Quotes by British Authors - Page 638

If you want to strengthen an enemy and make him exult - hate him.
Idries Shah
Advice? I don’t have advice. Stop aspiring and start writing. If you’re writing, you’re a writer. Write like you’re a goddamn death row inmate and the governor is out of the country and there’s no chance for a pardon. Write like you’re clinging to the edge of a cliff, white knuckles, on your last breath, and you’ve got just one last thing to say, like you’re a bird flying over us and you can see everything, and please, for God’s sake, tell us something that will save us from ourselves. Take a deep breath and tell us your deepest, darkest secret, so we can wipe our brow and know that we’re not alone. Write like you have a message from the king. Or don’t. Who knows, maybe you’re one of the lucky ones who doesn’t have to.
Alan W. Watts
Well, to tell you the truth, I've thought of it often and often before, but he's such devilish good company is Huntingdon, after all - you can't imagine what a jovial good fellow he is when he's not fairly drunk, only just primed or half-seas-over - we all have a bit of a liking for him at the bottom of our hearts, though we can't respect him.''But should you wish yourself to be like him?''No, I'd rather be like myself, bad as I am.
Anne Brontë
The first step away from being manipulated, and towards a more autonomous outlook, is to stand back from a set of responses and think.
Jonathan Glover
...and how is a man to know the habits of their God, whether He smites suddenly or withholds, if you mishandle the things set apart, the objects of His people He is jealous of.
David Jones
The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.
George Orwell
Why do I make room in my mind for such filth and nonsense? Do I hope that if feeling disguises itself as thought I shall feel less? Aren't all these notes the senseless writhings of a man who won't accept the fact that there is nothing we can do with suffering except to suffer it? Who still thinks there is some device (if only he could find it) which will make pain not to be pain. It doesn't really matter whether you grip the arms of the dentist's chair or let your hands lie in your lap. The drill drills on.
C.S. Lewis
A combination of fine tea, enchanting objects and soothing surroundings exerts a therapeutic effect by washing away the corrosive strains and stress of modern life. [... It] induces a modd that is spiritually refreshing [and produces] a genial state of mind.
John Blofeld
It's only a heartache. It isn't a tragedy. A tragedy would be losing the father of my children to cancer. This I wrestle with the hardest. There are thirty-one flavors of pain, like Baskin Robbins in hell. Am I allowed to feel pain at a breakup? When there is so much other shit going on in this world? Love is extremely serious. I don't think this is trivial.
Emma Forrest
Engage in no pursuit in which you cannot look up unto God, and say, 'Bless me in this, my Father!
Legh Richmond
The madrigore of verjuice must be talthibianised.
C.S. Lewis
The question 'What was there before creation?' is meaningless. Time is a property of creation, therefore before creation there was no before creation.
Glen Duncan
She knew in her heart that to be without optimism that core of reasonless hope in the spirit rather than the brain was a fatal flaw the seed of death.
Anne Perry
It was so much more comfortable to be able to divide people into heroes and villains and expect them to play their allotted part.
Mary Balogh
This is one of the bitter curses of poverty: it leaves no right to be generous.
George Gissing
Now, my own suspicion is that the universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose. I have read and heard many attempts at a systematic account of it, from materialism and theosophy to the Christian system or that of Kant, and I have always felt that they were much too simple. I suspect that there are more things in heaven and earth that are dreamed of, or can be dreamed of, in any philosophy. That is the reason why I have no philosophy myself, and must be my excuse for dreaming.
J.B.S. Haldane
It's supposed to be jolly, with mistletoe and holly... and other things ending in olly.
Terry Pratchett
It is true that words have power, and one of the things they are able to do is get out of someone’s mouth before the speaker has the chance to stop them.
Terry Pratchett
The first duty of an Author is --- I conceive --- a faithful allegiance to Truth and Nature; his second, such a conscientious study of Art as shall enable him to interpret eloquently and effectively the oracles delivered by those two great deities.--- Charlotte Bronte
Juliet Barker
It would seem that you have no useful skill or talent whatsoever," he said. "Have you thought of going into teaching?
