Quotes by British Authors - Page 120

He had liked to listen to the exotic (to a Belsey) chatter of business and money and practical politics; to hear that Equality was a myth, and Multiculturalism was a fatuous dream; he thrilled at the suggestion that Art was a gift from God, blessing only a handful of masters, and most Literature merely a veil for poorly reasoned left-wing ideologies.
Zadie Smith
When the Stranger says: “What is the meaning of this city ?Do you huddle close together because you love each other?”What will you answer? “We all dwell togetherTo make money from each other”? or “This is a community”?Oh my soul, be prepared for the coming of the Stranger.Be prepared for him who knows how to ask questions.
T.S Eliot
There's a time in your life when you have to stop looking back and start looking forward because otherwise you're going to walk down the road one day and bump into a lamppost. But it's not easy.
Anna Maxted
Now may this little Book a blessing beTo those that love this little Book, and me:And may its Buyer have no cause to say,His money is but lost, or thrown away.
John Bunyan
The thing about 'colour' is that it's not all about the money or the prestige, but it's about showing what life is all about. Without it...
Anthony T.Hincks
...a well-stocked mind is safe from boredom.
Arthur C. Clarke
It was like bouncing tennis balls off a mystery piece of furniture and deducing, from the direction in which the balls ricocheted, whether it was a chair or a table or a Welsh dresser.
Marcus Chown
You will see by this that no man should be judged by another here in this life, for the good or evil he has done. Deeds may be properly judged, whether they are good or bad, but not men.
Clifton Wolters
And there he lay in his bed, a broken man, worn out by a way of life which had been thrust upon him because of the antics of a wayward pig.
Jean Plaidy
You will find it a stronghold in the day of trial to plead your adoption. You have no rights as a subject, you have forfeited them by your treason; but nothing can forfeit a child's right to a father's protection.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
Life' wrote a friend of mine, 'is a public performance on the violin, in which you must learn the instrument as you go along.
E.M. Forster
The house was silent, but somewhere in the garden was a swimming pool filled with unsettled water.
J.G. Ballard
I realize that I can laugh, that it is possible to be happy, that laughter and hope can come back to me.
Philippa Gregory
Winston stopped reading, chiefly in order to appreciate the fact that he was reading, in comfort and safety. He was alone: no telescreen, no ear at the keyhole, no nervous impulse to glance over his shoulder or cover the page with his hand. The sweet summer air played against his cheek. From somewhere far away there floated the faint shouts of children: in the room itself there was no sound except the insect voice of the clock. He settled deeper into the arm-chair and put his feet up on the fender. It was bliss, it was eternity.
George Orwell
Januz feels glad to have her in his arms--his wife, who would do anything to protect their son. This is how she presents herself. Like a soldier who would kill for her country. And her country is their son.
Amanda Hodgkinson
Whoever thinks of going to bed before twelve o'clock is a scoundrel.
Samuel Johnson
If all men are born free, how is it that all women are born slaves?
Mary Astell
I didn't know you had a cat!' she excl
David Michie
Surely my lord will not hide his beautiful white legs!" exclaimed Infadoos regretfully. But Good persisted, and once only did the Kukuana people get the chance of seeing his beautiful legs again. Good is a very modest man. Henceforward they had to satisfy their aesthetic longings with his one whisker, his transparent eye, and his movable teeth.
H. Rider Haggard
The feeling of love comes and goes on a whim; you can't control it. But the action of love is something you can do, regardless of how you are feeling.
Russ Harris
They stood together in a false intimacy, a nervous contact. And he was in love with her.
D.H. Lawrence
In lapidary inscriptions a man is not upon oath.
Samuel Johnson
Think of my Pleasure in Solitude, in comparison of my commerce with the world - there I am a child - there they do not know me not even my most intimate acquaintance - I give into their feelings as though I were refraining from irritating a little child - Some think me middling, others silly, other foolish - every one thinks he sees my weak side against my will; when in thruth it is with my will - I am content to be thought all this because I have in my own breast so graet a resource. This is one great reason why they like me so; because they can all show to advantage in a room, and eclipese from a certain tact one who is reckoned to be a good Poet - I hope I am not here playing tricks 'to make the angels weep': I think not: for I have not the least contempt for my species; and though it may sound paradoxical: my greatest elevations of Soul leave me every time more humbled - Enough of this - though in your Love for me you will not think it enough.
John Keats
When the sun grew too hot we went into the wood where waves of Bluebells dashed around the foot of the Oak in front of us... I never knew before, the delight of offering oneself up; I even longed for some self sacrifice, to have to give up something for her sake. It intoxicated me to think I was making another happy...
W.N.P. Barbellion
The one serious conviction that a man should have is that nothing is to be taken too seriously.
Nicholas Butler
If you can walk with the crowd and keep your virtue, or walk with Kings-nor lose the common touch; If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you; If all men count with you, but none too much; If you can fill the unforgiving minute with 60 seconds worth of distance run- Yours is the earth and everything that's in it, And-which is more-you'll be a man my son.
Rudyard Kipling
Friendship is the bread of the heart.
Mary Russell Mitford
You never get it right, you people, do you? Either we've got Fudge, pretending everything's lovely while people get murdered right under his nose, or we've got you, chucking the wrong people into jail and trying to pretend you've got 'The Chosen One' working for you!
J.K. Rowling
It had never occurred to me that simply being with a fellow prisoner would make me feel like I was still in prison.
Elizabeth Wein
Life does not accommodate you; it shatters you. Every seed destroys its container, or else there would be no fruition.
