Quotes by British Authors - Page 624

Every moderate drinker could abandon the intoxicating cup if he would every inebriate would if he could.
J. B. Gough
He looks around at his guests. All are prepared. A Latin grace; English would be his choice, but he will suit his company. Who cross themselves ostentatiously, in papist style. Who look at him, expectant. He shouts for the waiters. The doors burst open. Sweating men heave the platters to the table. It seems the meat is fresh, in fact not slaughtered yet. It is just a minor breach of etiquette. The company must sit and salivate. The Boleyns are laid at his hand to be carved.
Hilary Mantel
That friendship may be at once fond and lasting there must not only be equal virtue on each part but virtue of the same kind not only the same end must be proposed but the same means must be approved by both.
Samuel Johnson
The third-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking with the majority. The second-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking with the minority. The first-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking.
A.A. Milne
I'm not worried, Harry, said Dumbledore, his voice a little stronger despite the freezing water. I am with you.
J.K. Rowling
I moved out of my head office and went out of my mind.
Benny Bellamacina
During the Senate debate on the intervention in Iraq, Sen. Clinton made considerable use of her background and 'experience' to argue that, yes, Saddam Hussein was indeed a threat. She did not argue so much from the position adopted by the Bush administration as she emphasized the stand taken, by both her husband and Al Gore, when they were in office, to the effect that another and final confrontation with the Baathist regime was more or less inevitable. Now, it does not especially matter whether you agree or agreed with her about this (as I, for once, do and did). What does matter is that she has since altered her position and attempted, with her husband’s help, to make people forget that she ever held it. And this, on a grave matter of national honor and security, merely to influence her short-term standing in the Iowa caucuses. Surely that on its own should be sufficient to disqualify her from consideration?
Christopher Hitchens
A business without sales is just ego masturb*tion.
Dan Meredith
Blushing is the most peculiar and most human of all expressions.
Charles Darwin
Life is, if anything, the art of combination. Of discrimination. Of freely picking one's own personal pattern out of a hundred choices. Not letting it be picked for you—either by the Establishment, or by the Rebels. Conformity of Hip is no better than Conformity of Square.
Sydney J. Harris
It's like they've forgotten everything important, isn't it? I mean, forgotten things like cats and dancing exist.
Katherine Rundell
Vashti was seized with the terrors of direct experience. She shrank back into the room, and the wall closed up again.
E.M. Forster
This must be a simply enormous wardrobe!
C.S. Lewis
The limit of man s knowledge in any subject possesses a high interest which is perhaps increased by its close neighbourhood to the realms of imagination.
Charles Darwin
But trailing clouds of glory do we come from God, who is our home.
William Wordsworth
But you can't stay with people because of guilt. Or because they can drive a speedboat.
Sophie Kinsella
Many things which are called 'secrets' are only things withheld from people until they can understand or effectively experience them.
Idries Shah
Do try to remember this: even the world's not so black as it is painted"-Valerie to Stephen (pg. 408)
Radclyffe Hall
We're high on the adrenaline of feeling, even though we know it's fleeting and evanescence. And we're getting worse -- checking texts and emails and Facebook every five minutes, always searching for that next hit of feeling, that next morsel of approval.
Deborah Meyler
A mortal person's mind is like a wilderness, with a tremendous volume of decaying constructs and half-understood experience forming natural harbors for wild animal effects.
Piers Anthony
He who for love hath undergone The worst that can befall Is happier thousandfold than one Who never loved at all.
Richard Monckton Milnes
Where envy is unavoidable it must be used as a stimulus to one’s own efforts, not to the thwarting of the efforts of rivals.
Bertrand Russell
And because you not always can keep your eyes shut there comes the real trouble--the heart pain--the world pain. I tell you, my friend, it is not good for you to find you cannot make your dream come true, for the reason that you not strong enough are, or not clever enough. . . . Ja! . . . And all the time you are such a fine fellow too! Wie? Was? Gott im Himmel! How can that be? Ha! ha! ha!"’The shadow prowling amongst the graves of butterflies laughed boisterously.
