Quotes by British Authors - Page 564

Jesus lived in occupied territory, in poverty and misery, and his stories and preaching are all about food, land, liberation from bondage and servitude and get. He preached about providing for those who lacked the most and were considered expendable, as the birds of the air, and yet in Jesus' eyes were where one found the treasure of heaven, here, now, on earth.
Megan McKenna
Edward had a personal horror of violence and never endorsed or excused it, though in a documentary he made about the conflict he said that actions like the bombing of pilgrims at Tel Aviv airport 'did more harm than good,' which I remember thinking was (a) euphemistic and (b) a slipshod expression unworthy of a professor of English.
Christopher Hitchens
I have forgiven Jesus for all of the love he placed in me, when there's no one I can turn to with this love.
Morrissey
I am not afraid,” she said; which seemed quite presumptuous enough.“You are not afraid of suffering?”“Yes, I am afraid of suffering. But I am not afraid of ghosts. And I think people suffer too easily,” she added.“I don’t believe you do,” said Ralph, looking at her with his hands in his pockets.“I don’t think that’s a fault,” she answered. “It is not absolutely necessary to suffer; we were not made for that.”“You were not, certainly.”“I am not speaking of myself.” And she turned away a little.“No, it isn’t a fault,” said her cousin. “It’s a merit to be strong.”“Only, if you don’t suffer, they call you hard,” Isabel remarked. They passed out of the smaller drawing-room, into which they had returned from the gallery, and paused in the hall, at the foot of the staircase. Here Ralph presented his companion with her bed-room candle, which he had taken from a niche. “Never mind what they call you,” he said. “When you do suffer, they call you an idiot. The great point is to be as happy as possible.
Henry James
If it is necessary sometimes to lie to others, it is always despicable to lie to oneself.
W Somerset Maugham
402Emotional position is part of it, but as an individual you are not your emotions, neither are you your intellect. These are things that you have . They're not things that you are . Therefore you have to start to become aware of the different requirements that human beings have, the different areas that they like to be satisfied in. Which means becoming aware of yourself. I mean, as a writer you're gonna have to understand pretty much the whole universe. But the best place to start is by understanding the inner universe. The entire universe – for one thing – only exists in your perceptions. That's all you're gonna see of it. To all practical intents and purposes this is purely some kind of lightshow that's being put on in the kind of neurons in our brain. The whole of reality. So. To understand the universe there's worse advice than that which was carved above the shrine of the Delphi oracle. Where it just said: “Know thyself”. Understand yourself. Know thyself is a magical goal, but like I say to me there is very little difference between magic and creative art in any sense – the laws of one apply perfectly well to the other.
Alan Moore
Harry, don't go picking a row with Malfoy, don't forget, he's a prefect now, he could make life difficult for you...""Wow, I wonder what it'd be like to have a difficult life?" said Harry sarcastically.
J.K. Rowling
I know it was wonderful but I don't know how I did it.
Laurence Olivier
If a man has any greatness in him, it comes to light, not in one flamboyant hour, but in the ledger of his daily work.
Beryl Markham
There is a price for all things, my son, for all men. I have merely to find his.
Conn Iggulden
Clarissa had a theory in those days - they had heaps of theories, always theories, as young people have. It was to explain the feeling they had of dissatisfaction; not knowing people; not being known. For how could they know each other? You met every day; then not for six months, or years. It was unsatisfactory, they agreed, how little one knew people.
Virginia Woolf
Having solved all the major mathematical, physical, chemical, biological, sociological, philosophical, etymological, meteorological and psychological problems of the Universe except for his own, three times over, [Marvin] was severely stuck for something to do, and had taken up composing short dolorous ditties of no tone, or indeed tune. The latest one was a lullaby.Marvin d
Douglas Adams
Young ladies ... who fall in love, never consider whether there is sufficient "to make the pot boil" - probably because young ladies in love lose their appetites, and, not feeling inclined to eat at that time, they imagine that love will always supply the want of food.
Frederick Marryat
So when I feel most lost I choose to remember those things that help me survive. I choose love.
Laura McVeigh
Be as audaciousAs you wish.By all means look to the heavens.