Florida Scott-Maxwell
All this happened in much less time than it takes to tell, since I am trying to interpret for you into slow speech the instantaneous effect of visual impressions.
Joseph Conrad
One can’t prescribe books, even the best books, to people unless one knows a good deal about each individual person.
Rudyard Kipling
When everything else is shattering, you feel like the one true constant.
Siobhan Davis
A continued atmosphere of hectic passion is very trying if you haven't got any of your own.
Dorothy L. Sayers
I realised that the moon was not a safe place. It knew a thousand ways to kill you if you were stupid, if you were careless, if you were lazy, but the real danger was the people around you. The moon was not a world, it was a submarine. Outside was death. I would be sealed in with these people. There was no law, no justice: there was only management. The moon was the frontier, but it was the frontier to nothing. There was nowhere to run.
Ian McDonald
She was the storm, she was the lightning...
Neil Gaiman
For someone so conflicted, who am I to give advice to anybody? It’s such a funny, grandiose idea
Florence Welch
My dear Watson, you as a medical man are continually gaining light as to the tendencies of a child by the study of the parents. Don't you see that the converse is equally valid. I have frequently gained my first real insight into the character of parents by studying their children.”—Sherlock Holmes, “The Adventure of the Copper Beeches
Arthur Conan Doyle
One day, maybe not in the next few weeks, but certainly in the conceivable future, someone will be able to refer to me without using the word 'arse' somewhere in the sentence.
Nick Hornby
Lewis is a rare example of someone who liked to think about life's great questions because they were forced on him by his own experience.
Alister E. McGrath
The journey may be fraught with challenges, yet it continues, for even the smallest leaf must embrace destiny...Persistence is the key...
Virginia Alison
You have to go for it. For the rest of us.
Cathy Hopkins
It was an American who said that while a Frenchman's truth was akin to a straight line, a Welshman's truth was more in the nature of a curve, and it is a fact that Welsh affairs are entangled always in parabola, double-meaning and implication. This makes for a web-like interest....
Jan Morris
There are essentially two questions in life - a spiritual question and a material question. The spiritual question is 'Who am I?' The material question is 'What am I to do with my life?' One leads to the other.
Rasheed Ogunlaru
If it’s going to be a world with no time for sentiment, it’s not a world that I want to live in.
Christopher Isherwood
Literature is mostly about sex and not much about having children and life is the other way around.
David Lodge
The city defeated him. It refused to be bent into shape; it stayed a willful, sprawling, sinful place. It even told him as much. When he walked through the gutted wreck of old Saint Paul's, he tripped and fell over a piece of rubble -- a tombstone. When he got to his feet and dusted himself down he saw that it read, in Latin, 'Resurgam' -- 'I Will Rise Again.
Jonathan Barnes
Oh, well, faint heart never won so much as a scrap of paper
Dorothy L. Sayers
It follows that I must accept myself for what I am before I can deliberately change it.
Christmas Humphreys
When heaven joins the battle against you, who could stand?
Stephen R. Lawhead
What you do in this world is a matter of no consequence. The question is what can you make people believe you have done.
Arthur Conan Doyle
I told Jerome I will ring Egg every day because he’s my pal and not because I want him back in the band to write our second album. - Clipper
Jamie Scallion
I have tried to read philosophers of all ages and have found many illuminating ideas but no steady progress toward deeper knowledge and understanding. Science, however, gives me the feeling of steady progress: I am convinced that theoretical physics is actual philosophy. It has revolutionized fundamental concepts, e.g., about space and time (relativity), about causality (quantum theory), and about substance and matter (atomistics), and it has taught us new methods of thinking (complementarity) which are applicable far beyond physics.
Max Born
Like depression, loneliness arises from unhappiness creating thoughts feeding into the insula, deepening the negative spiral of thoughts and feelings.
David Michie
You don't need planning permission to build castles in the sky.
Banksy
The Labour Party is going about the country stirring up apathy.
William White law
Q: Where and when do you do your writing? A: Any small room with no natural light will do. As for when, I have no particular schedules... afternoons are best, but I'm too lethargic for any real regime. When I'm in the flow of something I can do a regular 9 to 5; when I don't know where I'm going with an idea, I'm lucky if I do two hours of productive work. There is nothing more off-putting to a would-be novelist to hear about how so-and-so wakes up at four in the a.m, walks the dog, drinks three liters of black coffee and then writes 3,000 words a day, or that some other asshole only works half an hour every two weeks, does fifty press-ups and stands on his head before and after the "creative moment." I remember reading that kind of stuff in profiles like this and becoming convinced everything I was doing was wrong. What's the American phrase? If it ain't broke...
Zadie Smith
I lay in bed last night and thought of G.P. I thought of being in bed with him. I wanted to be in bed with him. I wanted the marvellous, the fantastic ordinariness of him. His promiscuity is creative. Vital. Even though it hurts. He creates love and life and excitement around him; he lives; the people he loves always remember him.I've always felt like it sometimes. Promiscuous. Anyone I see, even just some boy in the Tube, some man, I think what he would be like in bed. I look at their mouths and their hands, put on a prim expression and think about them having me in bed.Even Toinette, getting into bed with anyone. I used to think it was messy. But love is beautiful, any love. Even just sex.
John Fowles
Police internal affairs are in the business of protecting corrupt and incompetent police officers from prosecution due to the extensive range of laws that they have blatantly broken.
Steven Magee
Though in single life your joys may not be very many, your sorrows, at least will not be more than you can bear. Marriage may change your circumstances for the better, but in my private opinion, it is far more likely to produce a contrary result
Anne Brontë