Joseph Conrad
If there is method here, it is hard to discern it. Let it be repeated: the use of capitals is a matter not or rules but of taste; but consistency is at least not a mark of bad taste.
H. W. Fowler
Brianna! Is Sam okay?” Astrid cried.“No. Drake tore him up.” She wanted to sound tough, but the sobs came bubbling up and overtook her. “Oh, God, Astrid, he’s hurt so bad.”Astrid gasped and covered her hand with her mouth. Brianna put her arms around Astrid and sobbed into her hair.“Is he going to die?” Astrid asked, voice wobbly.“No, I don’t think so,” Brianna said. She stood back and wiped her tears. “I gave him something for the pain. But he’s messed up, Astrid.
Michael Grant
I know there's a proverb which that says 'To err is human,' but a human error is nothing to what a computer can do if it tries.
Agatha Christie
Bed rest and a large steaming mug of hot chocolate. I always find that cheers me up.
J.K. Rowling
Philosophy goes no further than probabilities and in every assertion keeps a doubt in reserve.
James Froude
I love rain because tears can not be seen in rain.
Charlie Chaplin
I think happiness is a bit like a cake. If you have cake every single day of your life you'll get sick of it. If you're happy everyday, you'll get sick of being happy… That's a good saying actually. Happiness is like a cake. Have too much and you'll get sick of it.
Karl Pilkington
Aristotle didn't have a problem with abortion," she says. "Oh, well, good, that's a comfort," I say.
Deborah Meyler
Yes" Said Gandalf; "for it will be better to ride back three together than one alone. Well, here at last, dear friends, on the shores of the Sea comes the end of out fellowship in Middle-earth. Go in peace! I will not say: do not weep; for not all tears are an evil.
J.R.R. Tolkien
They shared the chores of living as some couples do --she did most of the work and he appreciated it.
Paula Gosling
The American share of the crisis began with grossly improper mortgages provided to wholly unqualified borrowers, all directly caused and encouraged by government distortion of and interference in the market. The government’s market deformation and market intervention was in turn the result of two factors: political favouritism and Leftist ideology, on the one hand; and upon the other, corruption: the blatant cooption of such Friends of Angelo as Mr Dodd and of such bien-pensant Lefties as Mr Frank. The stability and efficiency of any market is directly proportional to the amount and trustworthiness of market information. The Yank Congress, for blatantly partisan and ideological reasons, gave out false information to the market, pushing lenders into making bad loans and giving out, with the appropriate winks and nudges, that Fannie (will Americans ever realise how that sounds) and Freddie, imperfectly quangoised, were ‘really just as good as the Treasury’ and were in any case ‘too big to [be let] fail’: which, as it happens, was untrue. Similarly, this moronic mantra of ‘too big to fail’ was chanted desperately and loudly to drown out the warning sounds of various financial institutions on the brink and of the automobile industry. Incomprehensible sums of public money were thrown at these corporations so that they could avoid bankruptcy, and have succeeded only in privatising profit whilst socialising risk.
G.M.W. Wemyss
My mortgage isn’t getting any cheaper and I can’t run that Ferrari on faith alone," Reverend Jones said. "Don’t get me wrong, the Big Man upstairs does what he can but I’ve never once seen him filling up the tank of my car.
Mark Jackman
The existence of a limit to science is, however, made clear by its inability to answer childlike elementary questions having to do with first and last things – questions such as “How did everything begin?” “What are we all here for?” “What is the point of living?
Sir Peter Medawar
When you kill someone, something from that person passes to you - a sigh, a smell or a gesture. I call it "the curse of the victim." It clings to your body and seeps into your skin, going all the way into your heart, and thus continues to live within you. I carry with me the traces of all the men I have killed. I wear them around my neck like invisible necklaces, feeling their presence against my flesh, tight and heavy. In every murderer breathes the man he murdered.
Elif Shafak
People said that there was one law for the rich and one law for the poor, but it wasn't true. There was no law for those who made the law, and no law for the incorrigibly lawless.
Terry Pratchett
Success is a decision, not a gift.
Steve Backley
Our terminal decline into old age and death stems from the fine print of the contract that we signed with our mitochondria two billion years ago.