Scott Hastie
He feared me as many men fear women: because their mistresses (or their wives) understand them. They are scarcely adult, some men: they wish women to understand them, and to that end they tell them all their secrets; and then, when they are properly understood, they hate their women for understanding them.
Julian Barnes
Plug into the anti-obvious power of the rebel. Or get those opposing minds to plug into your purpose, to solve your problem, to reimagine your process.
Max McKeown
I feel very adventurous. There are so many doors to be opened, and I'm not afraid to look behind them.
Elizabeth Taylor
[I]f we revert to history, we shall find that the women who have distinguished themselves have neither been the most beautiful nor the most gentle of their sex.
Mary Wollstonecraft
All through life there were distinctions - toilets for men, toilets for women; clothes for men, clothes for women - then, at the end, the graves are identical.
Leila Aboulela
You can't condemn a whole group of people because of the actions of a few.
Justin Somper
Beauty is a radiance that originates from within and comes from inner security and strong character.
Jane Seymour
in your dream, you are jealous of tragedies.and the truth is, we all want our own tragedy, because life is pale without it.we want the teeth, the screaming.the survivalthat comes with it.
Salma Deera
Most parents hate to experience conflict, are deeply troubled when it occurs, and are quite confused about how to handle it constructively. Actually, it would be a rare relationship if over a period of time one person's needs did not conflict with the other's. When any two people (or groups) coexist, conflict is bound to occur just because people are different, think differently, have different needs and wants that sometimes do not match.
Thomas Gordon
The world is full of all sorts of brilliant stuff and I haven't found out all about it yet, so I don't want anyone messing it about or endin' it before I've had the chance to find out about it.-Adam to DEATH & the 4 horsepeople of the Apocalypse
Neil Gaiman
But my point, you see is that death is misunderstood. The loss of one's life is not the greatest loss. It is no loss at all. To others, perhaps, but not to oneself.
Tom Rachman
Endgame,” Sam muttered, not really expecting Caine to hear.“Yep,” Caine said. “That’s right. Endgame. The FAYZ barrier is coming down; at least that’s mybet. But there’s also a ninety percent chance you and me both end up dead. Ten percent chance weboth actually get out of here alive. In which case we end up sharing a cell somewhere.” He laughed.“Kind of unfair, really, what with me being evil and all, and you just so darned virtuous and heroic.
Michael Grant
Liberty is terrifying but it is also exhilarating.
Germaine Greer
There seemed to be endless obstacles preventing me from living with my eyes open, but as I gradually followed up clue after clue it seemed that the root cause of them all was fear.
Joanna Field
Producing works of art doesn't often count as appropriate intellectual work in an arts department: yet the equivalent in a science department, doing physics or chemistry, does. So why is it that in universities writing about novels is thought to be a higher intellectual calling than writing novels; or rather, if writing novels is not thought to be intellectually valid, why is writing about them?
Ken Robinson
Didn’t somebody once say ‘Politics is the art of the possible’?” “Quite true—which is why only second-rate minds go into it. Genius likes to challenge the impossible.
Arthur C. Clarke
... but I must reluctantly observe that two causes, the abbreviation of time, and the failure of hope, will always tinge with a browner shade the evening of life.
Edward Gibbon
The pain, I can assure you, will be exquisite.
Clive Barker
You need energy and purpose to become the person you’re destined to be.
Fennel Hudson
He had never imagined so clearly the consequences of mailing a letter—the impossibility of retrieving it from the iron mouth of the box; the inevitability if its steady progress through the postal system; the passing from bag to bag and postman to postman until a lone man in a van pulls up to the door and pushes a small pile through the letterbox. It seemed suddenly horrible that one's words could not be taken back, one's thoughts allowed none of the remediation of speaking face to face.
Helen Simonson
You soon know the difference between a real newspaper and an electronic one as soon as a fly won't leave you alone.
Jeremy Lee
There is only one thing worse than losing the one you love, and that is losing them without knowing why. If you are a dog, then your master is like a god to you, and the pain of losing him is greater still.
Louis de Bernières
What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure.
