Quotes by British Authors - Page 572

Owning a drone does not a pilot make.
Alex Morritt
No shade no shine no butterflies no bees No fruits no flowers no leaves no birds November!
Thomas Hood
It is, I admit, mere imagination; but how often is imagination the mother of truth?
Arthur Conan Doyle
In my life so far, I have discovered that there are really only two kinds of people: those who are for you, and those who are against you. Learn to recognize them, for they are often and easily mistaken for each other.
Lemmy Kilmister
Sometimes friendship means not having to say anything. Thank yous and apologies can sometimes get lost, but that doesn't mean they're unexpressed," murmured Hermione.
Bex-chan
I often find myself grateful for the comfort of strangers; a man who gave up his seat for me on the bus, a woman who helped me out with a heavy shopping bag. Remembering small acts of kindness puts the world in a finer, sweeter order.
Sally Brampton
If there is one thing Voldemort cannot understand, it is love.
J.K. Rowling
Can anything be sadder than work unfinished? Yes work never begun.
Christina Rossetti
An attitude to life which seeks fulfilment in thesingle-minded pursuit of wealth - in short, materialism - does not fit into thisworld, because it contains within itself no limiting principle, while theenvironment in which it is placed is strictly limited.
Ernst F. Schumacher
It's still National Library Week. You should be especially nice to a librarian today, or tomorrow. Sometime this week, anyway. Probably the librarians would like tea. Or chocolates. Or a reliable source of funding.
Neil Gaiman
There is no point in expending good money on the pursuit of an engine that can power aircraft without propellers. What is wrong with airships anyway? They have borne mankind aloft for over a hundred relatively accident-free years and I see no reason to impugn their popularity...
Jasper Fforde
People are content to wait a long time for salvation, but expect dinner to turn up within the hour.
Terry Pratchett
Even Dad likes it," said Caddy, and her father agreed that he did. In a way. Being a broad-minded, tolerant, artistic sort of person. Or so people told him..."Oh, yes?" said Saffron, rolling her eyes."Yes," said Bill, sounding a little bit peeved. "So you thank your lucky stars, my girl, because in some families you would have come home to very big trouble! A nose stud! At your age! If you come down with blood poisoning, don't blame me!
Hilary McKay
Most human beings have an almost infinite capacity for taking things for granted.
Aldous Huxley
But the old man would not so, but slew his son,And half the seed of Europe, one by one.
Wilfred Owen
Oh, are you doing magic? Let’s see it, then.”She sat down. Ron looked taken aback.“Er — all right.”He cleared his t
J.K. Rowling
No two readers can or will ever read the same book, because the reader builds the book in collaboration with the author.
Neil Gaiman
I wish I had never been born," she said. "What are we born for?" "For infinite happiness," said the Spirit. "You can step out into it at any moment...
C.S. Lewis
Poetry ennobles the heart and the eyes and unveils the meaning of all things upon which the heart and the eyes dwell. It discovers the secret rays of the universe and restores to us forgotten paradises.
Edith Sitwell
I had started out in life trusting everyone and now I trusted no one. So I had a few acquaintances and no close friends. It was perhaps in reaction against the inevitable loneliness of my life that I'd find myself doing bold, risky, even outrageous things without hesitation or surprise. I was usually disappointed in these adventures and they didn't have much effect on me, good or bad, but I never quite lost the hope of something better or different.
Jean Rhys
We lie to God in prayer if we do not rely on him afterwards.
Robert Leighton
Boredom is a vital problem for the moralist since at least half of the sins of mankind are caused by the fear of it.
Bertrand Russell
There are, fortunately, very few people who can say that they have actually attended a murder.
Margery Allingham
Who you are in Christ is far more important and meaningful than whatever has taken place in your past.
Elizabeth George
The ugliness at the heart of beauty. Is there always ugliness, do you suppose? Even when the object is very, very beautiful?
Mary Balogh
He wrapped his arms around me. We were cuddled up like a couple of spoons in a cutlery drawer.
Malorie Blackman
It is better to lose your pride with someone you love rather than to lose that someone you love with your useless pride.
John Ruskin
Sayings of the ProphetTrust: Trust in God – but tie your camel first.
Idries Shah
For long the two enemies looked at one another, Hook shuddering slightly, and Peter with the strange smile upon his face."So, Pan," said Hook at last, "this is all your doing.""Ay, James Hook," came the stern answer, "it is all my doing.""Proud and insolent youth," said Hook, "prepare to meet thy doom.""Dark and sinister man,“For long the two enemies looked at one another, Hook shuddering slightly, and Peter with the strange smile upon his face."Dark and sinister man," Peter answered, "have at thee.
J.M. Barrie
If you leave a bunch of eleven-year-olds to their own devices, what you get is Lord of the Flies. Like a lot of American kids, I read this book in school. Presumably it was not a coincidence. Presumably someone wanted to point out to us that we were savages, and that we had made ourselves a cruel and stupid world. This was too subtle for me. While the book seemed entirely believable, I didn't get the additional message. I wish they had just told us outright that we were savages and our world was stupid.
Paul Graham
I heard a bird sing in the dark of December. A magical thing. And sweet to remember. We are nearer to Spring than we were in September. I heard a bird sing in the dark of December.
Oliver Herford
But the great thing to remember is that, though our feelings come and go, His love for us does not. It is not wearied by our sins, or our indifference; and, therefore, it is quite relentless in its determination that we shall be cured of those sins, at whatever cost to us, at whatever cost to Him.
