Quotes by British Authors - Page 197

Jimmy: One day, when I'm no longer spending my days running a sweet-stall, I may write a book about us all. It's all here. (slapping his forehead) Written in flames a mile high. And it won't be recollected in tranquillity either, picking daffodils with Auntie Wordsworth. It'll be recollected in fire, and blood. My blood.
John Osborne
I could never have gone far in any science because on the path of every science the lion Mathematics lies in wait for you.
C.S. Lewis
Good but not religious-good.
Thomas Hardy
‎I have panicked unnecessarily in all four corners of the globe.
Jon Ronson
To love makes one solitary.
Virginia Woolf
A pretty building I'm making, without either bricks or timber. I'm up i' the garret a'ready, and haven't so much as dug the foundation.
George Eliot
The search for Nirvana, like the search for Utopia or the end of history or the classless society, is ultimately a futile and dangerous one. It involves, if it does not necessitate, the sleep of reason. There is no escape from anxiety and struggle.
Christopher Hitchens
You cannot predict the outcome of human development. All you can do is like a farmer create the conditions under which it will begin to flourish.
Ken Robinson
There is something pagan in me that I cannot shake off. In short, I deny nothing, but doubt everything.
George Gordon Byron
To love and win is the best thing.To love and lose, the next best.
William Makepeace Thackeray
You're not going to tell me they built fifty-foot-high killer golems, are you?""Only a man would think of that.It's our job," said Moist. "If you don't think of fifty-foot-high killer golems first, someone else will.
Terry Pratchett
Drink a bottle of cheap champagne. Mix with orange juice. A large Glenmorangie. Milk and blackish toast. Half a bottle of Blue Nun. Budweiser. Budweiser. Go to church. Say I do etc. Budweiser. Murphy’s. Jameson. Budweiser. Stella. Stella. Cake. Stella. Jameson. Stella. Vodka and orange. Vodka and black. Speech, speech. Vodka. Vodka. Double Jameson. Double vodka. Double vodka. Get carry-outs of barley wine. Say goodbye to aunties. Uncles. Mothers etc. Stop car on M18. Vomit. Sleep. Dream of dim-lit hallways and a black door. Wake up between Scarborough and Robin Hood’s Bay. Her not saying much. Driving.
Dean Lilleyman
I am hated for loving.I am haunted for wanting.
Morrissey
My parents told me to marry for money,' said her husband. 'But I chose the love of a strong woman.''And look what trouble I turned out to be,' she said.
Helen Simonson
Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it. What then kills love? Only this: Neglect.
Jeanette Winterson
...the object of waging a war is always to be in a better position in which to wage another war.
George Orwell
In a universe of electrons and selfish genes, blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won't find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.
Richard Dawkins
It was not desirable for the proles to have strong political feelings. All that was required of them was a primitive patriotism which could be appealed to whenever it was necessary to make them accept longer working hours or shorter rations. And even when they became discontented, as they sometimes did, their discontent led nowhere, because, being without general ideas, they could only focus it on petty specific grievances.
George Orwell
Socrates used to say, "Philosophers can be happy without music;" and Christians can be happier than philosophers when all outward causes of rejoicing are withdrawn.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Ladies tell their nurses things in a sudden burst of confidence, and then, afterwards, they feel uncomfortable about it and wish they hadn't! It's only human nature.
Agatha Christie
They stole from rich merchants and temples and kings. They didn't steal from poor people; this was not because there was anything virtuous about poor people, it was simply because poor people had no money.
Terry Pratchett
But Khair did not need such proof of her husband's love for her. Over and over again,James had risked everything for her. Most relationships in life can survive - or not - without being put to any really crucial, fundamental test. It was James's fate for his love to be tested not once, but four times....At each stage he could easily have washed his hands off his teenage lover. Each time he chose to remain true to her.That, not the words of any will, was the evidence she could cling onto.
William Dalrymple
Uncontradicting solitudeSupports me on its giant palm;And like a sea-anemoneOr simple snail, there cautiouslyUnfolds, emerges, what I am.
Philip Larkin
I have my own matches and sulphur, and I'll make my own hell.
