Quotes by British Authors - Page 26

Tis the old wind in the old anger,But then it threshed another wood.
A.E. Housman
Just because you've made mistakes doesn't mean your mistakes get to make you. Take notice of your inner critic, forgive yourself, and move on.
Robert Tew
It's official, then. Everyone knew I was gay before I did.
Liz Kessler
Those who don't know history are destined to be tyrannized by it
Dean Cavanagh
I'm hoping you end up happily married to the man of your dreams and have a hoard of beautiful kids that'll keep you on your toes by turning your neighbours into various types of pond-life." He then shot her his signature grin. "But if it happens to be me, then I wouldn't say no."(Karl to Elena in The Witching Pen)
Dianna Hardy
They might watch American movies, wear American clothes, even read American books but Bush and the Iraq War have made actual American people social lepers; she only has to open her mouth in some places to feel a wave of loathing directed at her. Katie is weary of pointing out that at least half her countrymen detest their President even more than Europe does, but it’s no good.
Amanda Craig
They were steaming out of the station before Maia asked, 'Was it books in the trunk?''It was books, admitted Miss Minton.And Maia said, 'Good.
Eva Ibbotson
If your understanding of the divine made you kinder, more empathetic, and impelled you to express sympathy in concrete acts of loving-kindness, this was good theology. But if your notion of God made you unkind, belligerent, cruel, of self-righteous, or if it led you to kill in God's name, it was bad theology.
Karen Armstrong
Order is heaven's first law.
Alexander Pope
In a dog's world,would we be his best friend?
Anthony T.Hincks
Happiness is not a matter of events it depends upon the tides of the mind.
Alice Meynell
He could not tell all of the California pines apart, the gray pine from the coulter, the bushop from the knobcone and the Monterey.
Tracy Chevalier
Actually, it meant a great deal: a very great deal. You don't have to believe that God exists to see that a story in which God takes on human form is a very different story from one in which God creates a messenger and tells that messenger to take on human form. The Passion of the Christ is a different movie depending on whether you think the person being eviscerated is God or just some guy. Athanasius thought that it was God who hung on a cross for the world; Arius thought that it was a created being who was not God. This is not very little; this is very big. Granted, the Creeds put it in terms of Aristotelian theories about "substance" and "essence": but there isn't much sense in complaining that technical documents are written in technical language if you are not prepared to pick up a standard work and look up what the words mean.
Andrew Rilstone
She would fain have caught at the skirts of that departing time, and prayed it to return, and give her back what she had too little valued while it was yet in her possession. What a vain show Life seemed! How unsubstantial, and flickering, and flitting! It was as if from some aerial belfry, high up above the stir and jar of the earth, there was a bell continually tolling, ‘All are shadows!—all are passing!—all is past!
Elizabeth Gaskell
I could do with a bit more excess. From now on I'm going to be immoderate--and volatile--I shall enjoy loud music and lurid poetry. I shall be rampant.
Joanne Harris
I knew such a woman once,She gave me everything.Her love like a soft riot singing,She knew how to shine.
Scott Hastie
So far as I am aware no leader of a party of the European left in the past twenty-five years has declared capitalism as such to be unacceptable as a system. The only public figure to do so unhesitatingly was Pope John Paul II.
Eric Hobsbawm
I am far more fearful of the police than I am of North Korea.
Steven Magee
Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers.
Alfred Tennyson
The dove descending breaks the airWith flame of incandescent terrorOf which the tongues declareThe one discharge from sin and error.The only hope, or else despairLies in the choice of pyre or pyre-To be redeemed from fire by fire.Who then devised the torment? Love.Love is the unfamiliar NameBehind the hands that woveThe intolerable shirt of flameWhich human power cannot remove.We only live, only suspireConsumed by either fire or fire.
T.S Eliot
I am reading six books at once, the only way of reading; since, as you will agree, one book is only a single unaccompanied note, and to get the full sound, one needs ten others at the same time.
Virginia Woolf
...and his eyes had that splendid innocence, that opaque blue candour of the satanically fallen. ~ The French Lieutenant’s Woman
John Fowles
Hallo, Pooh,” said Rabbit.“Hallo, Rabbit,” said Pooh dreamily.“Did you make that song up?”“Well, I sort of made it up,” said Pooh. “It isn’t Brain,” he went on humbly, “because You Know Why, Rabbit; but it comes to me sometimes.”“Ah!” said Rabbit, who never let things come to him, but always went and fetched them.
A.A. Milne
We do not believe until we want a thing and feel that we shall die if it is not granted to us and then we kneel and believe.