C.S. Lewis
In an age of acceleration, nothing can be more exhilarating than going slow. And in an age of distraction, nothing is so luxurious as paying attention. And in an age of constant movement, nothing is so urgent as sitting still.
Pico Iyer
What was it about this man that one minute had me wanting to throw myself at him, climb him like a cat to rub up against and the next, wanting to scratch his eyes out while I was up there?
Stephanie Hudson
Eight months in the woods have hardened me, or at least firmed up my beliefs that if a man’s going to fend for himself, then he needs to leave his credit card at home.
Fennel Hudson
I doubt even you can begin to understand the depths of her.
Samantha Young
I stared up in disbelief at the information my eyes fed my brain, and lost myself to the stars.For the first time in my life I had a greater idea of how infinitesimally small our planet really is and, furthermore, how tiny and insignificant I am in the grand scheme of the vast universe.I took a seat on a rock next to Lily and took in the moment to comprehend the vastness of everything else, and the incredible smallness of I.
Craig Stone
M. I’ve never really thought of M objectively before, as another person. She’s always been my mother I’ve hated or been ashamed of. Yet of all the lame ducks I’ve met or heard of, she’s the lamest. I’ve never given her enough sympathy. I haven’t given her this last year (since I left home) one half of the consideration I’ve given the beastly creature upstairs just this last week. I feel that I could overwhelm her with love now. Because I haven’t felt so sorry for her for years. I’ve always excused myself—I’ve said, I’m kind and tolerant with everyone else, she’s the one person I can’t be like that with, and there has to be an exception to the general rule. So it doesn’t matter. But of course that’s wrong. She’s the last person that should be an exception to the general rule.Minny and I have so often despised D for putting up with her. We ought to go down onour knees to him.
John Fowles
Oh! And they read English novels! David! Did you ever look into an English novel? Well, do not trouble yourself. It is nothing but a lot of nonsense about girls with fanciful names getting married.
Susanna Clarke
why do you have to explain, because they ask you to? Somethings need no explanation, they just are. When you block the flow of feeling you create problems for yourself. Zoomanity is confrontational. Listen and then allow
Alan Forrest Smith
We cannot control other people and their actions but we can control how we act and react to them.
Elizabeth George
Utter frustration often precedes the breakthrough so stick with it and have faith in your journey.
Sam Owen
Selling cakes and pies to raise money for research into cancer or any other health related issue, is like selling meat at a campaign to raise awareness about the environment.
Mango Wodzak
When an author sleeps, her brain creates more stories for her pen.
Evelyn Smith
I thank God daily for the good fortune of my birth, for I am certain I would have made a miserable peasant.
C.S. Forester
With every step, I cursed the person who had ever invented the saying: “Speak of the devil”. Clearly, they had no sympathy for me!
Adele Rose
Dance your Soulful path / and you shall know the magic / of your mind & heart / and all the beauty laughing / to fill your rising self.
Jay Woodman
we exceeded expectations just by turning up for the exams." - George Weasly
J.K. Rowling
Never assume that the person you are dealing with is weaker or less important than you are. Some people are slow to take offense, which may make you misjudge the thickness of their skin, and fail to worry about insulting them. But should you offend their honor and their pride, they will overwhelm you with a violence that seems sudden and extreme given their slowness to anger. If you want to turn people down, it is best to do so politely and respectfully, even if you feel their request is impudent or their offer ridiculous.
Robert Greene
Among the hundred thousand mysterious influences which a man exercises over a woman who loves him, I doubt if there is any more irresistible to her than the influence of his voice. I am not one of those women who shed tears on the smallest provocation: it is not in my temperament, I suppose. But when I heard that little natural change in his tone my mind went back (I can't say why) to the happy day when I first owned that I loved him. I burst out crying.
Wilkie Collins
One of the most adventurous things left is to go to bed for no one can lay a hand on our dreams.
E. V. Lucas
Man is the only creature that consumes without producing.
George Orwell
Dearest, I feel certain that I am going mad again. I feel we can't go through another of those terrible times. And I shan't recover this time. I begin to hear voices, and I can't concentrate. So I am doing what seems the best thing to do. You have given me the greatest possible happiness. You have been in every way all that anyone could be. I don't think two people could have been happier 'til this terrible disease came. I can't fight any longer. I know that I am spoiling your life, that without me you could work. And you will I know. You see I can't even write this properly. I can't read. What I want to say is I owe all the happiness of my life to you. You have been entirely patient with me and incredibly good. I want to say that – everybody knows it. If anybody could have saved me it would have been you. Everything has gone from me but the certainty of your goodness. I can't go on spoiling your life any longer. I don't think two people could have been happier than we have been. V.
Virginia Woolf
If history can do anything it is to remind us that all our judgments are merely relative to time and circumstance.
Herbert Butterfield
Landscapes we must owe something to the eye of the beholder.
Mary Lascelles
Though my hair has grown grey now, and my sight dim, and my heart cold with years, and ennui, and disappointment, and treachery of friends, and yet I have but to lean back in my arm-chair and think, and those sweet figures comes rising up before me out of the past, with their smiles, and their kindnesses, and their bright tender eyes!
William Makepeace Thackery
A dominant impulse on encountering beauty is to wish to hold on to it, to possess it and give it weight in one’s life. There is an urge to say, ‘I was here, I saw this and it mattered to me.
Alain de Botton
If you want to grow spiritually, the place to start is with God.
Elizabeth George
It's always thoughts of family that drive me crazy, and it's always my friends who bring me
Simon R. Green
It's real for us
J.K. Rowling