Quotes by British Authors - Page 268

Tell me, tutor,' I said. 'Is revenge a science, or an art?
Mark Lawrence
PE! This word was comprised of two single letters, which would normally not cause anyone any trouble. They were two single letters that were usually associated with the further words of “health” and “extended life” and therefore, had a positive reputation. However, for me, the P and the E put together was the worst possible combination. Every time they were mentioned, I would sigh in displeasure, my heart rate would increase and I would feel lightheaded. After all, in my mind, PE = exercise and exercise = torture!
Adele Rose
In philosophy, phenomenology is the study of the structures of experience and consciousness. Wine blind tasting is the best phenomenology, phenomenology par excellence, returning us from our heads into the world, and, at the same time, teaching us the methods of the mind.
Neel Burton
Arabella dangled her legs out of the bedroom window and closed her eyes. She felt a butterfly brush against her knee, rubbed her skin against the mortar and bricks, drank in the warmth of the morning sunshine on her face, her arms her feet.
Puline Fisk
I do not believe that the present flowering of science is due in the least to a real appreciation of the beauty and intellectual discipline of the subject. It is due simply to the fact that power, wealth and prestige can only be obtained by the correct application of science.
Derek Barton
follow your heart! (sppotedleafs motto)
Erin Hunter
Nothing in life is a foregone conclusion unless and until it is foregone and concluded
Rasheed Ogunlaru
The path of life is strewn with many perils and the folly of knowledge is one of the greatest dangers. Wisdom is a treacherous weapon, little master, for it is sundered from compassion. All too often the end of the journey gains more import than it should and the wise become blind to the road and the method of their passing.
Robin Jarvis
A hell, from which one can be saved by a quibble that would carry no weight with a police magistrate, cannot be taken very seriously.
Aldous Huxley
I’m not punishing you.’ ‘No?’ ‘No. You’d know if I was. Trust me.
Lindsay J. Pryor
The first stanza of Eyes In Moonlight Drown, a poem from DeadVerse.With your face framed in a halo of stars,your hair melts into trailing clouds,and your eyes in moonlight drown.A man could lose himselfin those freckled irises,reflecting the galaxies above;surely he could fall into their promiseof eternity, of Heaven, of love.Your lips glisten, part, and beckon,a smile of warm invitation,a suggestion of sweet intensity,a loss of self in addictive agony.For we translate these aestheticsinto something mystical;ideas of fantasy, of fiction,obscuring the clinical truthof chemical reactions,electric sparks, responsesas sure as gravity,measurable yet beyond cold,above philosophy and below truth.
Scott Kaelen
He glanced at her, musing on the wonder of a beautiful woman with a disagreeable personality.
J.G. Farrell
Now let us look to the ancient inhabitants of India. With them, first of all, religion was not only one interest by the side of many. It was the all-absorbing interest; it embraced not only worship and prayer, but what we call philosophy, morality, law, and government, —all was pervaded by religion. Their whole life was to them a religion—everything else was, as it were, a mere concession made to the ephemeral requirements of this life.
Friedrich Max Müller
The art of writing involves making as many cups of tea as you can in the time available for writing. Then adding extra time for writing...
Alan Dapre
The phenomenon of economic ignorance is so widespread, and its consequences so frightening, that the objective of reducing that ignorance becomes a goal invested with independent moral worth.
Israel M. Kirzner
Either life entails courage or it ceases to be life.
E.M. Forster
One cannot grow without pain. One cannot improve without it. Suffering drives us to achieve great things.
Joe Abercrombie
You sure you want to come with me?” I said. “The odds are not good.” “We’re family,” said Suzie. I had to smile. “I haven’t been all that lucky when it comes to family.” “We’re the family you chose,” said Dead Boy. “The family that matters.
Simon R. Green
He read the letter again, but could not take in any more meaning than he had done the first time and was reduced to staring at the handwriting itself. She had made her g's the same way he did : he searched through the letter for every one of them, and each felt like a friendly little wave glimpsed from behind a veil. The letter was an incredible treasure, proof that Lily Potter had lived, really lived, that her warm hand had once moved across this parchment, tracing ink into these letters, these words, words about him, Harry, her son.