Frances Hodgson Burnett
To explain this a little further: Only the soul and the body are the natural constituent parts of men and women. The SPIRIT is not in the fundamental nature of humans but is the supernatural gift of God, TO BE FOUND IN CHRISTIANS ONLY.
John Wesley
Of course there must be lots of Magic in the world," he said wisely one day, "but people don't know what it is like or how to make it. Perhaps the beginning is just to say nice things are going to happen until you make them happen. I am going to try and experiment.
Frances Hodgson Burnett
Self-imposed insanely impossible deadlines often help.
David Hieatt
Yellow is the colour of the sun.Blue is the colour of the sky.Green is the colour of grass.Brown is the colour of your eyes.Black is the colour of the night.Orange is the colour of truth.Red is the colour of love.And...Rainbow is the colour of you.
Anthony T.Hincks
Everyone's on the cliff edge of normal. Everyone finds life an utter nightmare sometimes, and there's no 'normal' way of dealing with it... There is no normal, Evelyn.
Holly Bourne
The 'practical' man, as this word is often used, is one who recognizes only the material needs, who realizes that men must have food for the body, but is oblivious of the necessity of providing food for the mind.
Bertrand Russell
Treat your friends as you do your pictures and place them in their best light.
Jennie Jerome Churchill
Even when you don't see old age coming, you can wave it goodbye
Benny Bellamacina
Remember that we always love and think of you. Always. Mother.
Diane Samuels
When we do evil We and our victims Are equally bewildered.
W.H. Auden
Even death is going to die!
Sally Lloyd-Jones
My mum, in addition to trying to mutilate me with lobsters, always told me that shy kids get nothing.
Douglas Black
A dove carries peace on its wings.
Anthony T.Hincks
Its language is a language which the soul alone understands, but which the soul can never translate.
Arnold Bennett
Roache's statement after his acquittal was dignified but his supporters were angry. They demanded to know why the case was ever brought, claiming that the actor was a victim of the "hysteria" created by revelations about Jimmy Savile. It's a curious conclusion to draw from a "not guilty" verdict; there are courtrooms where the conviction rate is 100 per cent but they tend to be in totalitarian states. In serious criminal cases in England and Wales, the rate is around 82 per cent, and I would be seriously worried if every defendant were to be found guilty.The Independent, 9 February 2014
Joan Smith
What we feel and think and are is to a great extent determined by the state of our ductless glands and viscera.
Aldous Huxley
Don't you believe people when they tell you that people sought for a sign, and believed in miracles because they were ignorant. They did it because they were wise, filthily, vilely wise—too wise to eat or sleep or put on their boots with patience.
G.K. Chesterton
When my information changes, I alter my conclusions. What do you do, sir?
John Maynard Keynes
It wasn't that Nanny Ogg sang badly. It was just that she could hit notes which, when amplified by a tin bath half full of water, ceased to be sound and became some sort of invasive presence.
Terry Pratchett
Help me,” the girl pleaded softly.Sam knelt beside her. He recoiled in shock. “Bette?”The left side of Bouncing Bette’s face was covered in blood. There was a gash above her temple. She was panting, gasping, like she had collapsed after a marathon and was trying with her last ounce of energy to crawl across the finish line.“Bette, what happened?”“They’re trying to get me,” Bette cried, and clutched at Sam’s arm.The three dark figures advanced to the edge of the circle of light. One was clearly Orc. No one else was that big. Edilio and Quinn moved into the garage doorway.Sam disengaged from Bette and took up a position beside Edilio.“You want me to beat on you guys, I will!” Orc yelled.“What’s going on here?” Sam demanded. He narrowed his eyes and recognized the other two boys, a kid named Karl, a seventh grader from school, and Chaz, one of the Coates eighth graders. All three were armed with aluminum bats.“This isn’t your business,” Chaz said. “We’re dealing with something here.”“Dealing with what? Orc, did you hit Bette?”“She was breaking the rules,” Orc said.“You hit a girl, man?” Edilio said, outraged.“Shut up, wetback,” Orc said.“Where’s Howard?” Sam asked, just to stall while he tried to figure out what to do. He’d lost one fight to Orc already.Orc took the question as an insult. “I don’t need Howard to handle you, Sam.”Orc marched right up to Sam, stopped a foot away, and put his bat on his shoulder like he was ready to swing for a home run. Like a batter ready for the next fastball. Only this was closer to T-ball: Sam’s head was impossible to miss.“Move, Sam,” Orc ordered.“Okay, I’m not doing this again,” Quinn said. “Let him have her, Sam.”“Ain’t no ‘let me,’” Orc said. “I do what I want.”Sam noticed movement behind Orc. There were people coming down the street, twenty or more kids. Orc noticed it too, and glanced behind him.“They aren’t going to save you,” Orc said, and swung the bat hard.Sam ducked. The bat whooshed past his head, and Orc rotated halfway around, carried forward by the momentum.Sam was thrown off balance, but Edilio was ready. He let loose a roar and plowed headfirst into Orc. Edilio was maybe half Orc’s size, but Orc was knocked off his feet. He sprawled out on the concrete.Chaz went after Edilio, trying to pull him off Orc.The crowd of kids who had come running down the street surged forward. There were angry voices and threats, all aimed at Orc.They yelled, Sam noted, but no one exactly jumped into the unequal fight.