Samuel Johnson
The true mark of English conversation is not being able to tell when you've been insulted. I think the more sophisticated society becomes, the more it hides behind the masks it manufactures.
Christopher Fowler
You said, 'I love you.' Why is it that the most unoriginal thing we can say to one another is still the thing we long to hear? 'I love you' is always a quotation. You did not say it first and neither did I, yet when you say it and when I say it we speak like savages who have found three words and worship them.
Jeanette Winterson
Mrs Hargreaves liked her job and she liked the Hoopers. As far as she was concerned there was far too much twaddle being talked about Glade Hall, by people with too much time on their hands.“Over fertile imaginations.” She’d told the new head gardener.Some of the locals had worked for the hotel and told stories of seeing shadows around the grounds, when the light was just right. As if shadows could hurt anyone ! It was all twaddle and nonsense.
Edward Cowling
the most improper job of any man, even saints (who at any rate were at least unwilling to take it on), is bossing other men. Not one in a million is fit for it, and least of all those who seek the opportunity.
J.R.R. Tolkien
Life doesn't make any sense, and we all pretend it does. Comedy's job is to point out that it doesn't make sense, and that it doesn't make much difference anyway.
Eric Idle
The food is ready,” Zil announced to loud cheers.“But we have something more important to do, first, before we can eat.”Groans.“We have to carry out some justice.”That earned a silent stare until Turk and Hank started raising their hands and yelling, showing the crowd how to act.“This mutant, this nonhuman scum here, this freak Hunter…” Zil pointed, arm stretched out, at his captive. “This chud deliberately murdered my best friend, Harry.”“Na troo,” Hunter said. His mouth still didn’t work right. Brain damage, Zil supposed, from the little knock on his head. Half of Hunter’s face drooped like it wasn’t quite attached right. It made it easier for the crowd of kids to sneer at him, and Hunter, yelling in his drooling retard voice, wasn’t helping his case.“He’s a killer!” Zil cried suddenly, smacking his fist into his palm.“A freak! A mutant!” he cried. “And we know what they’re like, right? They always have enough food. They run everything. They’re in charge and we’re all starving. Is that some kind of coincidence? No way.”“Na troo,” Hunter moaned again.“Take him!” Zil cried to Antoine and Hank. “Take him, the murdering mutant scum!”They seized Hunter by the arms. He could walk, but only by dragging one leg. They half carried, half marched him across the plaza. They dragged him up the church steps.“Now,” Zil said, “here is how we’re going to do this.” He waved his hand toward the rope that Lance was unspooling back through the plaza.An expectant pause. A dangerous, giddy feeling. The smell of the meat had them all crazy. Zil could feel it.“You all want some of this delicious venison?”They roared their assent.“Then you’ll all grab on to the rope.
Michael Grant
They do not learn, fixed in their ways as they are. You are naïve tothink otherwise. It’s an illness, Assassin, for which there is but one cure.’‘You’re wrong. And that’s why you must be put to rest.’‘Am I not unlike those precious books you seek to save? A source of knowledgewith which you disagree? Yet you’re rather quick to steal my life.’‘A small sacrifice to save many. It is necessary.
Oliver Bowden
Let's pray that the human race never escapes Earth to spread its iniquity elsewhere.
C.S. Lewis
So many ruins bear witness to good intentions which went astray, good intentions unenlightened by any glimmer of wisdom. To bring religion to the people is a fine and necessary undertaking, but this is not a situation in which the proposed end can be said to justify the means. The further people have drifted from the truth, the greater is the temptation to water down the truth, glossing over its less palatable aspects and, in short, allowing a policy of compromise to become one of adulteration. In this way it is hoped that the common man – if he can be found – will be encouraged to find a small corner in his busy life for religion without having to change his ways or to grapple with disturbing thoughts. It is a forlorn hope. Standing, as it were, at the pavement’s edge with his tray of goods, the priest reduces the price until he is offering his wares for nothing: divine judgement is a myth, hell a wicked superstition, prayer less important than decent behaviour, and God himself dispensable in the last resort; and still the passers-by go their way, sorry over having to ignore such a nice man but with more important matters demanding their attention. And yet these matters with which they are most urgently concerned are, for so many of them, quicksands in which they feel themselves trapped. Had they been offered a real alternative, a rock firm-planted from the beginning of time, they might have been prepared to pay a high price.