Rudyard Kipling
Today, each of you will make a decision,” Caine said. “To go with Sam, or to stay here. I won’t try to stop anyone, and I won’t hold it against anyone.” He placed his hand over his heart. “For those who choose to stay, let me be very clear: I will be in charge. Not as a mayor, but as a king. My word will be law. My decisions will be final.”That caused some murmuring, most of it unhappy.“But I’ll also do everything I can to leave each of you alone. Quinn, if he chooses to stay, can still fish. Albert, if he chooses to stay, will still run his business. Freaks and normals will be treated equally.”He seemed about to add something else but caught himself after a sidelong look at Toto.The silence lengthened and Sam knew it was time for him to speak. In the past he’d always had Astrid at his side for things like this. He was not much of a speaker. And in any case, he didn’t have much to say.“Anyone who goes with me has a vote in how we do stuff. I guess I’ll be more or less in charge, but we’ll probably choose some other people, create a council like . . . Well, hopefully better than we had before. And, um . . .” He was tempted to laugh at his own pitiful performance. “Look, people, if you want someone, some . . . king, good grief, to tell you what to do, stay here. If you want to make more of your own decisions, well, come with me.”He hadn’t said enough to even cause Toto to comment.“You know which side I’m on, people,” Brianna yelled. “Sam’s been carrying the load since day one.”“It was Caine that saved us,” a voice cried out. “Where was Sam?”The crowd seemed undecided. Caine was beaming confidence, but Sam noticed that his jaw clenched, his smile was forced, and he was worried.
Michael Grant
In history, as elsewhere, fools rush in, and the angels may perhaps be forgiven if rather than tread in those treacherous paths they tread upon the fools instead.
G.R. Elton
It is strange that people train themselves so carefully to go to waste so prematurely
Robert Aickman
I have lots of favourites. That's the trouble with books. You can never choose your favorite. It changes depending on your mood.
Veronica Henry
Sainthood is acceptable only in saints.
Pamela Hansford Johnson
I told Jerome I will ring Egg every day because he’s my pal and not because I want him back in the band to write our second album. - Clipper
Jamie Scallion
A leader must face danger. He must take the risk and the blame and the brunt of the storm.
Herbert N. Casson
Know then thyself presume not God to scan The proper study of mankind is man.
Alexander Pope
But it is precisely at those moments when the glass seems to be ‘set fair’ that Fate invariably decides to take a hand.
John Bude
Jim Reston: Walking through the crowds of air-kissing politicians, actors and high fliers, it was tough to tell where the politics stopped and the showbiz started. Maybe, in the end, there is no difference.
Peter Morgan
But everyone has a voice, and everyone sings. Oh, we all do it differently. Some of us sing quietly, alone, only in the dead of night or in the shower. Some of us sing a cappella, and some stand on a stage beside a band and let the whole world share their song. Some of us, some of us don’t sing at all, like that. We sing with other instruments: There’s song in stores, and in art, and in getting up before the dawn and putting food onto the table. There are angry songs and sad songs and songs that make you want to dance. But everybody has a song to sing, their own personal story leaked into the world. And mine is one of love.
Fox Benwell
It is said that scattered through Despair's domain are a multitude of tiny windows, hanging in the void. Each window looks out onto a different scene, being, in our world, a mirror. Sometimes you will look into a mirror and feel the eyes of Despair upon you, feel her hook catch and snag on your heart. Despair says little, and is patient.
Neil Gaiman
The meat smelt rank and was very tough, the soup was greasy and of a curious flavour, but it was a wonderful meal after all these hungry weeks.
Wilfred Thesiger
Don't waste your whole lifetime waiting for the perfect life when there's a perfectly good one within and right in front of you.
Rasheed Ogunlaru
I recall no arrangement, Mau, no bargain, covenant, agreement or promise. There is what happens, and what does not happen. There is no 'should
Terry Pratchett
There’s a huge difference between reading about out-of-body experiences or watching videos about them and lifting out of your body and traveling through space in a different dimension. Why not experience a greater multidimensional reality rather than just reading about it? Discover what science doesn’t know and cannot ever know – it’s your life and you have a choice to break free of the known and live in a different way.
Belsebuub
In 1969 I published a small book on Humility. It was a pioneering work which has not, to my knowledge, been superceded.