J.K. Rowling
Could be. I’m a pretty dangerous dude when I’m cornered.”“Yeah,” said the voice from under the table, “you go to pieces so fast people get hit by the shrapnel.
Douglas Adams
Who put the S in comic to make cosmic? / The Self, which is the self of all beings - / choosing to disguise from themselves / that everything is just a game. // With a laugh we could turn / from all the seriousness we learned / and connect with every atom to create / breathtaking beauty with graceful ease.
Jay Woodman
When I reached intellectual maturity, and began to ask myself whether I was an atheist, a theist, or a pantheist; a materialist or an idealist; a Christian or a freethinker, I found that the more I learned and reflected, the less ready was the answer; until at last I came to the conclusion that I had neither art nor part with any of these denominations, except the last. The one thing in which most of these good people were agreed was the one thing in which I differed from them. They were quite sure that they had attained a certain 'gnosis'--had more or less successfully solved the problem of existence; while I was quite sure I had not, and had a pretty strong conviction that the problem was insoluble. And, with Hume and Kant on my side, I could not think myself presumptuous in holding fast by that opinion ...So I took thought, and invented what I conceived to be the appropriate title of 'agnostic'. It came into my head as suggestively antithetic to the 'gnostic' of Church history, who professed to know so much about the very things of which I was ignorant; and I took the earliest opportunity of parading it at our Society, to show that I, too, had a tail, like the other foxes.
Thomas Henry Huxley
Most people get a fair amount of fun out of their lives but on balance life is suffering and only the very sound or the very foolish imagine otherwise.
George Orwell
Sometimes you may have not even talked to that person, just seen them at a distance, but inside something has ignited. It may be curiosity, to be able to understand the thoughts in that person’s head, their views on the world and how they can make you feel as a person.
Emily Williams
It is our duty to ensure we have a peace worth fighting for.
Chris Bradford
I saw old Autumn in the misty mornStand shadowless like silence, listeningTo silence, for no lonely bird would singInto his hollow ear from woods forlorn,Nor lowly hedge nor solitary thorn; --Shaking his languid locks all dewy brightWith tangled gossamer that fell by night,Pearling his coronet of golden corn.
Thomas Hood
The final fact being that at the very bottom of his soul he was an outsider, and anti-social, and he accepted the fact inwardly, no matter how Bond-Streety he was on the outside. His isolation was a necessity to him; just as the appearance of conformity and mixing-in with the smart people was also a necessity.
D.H. Lawrence
Depression is a sign of strength – because it means no matter how weak your mind might be to you, your heart is still strong enough to feel.
Emma Hart
Come ye viewless ministers of this dread hour! Come from the fenny lake, the hanging rock, and the midnight cave! The moon is red – the stars are out – the sky is burning – and all nature stands aghast at what we do!
William Mudford
no life of faith can be lived privately. There must be an overflow into the lives of others.
G.K. Chesterton
There are no doubts that western governments are willfully inducing radiation sickness into segments of their city populations.
Steven Magee
The mentality and behavior of drug addicts and alcoholics is wholly irrational until you understand that they are completely powerless over their addiction and unless they have structured help, they have no hope.
Russell Brand
Hi handsome hunting man Fire your little gun Bang! Now the animal Is dead and dumb and done. Nevermore to peep again creep again leap again Eat or sleep or drink again. Oh what fun.
Walter de la Mare
On the floor beside the spare pillow that had tumbled from the bed in her sleep was a single yellow flower. Five heart-shaped petals. As fresh and as pure as if it were in full bloom in a summer meadow.Drowsy and mind-fogged, she crept downstairs to look for a book on Irish wildflowers. It took her a while to find anything that resembled the yellow flower, but eventually she found an image and description that matched: "Cinquefoil, a flower renowned for its healing properties and a flower also said to be favored by fairy folk. Meanings associated with it include money, protection, sleep, prophetic dreams, and beloved daughter.
Hazel Gaynor
I'm Cinderella. No, I'm better than Cinderella, because she only got the prince, didn't she? I'm Cinderella with fab teeth and a shit-hot job.
Sophie Kinsella
He who writes prose builds his temple to Fame in rubble he who writes verses builds it in granite.
Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton
The bitterness of joy lies in the knowledge that it cannot last. Nor should joy last beyond a certain season, for, after that season, even joy would become merely habit.
Tanith Lee
What does the novel do? It tells beautiful, shapely lies which enclose hard, exact truths.
Julian Barnes
The United States finds itself with forces of reaction. Do I have to demonstrate this? The Taliban's annihilation of music and culture? The enslavement of women?
Christopher Hitchens
The moment sex ceases to be a servant it becomes a tyrant.
G.K. Chesterton
Love does not appear with any warning signs. You fall into it as if pushed from a high diving board. No time to think about what’s happening. It’s inevitable. An event you can’t control. A crazy, heart-stopping, roller-coaster ride that just has to take its course.
Jackie Collins
It's called optimism — but I’m losing the hang of it fast.
Alastair Reynolds
Sybil’s female forebears had valiantly backed up their husbands as distant embassies were besieged, had given birth on a camel or in the shade of a stricken elephant, had handed around the little gold chocolates while trolls were trying to break into the compound, or had merely stayed at home and nursed such bits of husbands and sons as made it back from endless little wars.  The result was a species of woman who, when duty called, turned into solid steel.
Terry Pratchett
To abandon language is to stop/creating a place other than your own life/in which to live. It is to enter/the terrible certainty of the flesh. Even god/is only possible through language.
Jude Nutter
Why not be oneself? That is the whole secret of a successful appearance. If one is a greyhound why try to look like a Pekingese?
Edith Sitwell
I am the Eschaton. I am not your God.I am descended from you, and exist in your future.Thou shalt not violate causality within my historic light cone. Or else.
Charles Stross
After you've taken so much trouble to set up recorder, you ask me now?
E.L. James
So I don’t think I’ll make Poet Laureate,but I swear I’m not twisted and bitter,If finely-wrought talentsdon’t weigh in the balance,I can always write haiku on Twitter.
Rosy Cole
The only way to write is to write. Writers write. And when they’ve written, they write some more.
Jasper Fforde
If one would praise the Almighty, one must then revel in His works, and take them whole, adore their very grossness, savor the oozing quiddity of that slime of which He seems to be inordinately fond. Love is not nice. God's love assuredly is not; and human love, its copy, must not presume to be so.
Eric Frank Russell
He never reckoned much to schooling and that. He said you could learn most what was worth knowing from keeping your eyes and ears peeled. Best way of learning, he always said, was doing.
Michael Morpurgo
Don't be afraid to take a big step if one is indicated. You can't cross a chasm in two small jumps.
David Lloyd George
With renunciation life begins.
Amelia Barr
I learned really to practice mustard seed faith and positive thinking and remarkable things happened.
Sir John Walton
One by one the flowers close Lily and dewy rose Shutting their tender petals from the moon.
Christina G. Rossetti
Hqve you never heard of priests proclaim that the meek will inherit the earth and wondered if kings of old didn't smile to hear it? Your reward comes after death. Nirvana. The wheel of life turns and we are elevated from animals to women, from women to men, from men to kings, from kings to gods, from gods to... perfection. And what is perfection now? Not crucifixion, not poverty endured patiently on the mountaintop. No--the perfect life is to have an annual salary of £120,000, an Aston Martin, a £1.6million-pound home, a wife, two children and at least two foreign holidays a year. Perfection is an idol built upon oppression. Perfection is the heaven that kept the masses suppressed; the promise of a future life that quells rebellion. Perfection is the self-hatred an overweight woman feels when she sees a slim model on TV; perfection is the resentment the well-paid man experiences when he beholds a miserable billionaire. Perfection kills. Perfection destroys the soul.
Claire North
I don't want anyone to look to me, not for protection, not for happiness, not for love, not for anything.
P.D. James
I have learned from my mistakes, and I am sure I can repeat them exactly
Peter Cook
Oh, my darling, why is it that love makes me hate the world? It's supposed to have quite the opposite effect. I feel as though all mankind, and God, too, were in a conspiracy against us.
Evelyn Waugh
I am of certain convinced that the greatest heroes are those who do their duty in the daily grind of domestic affairs whilst the world whirls as a maddening dreidel.
Florence Nightingale