Michael Grant
How do you defeat terrorism? Don’t be terrorized.
Salman Rushdie
Stone me, what a life!
Tony Hancock
Zeal was like gas, most dangerous when you could not see it. The wrong spark could light it at any time.
Frances Hardinge
I sometimes hold it half a sin To put in words the grief I feel For words like Nature half reveal And half conceal the Soul within.
Lord Alfred Tennyson
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy has this to say about the planet of Golgafrincham: it is a planet with an ancient and mysterious history, rich in legend, red, and occasionally green with the blood of those who sought in times gone by to conquer her; a land of parched and barren landscapes, of sweet and sultry air heady with the scent of the perfumed springs that trickle over its hot and dusty rocks and nourish the dark and musky lichens beneath; a land of fevered brows and intoxicated imaginings, particularly among those who taste the lichens; a land also of cool and shaded thoughts among those who have learned to forswear the lichens and find a tree to sit beneath; a land also of steel and blood and heroism; a land of the body and of the spirit. This was its history. And in all this ancient and mysterious history, the most mysterious figures of all were without doubt those of the Great Circling poets of Arium. These Circling Poets used to live in remote mountain passes where they would lie in wait for small bands of unwary travelers, circle around them, and throw rocks at them. And when the travelers cried out, saying why didn’t they go away and get on with writing some poems instead of pestering people with all this rock-throwing business, they would suddenly stop, and then break into one of the seven hundred and ninety-four great Song Cycles of Vassillian. These songs were all of extraordinary beauty, and even more extraordinary length, and all fell into exactly the same pattern.
Douglas Adams
Artistic temperament is a disease that afflicts amateurs.
G.K. Chesterton
He found it both sad and fascinating that only through an artificial universe of video images could she establish contact with the real world.
Arthur C. Clarke
In North Korea, journalism, the job of telling the stories power and money do not want told, of giving a voice to the voiceless, does not exist.
John Sweeney
When you write, you write out of your best self. Everything else drops away.
Salman Rushdie
It is no good to think that other people are out to serve our interests.
Ivy Compton-Burnett
Life is like a game - we should be curious to play it - you explore and learn and grow - that is what it is for - that and having fun. It all expands consciousness- your own, the collective, and the cosmic.
Jay Woodman
He crosses the front room, which he calls his study, and comes down the staircase. The stairs turn a corner; they are narrow and steep. You can touch both handrails with your elbows, and you have to bend your head, even if, like George, you are only five eight. This is a tightly planned little house. He often feels protected by its smallness; there is hardly room enough here to feel lonely. Nevertheless.
Christopher Isherwood
… when we are talking about 'Christians' and 'Moslems' we must first make sure that we are talking about people who have an idea, which should be more or less correct, as to what the other is supposed to believe and what he is expected to do as a consequence of that belief.
Idries Shah
Love every child without condition, listen with an open heart, get to know who they are, what they love, and follow more often than you lead.
Adele Devine
This is for girls who have the tendency to stay up at night listening to music that reminds them of their current situation. Who hide their fears, hurt, pain and tears under the smiles, laughs and giggles on a daily basis. The girls who wear their heart on their sleeve. The girls who pray that things will work out just once and they'll be satisfied. The girls who sceam and cry to their pillows because everyone else fails to listen. The girls who have so many secrets but wont tell a soul. The girls who have mistakes and regrets as a daily moral. The girls that never win. The girls that stay up all night thinking about that one boy and hoping that he'll notice her one day. The girls who take life as it comes, to the girls who are hoping that it'll get better somewhere down the road. For the girls who love with all their heart although it always gets broken. To girls who think it's over. To real girls, to all girls: You're beautiful.
Zayn Malik
I never really have believed in the existence of friendship in big societies - in great towns and great crowds. It's a plant that takes time and space and air; and London society is a huge "squash", as we elegantly call it - an elbowing, pushing, perspiring, chattering mob.
Henry James