Charles Le Gai Eaton
I still hear the world spinning.
Kamila Shamsie
Might have just been an innocent bystander, sir,’ said Carrot'What, in Ankh-Morpork?’Yes, sir.’‘We should have grabbed him, then, just for the rarity value
Terry Pratchett
Sometimes," says a fellow depressive, "I wish I was in a full body cast, with every bone in my body broken. That's how I feel anyway. Then, maybe, people would stop minimising my illness because they can actually see what's wrong with me. They seem to need physical evidence.
Sally Brampton
Christians don't think that Dawkins thinks that they think that God really has a beard. "Old man in the sky with a white beard" is a figure of speech – shorthand – which neatly encapsulates various errors which lazy atheists and naive theists sometimes make, for example: 1: They imagine that Christians think that God is a human being of some kind and therefore ask questions like: "What does he eat?"; "If he made the world, what did he stand on?"; "If he doesn't have a beard, how does he shave?" and "How did he evolve?" (Three guesses which of those questions troubles Professor Dawkins.) Christians don't think that God is an old man. They don't even think he is a man. They probably don't even think he's made of atoms. 2: They confuse symbols with representations: they think that when Michelangelo painted God on the Pope's ceiling, he was making an informed guess about what someone would have seen with their eyes if they bumped into God on the Roman metro – as opposed to using pictures to put across theological ideas. 3: They imagine that Christians think that God lives in some particular place in space and time. They may not think that we think that he lives in the sky, but I think that they think that we think that if you had a fast enough spaceship you could eventually track him down. Dawkins doesn't commit himself on the question of God's facial hair; but it is pretty clear that he thinks that God lives in the sky – or at any rate, in some place in the empirical universe.
Andrew Rilstone
How do you feel about going on a date with me? I'm abroad for another two weeks; you've got plenty of time to prepare yourself. It will be the best night of your life, of course.
Lucy Robinson
You can be merry with the king, you can share a joke with him. But as Thomas More used to say, it's like sporting with a tamed lion. You tousle its mane and pull its ears, but all the time you're thinking, those claws, those claws, those claws.
Hilary Mantel
If you'll excuse a brief history lesson: most people didn't experience 'the sixties' until the seventies. Which meant, logically, that most people in the sixties were still experiencing the fifties--or, in my case, bits of both decades side by side. Which made things rather confusing.
Julian Barnes
The future offers everything. Reach out and take whatever you want.
Rosie Thomas
Have you ever wondered how nostalgia isn"t what it used to be?
Jasper Fforde
Faculty X is simply that latent power in human beings possess to reach beyond the present. After all, we know perfectly well that the past is as real as the present, and that New York and Singapore and Lhasa and Stepney Green are all as real as the place I happen to be in at the moment. Yet my senses do not agree. They assure me that this place, here and now, is far more real than any other place or any other time. Only in certain moments of great inner intensity do I know this to be a lie. Faculty X is a sense of reality, the reality of other places and other times, and it is the possession of it — fragmentary and uncertain though it is — that distinguishes man from all other animals
Colin Wilson
Suspense is like a woman. The more left to the imagination, the more the excitement. ... The conventional big-bosomed blonde is not mysterious. And what could be more obvious than the old black velvet and pearls type? The perfect ‘woman of mystery’ is one who is blonde, subtle and Nordic. ... Although I do not profess to be an authority on women, I fear that the perfect title [for a movie], like the perfect woman is difficult to find.
Alfred Hitchcock
If your preaching of the gospel of God's free grace in Jesus Christ does not provoke the charge from some of antinomianism, you're not preaching the gospel of the free grace of God in Jesus Christ.
D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones
Who is She? She is your power, your Feminine source. Big Mama. The Goddess. The Great Mystery. The web-weaver. The life force. The first time, the twentieth time you may not recognize her. Or pretend not to hear. As she fills your body with ripples of terror and delight.But when she calls you will know you’ve been called. Then it is up to you to decide if you will answer.
Lucy H. Pearce