Nick Lane
That name was a kind of joke, and not a very good one. An author, Leon Lederman, wanted to call it 'that goddamn particle' because it was clear it was going to be a tough job finding it experimentally. His editor wouldn't have that, and he said, 'okay, call it the God particle,' and the editor accepted it. I don't think he should've have done, because it's so misleading'.
Peter Higgs
People are wrong when they think that an unemployed man only worries about losing his wages; on the contrary, an illiterate man, with the work habit in his bones, needs work even more than he needs money. An educated man can put up with enforced idleness, which is one of the worst evils of poverty. But a man like Paddy, with no means of filling up time, is as miserable out of work as a dog on the chain. That is why it is such nonsense to pretend that those who have 'come down in the world' are to be pitied above all others.The man who really merits pity is the man who has been down from the start,and faces poverty with a blank, resourceless mind.
George Orwell
He could breathe more freely in a lighter air. He was responsible only to himself for the things he did. Freedom! He was his own master at last. From old habit, unconsciously he thanked God that he no longer believed in Him.
W Somerset Maugham
If it's me against 48 I feel sorry for the 48.
Margaret Thatcher
And marbled clouds go scudding byThe many-steepled London sky.
John Betjeman
I don't remember things. I black out and I can't remember where I've been or what I've done. Sometimes I wonder if I've done or said terrible things, and I can't remember. And if...if someone tells me something I've done, it doesn't even feel like me. it doesn't feel like it was me who was doing that thing. And it's so hard to feel responsible for something you don't remember. So I never feel bad enough. i feel bad, but the thing that i've done --it's removed from me. It's like it doesn't belong to me.
Paula Hawkins
I only care for the subjective life; I am very German, you see: The woods interest me, and the world does not.
Ouida
It is a long-cherished tradition among a certain type of military thinker that huge casualties are the main thing. If they are on the other side then this is a valuable bonus.
Terry Pratchett
Harnessing change is the most valuable tool available for creating the reality that you clearly desire.
Steven Redhead
When the tea is brought at five o'clockAnd all the neat curtains are drawn with care,The little black cat with bright green eyesIs suddenly purring there.
Harold Monro
It has been my experience, that women possess little or no pride where love affairs are concerned. Pride is a quality often on their lips, but not apparent in their actions.
Agatha Christie
The Sufi is 'One who does not care when something is taken from him, but who does not cease to seek for what he has not.
Idries Shah
I doubt if there are many normal women who can resist looking at houses. I believe, in fact, that when a house is up for sale more than half the people who look over it are not prospective buyers, but merely ladies who cannot resist exploring someone else's house.
Mary Stewart
I’m sorry for hurting you. I know I did. I’m most likely dead now, and I guess if there’s any kind of fairness in the afterlife I’m probably in hell getting roasted. But if that’s where I am, I want you to know, I still love you. Always did. Love, Caine
Michael Grant
But this does not take away the fact that Luke sees the frustrations women face, including the constant discipline of being quietly useful while others crowd in to take the more obviously attractive roles. Furthermore, he remembers Jesus as a teacher who was willing to recognize the value of women's contribution. Working in partnership with a man also protected the women from being bothered by other men who resented their independent activity or simply wanted to meddle. For the women of Galilee, Jesus was invaluable as a sympathetic male focal point around which their activity could be organized. The presence of such a person in their midst would have been a godsend even if the man in question had not been a miracle-worker.
Kate Cooper
Confidence is subtle. Insecurity is brash.
Sam Owen
Tis a lesson you should heed Try try try again If at first you don't succeed Try try try again.
W. E. Hickson
... Our language, tiger, our language: hundreds of thousands of available words, frillions of legitimate new ideas... And yet, oh, and yet, we, all of us, spend all our days saying to each other the same things time after weary time: "I love you," "Don't go in there," "Get out," "You have no right to say that," "Stop it," "Why should I," "That hurt," "Help," "Marjorie is dead.
Stephen Fry
For what is love itself, for the one we love best? - an enfolding of immeasurable cares which yet are better than any joys outside our love.
George Eliot
I didn't know you had a cat!' she excl
David Michie