Quotes by British Authors - Page 385

They can rip you bring you down, down to their size, but they will never get to the heart you hold inside.
Little Mix
Necessity is the mother of invention, which probably explains why invention’s father left home on the pretext of buying a newspaper and hasn’t been heard of since.
Tom Holt
Nothing goes so well with a hot fire and buttered crumpets as a wet day without and a good dose of comfortable horrors within. The heavier the lashing of the rain and the ghastlier the details, the better the flavour seems to be.
Dorothy L. Sayers
Some things are fairly obvious when it's a seven-foot skeleton with a scythe telling you them
Terry Pratchett
When we discover who we are We will be free
Mimi Novic
I know inside that there is more to life than this mortal coil. It's a very shallow minded person who thinks that someone is born and dies and that's it. I haven't gone through thirty odd years of suffering, and doing what I do, and looking at other people who are born and die with cancer, with AIDS, with whatever, and think, 'well, what was the point of that?'. There is a point to everything, and we're here to learn, and it's just a learning curve and we'll move on, and this is just a shell. It's just I've got a dodgy shell.
Jonny Kennedy
All things one has forgotten scream for help in dreams.
Elias Canetti
The ego of the mind can entrap you in a web of dilution.
Steven Redhead
I do not wish to live in a society where you are stoned for adultery. I prefer to live in a society where we get stoned first, and then commit adultery.
Ibn Warraq
I shall expect my husband to have no pleasures but what he shares with me; and if his greatest pleasure of all is not the enjoyment of my company - why - it will be the worse for him - that's all.''If such are your expectations of matrimony, Esther, you must, indeed, be careful whom you marry - or rather, you must avoid it altogether.
Anne Brontë
I have more enemies than I deserve," I said. "I am fighting a losing battle, me against the world. The next century is at stake. Time is running out and my optimism is sorely strained.""Yeah?" he said. "I was young once too.
Felix Gilman
You will never glory in God till first of all God has killed your glorying in yourself.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
You don’t really have idea about any of that olden-days stuff, do you?” He’s sure he can feel her smiling against his shoulder. “Busted,” she says. “Ah, it’s some nice talk, though, Sol. You make it all sound real nice.” “That’s the beauty of it. Just dreaming thoughts on once-was things. Animals and helping people and one place you could always call hom
Charlotte Stein
It is better to suffer wrong than to do it and happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust.
Samuel Johnson
To lose one parent might be considered a misfortune, or a reason to deny God’s existence at the least. To lose two looks like He may be up to something.
Johnny Rich
In Him we have peace, in Him we have power; Preserved by His grace, throughout the dark hour; In all our temptation He keeps us to proveHis utmost salvation, His fulness of love.Pronounce the glad word, and bid us be free! Ah, hast Thou not, Lord, a blessing for me? The peace Thou hast given, this moment impart, And open Thy heaven, O Love, in my heart.
Charles Wesley
[Shakespeare} the word-coining genius, as if thought plunged into a sea of words and came up dripping
Virginia Woolf
Wisdom is one of the few things that looks bigger the further away it is.
Terry Pratchett
He pulled my skirt up. I began to worry. Everyone knew he had broken in girls before and I didn't want it to happen to me. I said, 'No. Get off, please.' He pulled me down the alley and pushed me to the ground. As I lay on my back worrying about my new blue coat, he pushed his fingers up between my legs — and rammed himself into me.I was crying. His lips were pressed against mine but I was motionless, like a small corpse. He grunted and I knew it was over. He got up, I just lay there on the ground, my tights round my ankles. The clock was striking twelve.As he walked away, he turned and said, 'I've always wanted to do it to you. I like your mouth'.When I got in, my mum said, 'Tracey, what's wrong with you?' I showed her my coat, the dirt and the stains, and told her 'I'm not a virgin any more.' She didn't call the police or make any fuss. She just washed my coat and everything carried on as normal, as though nothing had happened.But for me, my childhood was over, I had become conscious of my physicality, aware of my presence and open to the ugly truths of the world. At the age of thirteen, I realised that there was a danger in innocence and beauty, and I could not live with both.(describing childhood rape)
Tracey Emin
One can give or withhold in a manner far more effective, sophisticated, useful, which is quite invisible to people who think that giving or withholding is done by external assessment. If you seek some mark of favour or 'promotion', know that you are not ready for it. Progress comes through capacity to learn, and is irresistible. Nobody can stand between you and knowledge if you are fit for it.