Frank Pakenham
Though he never actually joined it, he was close to some civilian elements of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which was the most Communist (and in the rather orthodox sense) of the Palestinian formations. I remember Edward once surprising me by saying, and apropos of nothing: 'Do you know something I have never done in my political career? I have never publicly criticized the Soviet Union. It’s not that I terribly sympathize with them or anything—it's just that the Soviets have never done anything to harm me, or us.' At the time I thought this a rather naïve statement, even perhaps a slightly contemptible one, but by then I had been in parts of the Middle East where it could come as a blessed relief to meet a consecrated Moscow-line atheist-dogmatist, if only for the comparatively rational humanism that he evinced amid so much religious barking and mania. It was only later to occur to me that Edward's pronounced dislike of George Orwell was something to which I ought to have paid more attention.
Christopher Hitchens
Seek for the Sword that was brokenIn Imladris it dwells;There shall be counsels takenStronger than Morgul-spells.There shall be shown a tokenThat Doom is near at hand,For Isuldur's Bane shall waken,And the halfling forth shall stand.
J.R.R. Tolkien
I've started to feel very odd within my own life. It's most peculiar to feel lonely inside your own life.
Jackie Kay
Children, as I have said, use back ways and hidden paths, while adults take roads and official paths
Neil Gaiman
I read recently that 60% of all drugs on the black-market had been put there by the police. No sooner are drugs seized, it seems, than they are recycled onto the streets by the arresting officers! I know our Leader, Mrs Thatcher, is in favour of private enterprise, but this is the free market gone mad!...Yours for the Market Economy Within Reasonable Limits!
William Donaldson
Solitude led to retrospective thinking, and if the past is what you are trying to get away from, then constant distractions in the present are needed.
R.D. Ronald
The agreement or disagreement or its sense with reality constitutes its truth or falsity.
Ludwig Wittgenstein
[Henry Cavendish] fixed the weight of the earth; he established the proportions of the constituents of the air; he occupied himself with the quantitative study of the laws of heat; and lastly, he demonstrated the nature of water and determined its volumetric composition. Earth, air, fire, and water—each and all came within the range of his observations.
Thomas Edward Thorpe
It’s always about timing. If it’s too soon, no one understands. If it’s too late, everyone’s forgotten.
Anna Wintour
Falling into true love, is not taking a rope to climb out
Benny Bellamacina
There are certain prejudices attached to the human mind which it requires all our wisdom to keep from interfering with our happiness; certain set notions, acquired in infancy, and cherished involuntarily by age, which grow up and assume a gloss so plausible, that few minds, in what is called a civilized country, can afterwards overcome them. Truth is often perverted by education. While the refined Europeans boast a standard of honour, and a sublimity of virtue, which often leads them from pleasure to misery, and from nature to error, the simple, uninformed American follows the impulse of his heart, and obeys the inspiration of wisdom.Nature, uncontaminated by false refinement, every where acts alike in the great occurrences of life. The Indian discovers his friend to be perfidious, and he kills him; the wild Asiatic does the same; the Turk, when ambition fires, or revenge provokes, gratifies his passion at the expence of life, and does not call it murder. Even the polished Italian, distracted by jealousy, or tempted by a strong circumstance of advantage, draws his stiletto, and accomplishes his purpose. It is the first proof of a superior mind to liberate itself from the prejudices of country, or of education… Self-preservation is the great law of nature; when a reptile hurts us, or an animal of prey threatens us, we think no farther, but endeavour to annihilate it. When my life, or what may be essential to my life, requires the sacrifice of another, or even if some passion, wholly unconquerable, requires it, I should be a madman to hesitate.
Ann Radcliffe
With the development of utility electricity for the masses in the 1900's, very few people realize that a new era of sickness and disease was unleashed that are collectively called radiation sickness.
Steven Magee
But when she looked at Prue tonight, she saw this was not now quite true of her. She was just beginning, just moving, just descending.
Virginia Woolf
He was simply and staunchly true to his duty alike in the large case and in the small. So all true souls ever are. So every true soul ever was, ever is, and ever will be. There is nothing little to the really great in spirit.
Charles Dickens
A lexicographer a writer of dictionaries a harmless drudge.
Samuel Johnson
The sheer size, extent, and magnitude of the blood vessels tell us two things: the awesomeness of God’s work in man and the fact that as human beings, every one of us is a walking wonder, an amazing work of art.
Pedro Okoro
Before the antidote arrives from Iraq The man with snake-bite will be dead.
Idries Shah
Someone dehumanises you by violating your child and every human thought you had for them is broken, undermined, then gone.
Abigail Tarttelin
For you where never my blood sister so no more shall I call you little sister
Helen Dunmore