Quotes by British Authors - Page 727

There is only one kind of immorality in fiction, and that is when you write badly.
Anthony Burgess
How then did it work out, all this? How did one judge people, think of them? How did one add up this and that and conclude that it is liking one felt, or disliking?
Virginia Woolf
Thus in order to be a "radical" one must be open to the possibility that one's own core assumptions are misconceived.
Christopher Hitchens
Give and TakeThe Chief takes less than he is givenAnd gives more than he has taken.
Idries Shah
Ask yourself whether you are happy and you will cease to be so.
John Stuart Mill
The secret of a happy marriage remains a secret.
Henny Youngman
A story has its purpose and its path. It must be told correctly for it to be understood.
Marcus Sedgwick
The important thing in science is not so much to obtain new facts as to discover new ways of thinking about them
William Lawrence Bragg
Thoreau was an idiot.
Bill Bryson
...an obsession is a way for damaged people to damage themselves more.
Mark Barrowcliffe
Scholars discern motions of history & formulate these motions into rules that govern the rises & falls of civilizations. My belief runs contrary, however. To wit: history admits no rules, only outcomes. What precipitates outcomes? Vicious acts and virtuous acts. What precipitates acts? Belief.
David Mitchell
Our lives, our stories, flowed into one another's, were no longer our own, individual, discrete.
Salman Rushdie
They say that every snowflake is different. If that were true, how could the world go on? How could we ever get up off our knees? How could we ever recover from the wonder of it?
Jeanette Winterson
These are the stories that we tell ourselves and only ourselves, and they are better left unshared.
Jim Crace
The business man who assumes that this life is everything, and the mystic who asserts that it is nothing, fail, on this side and on that, to hit the truth. "Yes, I see, dear; it's about halfway between," Aunt Juley had hazarded in earlier years. No; truth, being alive, was not halfway between anything. It was only to be found by continuous excursions into either realm, and though proportion is the final secret, to espouse it at the outset is to ensure sterility
E.M. Forster
Better to be safe than to be sorry' is a remark of value only when these are the actual alternatives.
Idries Shah
Although upon doctrines of grace our views differ from those avowed by Arminian Methodists, we have usually found that on the great evangelical truths we are in full agreement, and we have been comforted by the belief that Wesleyans were solid upon the central doctrines.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Tigerclaw stared in disbelief. Was the life of his son dependent on an ancient medicine cat and an arrogant kittypet?
Erin Hunter
The world can accommodate your situation, as it accommodates all situations. And your body will keep explaining to you how it all works, this original experiment, this lifelong gift. Your body will keep describing how, for the first time being at least, there is no escape from this particular vessel. These are your atoms. This is your consciousness. These are your experiences--your successes and mistakes. This is your first and final chance, your one and only biography. This is the existential container, the bowl of your life's soup, wherein something can be made sense of, wherein there is a cure, wherein you are.
Sarah Hall
Vasectomy means not ever having to say you're sorry.
Larry Adler
Young men are sadly degenerate nowadays.
Agatha Christie
For the grace of bearing life's inevitable evils is itself agood, and makes goodness arise even from evils byopposing them or enduring them with courage.
A.C. Grayling
Trust holds fast, standing firm until deliverance arrives or a solution is found.
Elizabeth George
Faith had always told herself that she was not like other ladies. But neither, it seemed, were other ladies.
Frances Hardinge
Go boldly and honestly through the world. Learn to love the fact that there is nobody else quite like you.
Daniel Radcliffe
Nothing is more sad than the death of an illusion.
Arthur Koestler
The years stretched before her, a long and dusty way, yet if she could walk humbly along it she might find that life, unfolding slowly, keeps its best secrets till the end.
Elizabeth Goudge
Yeah, you and me, we can ride on a starIf you stay with me, girlWe can rule the worldYeah, you and me, we can light up the skyIf you stay by my sideWe can rule the world
Neil Gaiman
Are you in control of your life, or are circumstances in control of you.
Steven Redhead
It doesn't matter how many years go by, how grown-up we think we are, how much we presume we have changed or evolved, when we are back in our childhood homes, we become exactly who we have always been.
Jane Green
Having power is not nearly as important as what you choose to do with it.
Roald Dahl
I don't hold with paddlin' with the occult," said Granny firmly. "Once you start paddlin' with the occult you start believing in spirits, and when you start believing in spirits you start believing in demons, and then before you know where you are you're believing in gods. And then you're in trouble.""But all them things exist," said Nanny Ogg."That's no call to go around believing in them. It only encourages 'em.
Terry Pratchett
Her family had of late been exceedingly fluctuating. For many years of her life she had had two sons; but the crime and annihilation of Edward a few weeks ago, had robbed her of one; the similar annihilation of Robert had left her for a fortnight without any; and now, by the resurrection of Edward, she had one again.
Jane Austen
The rising sun managed to peek around the vast column of smoke that forever rose from Ankh-Morpork, City of Cities, illustrating almost up to the edge of space that smoke means progress or, at least, people setting fire to things.