Idries Shah
There's nothing more dangerous than someone who wants to make the world a better place.
Banksy
For those who like that sort of thing," said Miss Brodie in her best Edinburgh voice, "That is the sort of thing they like.
Muriel Spark
The carrier's horse was the laziest horse in the world, I should hope, and shuffled along, with his head down, as if he liked to keep people waiting to whom the packages were directed. I fancied, indeed, that he sometimes chuckled audibly over this reflection, but the carrier said he was only troubled with a cough." -Chapter 3
Charles Dickens
I swear from the bottom of my heart I want to be healed. I want to be like other men, not this outcast whom nobody wants.
E.M. Forster
Good historians...have the future in their bones
Edward Hallett Carr
I am permitted to travel in the corridor between sky and heather" from the poem "Beyond the Beacon" in TerraAffirmative
Jay Woodman
Aunt Petunia burst into tears. Hestia Jones gave her an approving look that changed to outrage as Aunt Petunia ran forward and embraced Dudley rather than Harry.'S-so sweet, Dudders...' she sobbed into his massive chest. 'S-such a lovely b-boy...s-saying thank you...''But he hadn't said thank you at all!' said Hestia indignantly. 'He only said he didn't think Harry was a waste of space!''Yeah, but coming from Dudley that's like "I love you.
J.K. Rowling
[O]ne can scarcely be frightened off writing what one wants to write for fear an obscure reviewer should patronise one on that account.
Dorothy L. Sayers
Lord, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to hide the bodies of those people I had to kill because they pissed me off!
Sarah Ferguson
Where does the family start? It starts with a young man falling in love with a girl - no superior alternative has yet been found.
Winston S. Churchill
OSHA's lack of law enforcement has made the USA a dangerous place to work.
Steven Magee
Sometimes all we need to soothe our soul and ease our burdens is the loving hand of a friend gently touching our heart and lifting us towards love
Mimi Novic
But marriage is forever.''Oh, not really,' he assured her. 'Only until one of us dies.'Her eyes widened. 'I do not want you to die,' she said.'Perhaps you will go first,' he said, though I rather think I hope not. I would probably have grown accustomed to you by then and would miss you.
Mary Balogh
Astrology has no more useful function than this, to discover the inmost nature of a man and to bring it out into his consciousness, that he may fulfil it according to the law of light.
Aleister Crowley
I could not love thee dear so much Loved I not honor more.
Richard Lovelace
And he knew at that moment that love world never die, that it would never fade away altogether. The time might come when he would meet and marry someone else. He might even be reasonably happy. But there would always be a deep precious place in his heart that belonged to his first real love.
Mary Balogh
Implausible truth can serve one better than plausible fiction
David Mitchell
Knowing about God is crucially important for the living of our lives. As it would be cruel to an Amazonian tribesmen to fly him to London, put him down without explanation in Trafalgar Square and leave him, as one who knew nothing of English or England, to fend for himself, so we are cruel to ourselves if we try to live in this world without knowing about the God whose world it is and who runs it .The world becomes a strange, mad, painful place, and life in it a disappointing and unpleasant business, for those who do not know about God. Disregard the study of God, and you sentence yourself to stumble and blunder through life blindfold, as it were , with no sense of direction, and no understanding of what surrounds you. This way you can waste your life and lose your soul.
J.I. Packer
Denial is our very real, personal response to our own trauma. But denial is the normative response to trauma—by everyone. Society may deny that anything bad ever happened to us. It may deny that DID exists. But that doesn't mean to say it's right. All it says is that like global warming, our histories and our stories are an "inconvenient truth".͏
Carolyn Spring
My father was a man, and I know the sex pretty well.
