave.
Cher Lloyd
There are some words that once spoken will split the world in two. There would be the life before you breathed them and then the altered life after they'd been said. They take a long time to find, words like that. They make you hesitate. Choose with care. Hold on to them unspoken for as long as you can just so your world will stay intact.
Andrea Levy
Hang in there. It is astonishing how short a time it can take for very wonderful things to happen.
Frances Hodgson Burnett
Depression is partly a nocebo effect, in the sense that it can be produced by negative exceptions about oneself and the world. The way in which these negative expectations develop and produce their negative effects provides some clues as to how they can be reversed. Expectancy effects grow, feeding upon themselves. One reason this happens is that our subjective states - our feelings, our moods and sensations - are in constant flux, changing from day to day and from moment to moment. The effects of these fluctuations depend on how we interpret them, and our interpretations depend on our beliefs and expectations. When we expect to feel worse, we tend to notice random small negative changes and interpret them as evidence that we are in fact getting worse. This interpretation makes us actually feel worse, and it strengthens the belief that we are getting worse, leading to a vicious cycle in which our expectations and negative emotions feed on each other, cascading into a full-blown depressive episode. .. Positive expectancies have the opposite effect. They can set in motion a begin cycle, in which random fluctuations in mood and well being are interpreted as evidence of treatment effectiveness, thereby instilling a further sense of hope and countering the feeling of hopelessness that are so central to clinical depression.
Irving Kirsch
I've learned that sometimes a smile represents the greatest form of deceit.
Michael Gilbert
Although he was undeniably handsome, at the end of the day, he was still some random stranger, who had suddenly appeared out of nowhere, wanted to talk to me and who knew my name. The term ‘Stranger Danger’ flashed before my eyes! Therefore, no matter how hot he was, I wasn’t going to let my guard down…yet.
Adele Rose