Terry Pratchett
I realized that the job of a hero is not to save the galaxy, or rescue princesses, or slay all the dragons. That may be part of it, but in the end, a hero only has one job, and that’s to make himself unnecessary.
Yahtzee Croshaw
The eye is diverted from the real business, it is caught by the spectacular action that means nothing--nothing at all.
Agatha Christie
Why, if it was an illusion, not praise the catastrophe, whatever it was, that destroyed illusion and put truth in it's place?
Virginia Woolf
Just do what makes sense.
Jill Telford
We all need to believe in something, a dream that gives us optimism and faith.
Fennel Hudson
Once upon a time, they say, there was a girl...there was a boy...there was a person who was in trouble. And this is what she did...and what he did...and how they learned to survive it. This is what they did...and why one failed...and why another triumphed in the end. And I know that it's true, because I danced at their wedding and drank their very best wine.
Terri Windling
Deny God and you deny the world in which we all live.
Anthony T.Hincks
I mentally shake hands with you for your answer, despite its inaccuracy." Mr. Rochester
Charlotte Brontë
Healthy citizens are the greatest asset any country can have.
Winston S. Churchill
If there was a dress that could make a fashion-appreciative girl out of me, this was it. The colors shimmered from gunmetal to pewter, reminding me of frost on the hedgerows where the light caught. The V of the neck decoratively dipped towards what Martha told me was an empty line, where organza, the color of stormy skies, fell all the way to the floor.
Anouska Knight
I always advise people never to give advice.
P.G. Wodehouse
And who thought it was a good idea to rent bicycles to Italian adolescent language students? If hell did exist, which Jackson was sure it did, it would be governed by a committee of fifteen-year-old Italian boys on bikes.
Kate Atkinson
A simple child. That lightly draws its breath. And feels its life in every limb. What should it know of death?
William Wordsworth
So he was always in the town at one place or another, drinking, knocking about with the men he knew. It really wearied him. He talked to barmaids, to almost any woman, but there was that dark, strained look in his eyes, as if he were hunting something.Everything seemed so different, so unreal. There seemed no reason why people should go along the street, and houses pile up in the daylight. There seemed no reason why these things should occupy the space, instead of leaving it empty. His friends talked to him: he heard the sounds, and he answered. But why there should be the noise of speech he could not understand.
D.H. Lawrence
For a moment the rank felt as though they had just returned from single-handedly conquering a distant province. They felt, in fact, tremendously bucked-up, which was how Lady Ramkin would almost certainly have put it and which was definitely several letters of the alphabet away from how they normally felt.
Terry Pratchett
They who await no gifts from chance have conquered fate.
Matthew Arnold
Definitions from Mulla Do-PiazaBribetSubstitute for law, which is a substitute for justice.
Idries Shah
I've heard fate talked of. It's not a word I use. I think we make our own choices. I think how we live our lives is our own doing, and we cannot fully hope on dreams and stars. But dreams and stars can guide us, perhaps. And the heart's voice is a strong one. Always is.Your heart's voice is your true voice. It is easy to ignore it, for sometimes it says what we'd rather it did not - and it is so hard to risk the things we have. But what life are we living, if we don't live by our hearts? Not a true one. And the person living it is not the true you.
Susan Fletcher
Half our fears arise from neglect of the Bible.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
You have to be free to fail in this world.
J.K. Rowling
Is romantic yearning an appetite for [H]eaven, or is it the ultimate refinement of covetousness?
Jocelyn Gibb
I ought to warn you, dear, he can get rather wild when he’s hungry
Wilkie Martin
Poirot said "you will find,M.le docteur,if you have much to do with cases of this kind,that they all resemble each other in one thing.""what is that?" I asked curiously"everyone concerned in them has something to hide
Agatha Christie
If you want to see what children can do, you must stop giving them things.