Elizabeth Gaskell
The beliefs you hold strongly in your mind will become your dreams and in time become your reality.
Steven Redhead
Man of an hard heart! Hear me, Proud, Stern, and Cruel! You could have saved me; you could have restored me to happiness and virtue, but would not! You are the destroyer of my Soul; You are my Murderer, and on you fall the curse of my death and my unborn Infant’s! Insolent in your yet-unshaken virtue, you disdained the prayers of a Penitent; But God will show mercy, though you show none. And where is the merit of your boasted virtue? What temptations have you vanquished? Coward! you have fled from it, not opposed seduction. But the day of Trial will arrive! Oh! then when you yield to impetuous passions! when you feel that Man is weak, and born to err; When shuddering you look back upon your crimes, and solicit with terror the mercy of your God, Oh! in that fearful moment think upon me! Think upon your Cruelty! Think upon Agnes, and despair of pardon!
Matthew Lewis
Nick chided a censor, who wished some books gone, and suggested she scan Fahrenheit 451. For the book-budget cutters, Old Claus had no plan, cause if they could read, they just read Ayn Rand.
David Davis
You werewater to medeep and bold and fathoming' - Praise Song For My Mother by Charlotte Mew
Charlotte Mew
Our attitude to these criticisms must be determined by our whole moral and emotional reaction to the future of international relations and the Peace of the World.
John Maynard Keynes
The place has entered me...it has coloured my life like a stain.
Adam Nicolson
Funerals aren't for the dead. They're for the living.
Gavin Extence
Honesty is the key to Happiness. Be always truthful to yourself, to your feelings, emotions, needs and desires & to others, no matter what!
Lily Amis
One realm we have never conquered: the pure present.
D.H. Lawrence
Thanks to President Obama, I am able to get medical treatment in the USA for the long term effects of very high altitude sickness and unnatural electromagnetic radiation exposures.
Steven Magee
Once we start to work with Feminine power we begin to see that it is not our minds that are in control of this power – it ebbs and flows with the movements of the planets, the procession of the seasons, the moons and tides, our own internal cycles of menstruality, anniversaries, the events around us. All these and more impact our experience and expressions of power. We learn to become aware of these various patterns and their impact on us and work more consciously with rather than against or in spite of them. We learn that they are all part of the same process. We open towards the energy, rather than shut down to it. We learn to trust the flow.
Lucy H. Pearce
After Carol had left, as Symons threw away a pile of used tissues and rearranged the cushions on the couch, he remarked that the most common and unhelpful illusion plaguing those who came to see him [as a career counselor] was the idea that they ought somehow, in the normal course of events, to have intuited--long before they had finished their degrees, started families, bought houses and risen to the top of law firms--what they should properly be doing with their lives. They were tormented by a residual notion of having through some error or stupidity on their part missed out on their true 'calling.
Alain de Botton
Man who man would be must rule the empire of himself.
Percy Bysshe Shelley
No stone was left unturned in the unearthing of musical masterpieces."About Egg, Book 1 "Making it
Jamie Scallion
Sir Edward Grey echoed this: More than one true thing may be said about the causes of the war, but the statement that comprises most truth is that militarism and the armaments inseparable from it made war inevitable. Armaments were intended to produce a sense of security in each nation – that was the justification put forward in defence of them. What they really did was to produce fear in everybody.
Jonathan Glover
The strikes continue ruthlessly. I brace for each blow, numbering it as the heat subsides, and enjoying her tender exploration of my swollen lips in between. The rhythm pulls me through the assault and, all too soon, I acknowledge the tenth strike.
Felicity Brandon
If you don't look. You can't see.
Anthony T.Hincks
All men would be cowards if they durst.
John Wilmot
And ever, as the story drainedThe wells of fancy dry,And faintly strove that weary oneTo put the subject by,"The rest next time--" "It is next time!"The Happy voice cry.Thus grew the tale of Wonderland
Lewis Carroll
One day when I was praying, it suddenly occurred to me thatI was talking to myself.
Peter O'Toole