Terry Pratchett
No,' said Gould, with an unusual and convincing gravity; 'I do not believe that being perfectly good in all respects would make a man merry.' 'Well,' said Michael quietly, 'will you tell me one thing? Which of us has ever tried it?
G.K. Chesterton
You don't set out to build a wall. You don't say: 'I'm going to build the biggest, baddest, greatest wall that's ever been built.' You say, "I'm going to lay this brick as perfectly as a brick can be laid. You do that every single day. And soon you have the greatest wall that's ever been built." - Will Smith
Sam Thomas Davies
You’ve been wondering lately when the moment is that somebody is truly lost to you.
Sarah Hall
Each today, well-lived, makes yesterday a dream of happiness and each tomorrow a vision of hope. Look, therefore, to this one day, for it and it alone is life.” —Sanskrit poem
Robin Craig Clark
A godly woman is beyond average because she keeps her word. She honors her vows. She exhibits great faith. She overcomes great obstacles. And she affects her family, her community, even the world.
Elizabeth George
Logos are the bleating of the insecure, desperate for acceptance by the chronically shallow.
Hadley Freeman
this is only the beginning. Many die, many kill their bodies and souls, but they cannot kill the justice of God, even they cannot kill the eternal spirit. From their very degradation that spirit will rise up to demand of the world compassion and justice
Radclyffe Hall
A man carries within him the germ of his most exceptional action; and if we wise people make eminent fools of ourselves on any particular occasion, we must endure the legitimate conclusion that we carry a few grains of folly to our ounce of wisdom.
George Eliot
Every moment is a moment of decision, and every moment turns us inexorably in the direction of the rest of our lives.
Mary Balogh
We discern a grand force in the lover which he lacks whilst a free man, but there is a breadth of vision in the free man which in the lover we vainly seek.
Thomas Hardy
The only darkness we should allow into our lives is the night, for even then, we have the moon.
Warsan Shire
For a Man ought no more to value himſelf upon being Wiser than a Woman, if he owe his Advantage to a better Education, and greater means of Information, then he ought to boast of his Courage, for beating a Man, when his Hands were bound.
Judith Drake
If I had my life over again[, ] I'd have thought more about words. And thought about them earlier.
Enid Bagnold
Certain emotions bridge the years and link unlikely places.
V.S. Naipaul
Scarce was the verdict spoken,When that still calm was broken,A childish form hath burst into the throng;With tears and looks of sadness,That bring no news of gladness,But tell too surely something hath gone wrong!
Lewis Carroll
To deprive a gregarious creature of companionship is to maim it, to outrage its nature. The prisoner and the cenobite are aware that the herd exists beyond their exile; they are an aspect of it. But when the herd no longer exists, there is, for the herd creature, no longer entity, a part of no whole; a freak without a place. If he cannot hold on to his reason, then he is lost indeed; most utterly, most fearfully lost, so that he becomes no more than the twitch in the limb of a corpse.
John Wyndham
How anybody can compose a story by word of mouth face to face with a bored-looking secretary with a notebook is more than I can imagine. Yet many authors think nothing of saying, 'Ready, Miss Spelvin? Take dictation. Quote no comma Sir Jasper Murgatroyd comma close quotes comma said no better make it hissed Evangeline comma quote I would not marry you if you were the last person on earth period close quotes Quote well comma I'm not so the point does not arise comma close quotes replied Sir Jasper twirling his moustache cynically period And so the long day wore on period End of chapter.'If I had to do that sort of thing I should be feeling all the time that the girl was saying to herself as she took it down, 'Well comma this beats me period How comma with homes for the feebleminded touting for custom on every side comma has a man like this succeeded in remaining at large mark of interrogation.
P.G. Wodehouse
It is just that I don’t know how I could live without the hope of her. It would be like learning to live with wooden legs.
George Eliot
I don't think that you know who we are, but we know who you are!
Anthony T.Hincks
The great art of life is to moderate our passions. Objects of affection are like other belongings. We must love them enough to enrich our lives while we have them, not enough to impoverish our lives when they are gone.
C.S. Lewis
These men are worth your tears. You are not worth their merriment.
Wilfred Owen
Have a scaffold erected in the square. We shall hang a traitor or two before dinner. And perhaps afterwards as well.” - Princess Karena
Thaddeus White
I have been writing now for over a week. I find it cleansing, refreshing; it is good for me.” (p.531)
Storm Constantine
Gratitude is the best food and fuel to start anything that you need to do - it will nourish and sustain you...and others too. Hankering will leave you hungry - or with with heart, head or belly ache - and tends to have or leave a sour or bitter taste too.
Rasheed Ogunlaru
Change is scientific, ‘progress’ is ethical. Change is indubitable whereas progress is a matter of controversy.
Bertrand Russell
Information, contemplated over time, is knowledge.
Robb Johnson