Norman Douglas
Theistic claims that supernatural agency exists in the universe derive from ancient traditions of belief. The word 'atheist' is a theist's term for a person who does not share such beliefs. Theists think that atheists have a belief or set of beliefs, just as theists do but in the opposite sense, about theism-related questions. This is a mistake; atheists certainly have beliefs about many things, but they are not 'theistic-subject-matter-related beliefs' in any but a single negative sense. For atheism is the absence of 'theistic-subject-matter-related belief. Although it is true that 'absence of belief in supernatural agency' is functionally equivalent to 'belief in the absence of supernatural agency', theists concentrate on the latter formulation in order to make atheism a positive as opposed to privative thesis with regard to theistic-subject-matter-related matters. This is what makes theists think they are in a kind of belief football match, with opposing sets of beliefs vying for our allegiance. What is happening is that the theists are rushing about the park kicking the ball, but the atheists are not playing. They are not even on the field; they are in the stands, arguing that this particular game should not be taking place at all.
A.C. Grayling
Unhappiness is such a heavy burden, those who carry it, when ever possible, unload it onto those around them.
Christopher Price
Publicity is the life of this culture - in so far as without publicity capitalism could not survive - and at the same time publicity is its dream.
John Berger
I needed to get familiar with sex, and it would be just as well to practise first with a boy I didn't care about too much. Then later on, if I was with someone special, I'd have more chance of doing everything right.
Kazuo Ishiguro
We’re here to execute a murderer,” Zil said, pointing at Hunter. “We are bringing justice in the name of all normals.”“There’s no justice without a trial,” Astrid said.Zil grinned. He spread his hands. “We had a trial, Astrid. And this chud scum was found guilty of murdering a normal.“The penalty,” he added, “is death.”Astrid turned to face the mob. “If you do this, you’ll never forgive yourselves.”“We’re hungry,” a voice cried, and was immediately echoed by others.“You’re going to murder a boy in a church?” Astrid demanded, pointing toward the church. “A church? In God’s house?”Zil could see that those words had an effect. There were some nervous looks.“You will never wash the stain of this off your hands,” Astrid cried. “If you do this, you will never be able to forget it. What do you think your parents would say?”“There are no parents in the FAYZ. No God, either,” Zil said. “There’s just humans trying to stay alive, and freaks taking everything for themselves.
Michael Grant
I am much fucking angrier than you think.
Sarah Kane
I am, as far as I can tell, about a month behind Lord Byron. In every town we stop at we discover innkeepers, postillions, officials, burghers, potboys, and all kinds and sorts of ladies whose brains still seem somewhat deranged from their brief exposure to his lordship. And though my companions are careful to tell people that I am that dreadful being, an English magician, I am clearly nothing in comparison to an English poet and everywhere I go I enjoy the reputation- quite new to me, I assure you- of the quiet, good Englishman, who makes no noise and is no trouble to any one...
Susanna Clarke
They ran their heads very hard against wrong ideas, and persisted in trying to fit the circumstances to the ideas instead of trying to extract ideas from the circumstances.
Charles Dickens
Sometimes for our sanity own sanity we just have to look at the bigger picture.
Jojo Moyes
See this abdicated beast, once kingOf them all, nibble his claws:Not anger enough left—no, nor despair—To break his teeth on the bars.
Cecil Day-Lewis
But our back is to legends and we are coming home. I suppose this is the first taste of it.''There is a long road yet,' said Gandalf.'But it is the last road,' said Bilbo.
J.R.R. Tolkien
Jesus! it is the name which moves the harps of heaven to melody. Jesus! the life of all our joys. If there be one name more charming, more precious than another, it is this name. It is woven into the very warp and woof of our psalmody. Many of our hymns begin with it, and scarcely any, that are good for anything, end without it. It is the sum total of all delights. It is the music with which the bells of heaven ring; a song in a word; an ocean for comprehension, although a drop for brevity; a matchless oratorio in two syllables; a gathering up of the hallelujahs of eternity in five letters.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
For years I've been searching for a homeland, finally I found it in you..
Seja Majeed
Prosperity and democracy does seem to be a good way to wean a population off massive alcohol abuse.
Oliver Bullough
If you will not reprove yourself,’ Saadi says, ‘you will not welcome reproof from another.
Idries Shah
In all the useful arts the world is either standing still or going backwards.
George Orwell