Quotes by British Authors - Page 18

Am I awake or dreaming? It doesn’t matter anymore. When I close my eyes I dream of death and war. When I open my eyes I see death and war.
Michael Anthony
So fine a medicine is the will to action.
Hope Mirrlees
I feel I owe you another explanation Harry," said Dumbledore hesitantly. "You may, perhaps, wondered why I never chose you as a prefect? I must confess...that I rather thought...you had enough responsibility to be going on with."Harry looked up at him and saw a tear trickling down Dumbledore's face into his long silver beard.
J.K. Rowling
It hapens very often that parents think they are worred about the progress a boy is making. they do not realise that all boys are numskulls with o branes which is not surprising when you look at the parents really the whole thing goes on and on and there is no stoping it it is a vicious circle.
Geoffrey Willans
He was a peculiar sight. Tears rolling down his face, shouting to drown the sound of the singing rabbit; he said he needed help, pointed to a chicken, handed over some money, grabbed his parcel and bolted out the door in panic.Boys, thought the butcher.Drugs, thought the woman.Justin Case, thought Dorothea.
Meg Rosoff
David tells me that fairies never say 'We feel happy': what they say is, 'We feel dancey'.
J.M. Barrie
She looked at the empty page, which remained blank, apart from the small wet dots from her tears, for hours. Her mind was a turmoil of sadness, rage, fear and all those emotions that gave her inspiration. However her heart lacked the will as the empty words enclosed her soul pulling it down towards the frenzied ravenous imps that stalked hells pantry....
Virginia Alison
The granting of prayer when offered in the name of Jesus reveals the Father's love to him and the honor which he has put upon him.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
It's all about vanity, isn't it? I think it says something about people if they can't do it
Gwendoline Riley
We are the choice elected fewLet all the rest be damnedThere is room enough in hell for youWe won’t have heaven crammed!
Roland H. Bainton
There was something better in life than this rub­bish, if only he could get to it—love—nobility—big spaces where passion clasped peace, spaces no science could reach, but they existed for ever, full of woods some of them, and arched with majestic sky and a friend. . .
E.M. Forster
Perhaps what is inexpressible (what I find mysterious and am not able to express) is the background against which whatever I could express has its meaning.
Ludwig Wittgenstein
So who do I want to be tomorrow?
Paula Hawkins
It takes a wise man to handle a lie. A fool had better remain honest.
Norman Douglas
A little girl and her father were walking along in the evening. She was fascinated by the stars, and kept looking up at them, but made no comment until her father asked what she was thinking. She replied, "If the bottom side of heaven is so beautiful, how wonderful the other side must be
Francis Gay
The people who work with solar photovoltaics (PV) tend to be sick, I've worked with many of them. They were showing classic symptoms of Radio Wave Sickness (RWS).
Steven Magee
Nothing stands still, except in our memory.
Philippa Pearce
A lot of people who are straight-shooting…they’re only happy to be so blunt when talking about others. They’re not so upfront about who they are, what flaws they have, and what their issues are.
Suzanne Wright
I'd never really believed in terrorists before--I mean, I knew that in the abstract there were terrorists somewhere in the world, but they didn't really represent any risk to me. There were millions of ways that the world could kill me--starting with getting run down by a drunk burning his way down Valencia--that were infinitely more likely and immediate than terrorists. Terrorists kill a lot fewer people than bathroom falls and accidental electrocutions. Worrying about them always struck me as about as useful as worrying about getting hit by lightning.
Cory Doctorow
All life, all intelligence, all creativity and all 'design' anywhere in the universe, is the direct or indirect product of Darwinian natural selection. It follows that design comes late in the universe, after a period of Darwinian evolution. Design cannot precede evolution and therefore cannot underlie the universe.
Richard Dawkins
Give me the avowed the erect and manly foe Bold I can meet perhaps may turn the blow But of all plagues good Heaven thy wrath can send Save oh save me from the candid friend!
George Canning
In the multitude of middle-aged men who go about their vocations in a daily course determined for them much in the same way as they tie their cravats there is always a good number who once meant to shape their own deeds and alter the world a little.
George Eliot
Forerun thy peers, thy time, and letThy feet, millenniums hence, be set In midst of knowledge, dream'd not yet.
Alfred Tennyson
If heartache was a physical pain I could face, I could faceBut your hurting me from inside of my headAnd I can't take it, I can't take itI'm going to lose my mind
The Wanted
Touch has a memory. O say, love, say,What can I do to kill it and be free?
John Keats
It's official, then. Everyone knew I was gay before I did.
Liz Kessler
It never took her long to darken any conversation, as from birth she was inclined to see misery in each and every story, and to fabricate some when there was none.
Elif Shafak
Antistatic devices (ASD) are commonly used in many industries and may present a health hazard to those who work with these.
Steven Magee
Prayer is a mighty ministry that any believer can have—anywhere, anytime, and in any circumstance.
Elizabeth George
Plainly, she is quite besotted by him,... a girl, a young girl, and she is falling in love for the first time in her life. ...little Kitty Howard at a loss, stumbling in her speech, blushing like a rose, thinking of someone else and not herself is to see a girl become a woman.
Philippa Gregory
Political writing in our time consists almost entirely of prefabricated phrases bolted together like the pieces of a child's Meccano set. It is the unavoidable result of self-censorship. To write in plain, vigorous language one has to think fearlessly, and if one thinks fearlessly one cannot be politically orthodox.
George Orwell
You can tell the ideals of a nation by its advertisements.
George Norman Douglas
The proverb says that 'The answer to a fool is silence'. Observation, however, indicates that almost any other answer will have the same effect in the long run.
Idries Shah
In Africa, there is a birthrate trap: a higher standard of living will lead to smaller families but smaller families will not lead to a higher standard of living.
Christopher Hitchens
think of the condition of Europe for twenty years before, where people were fighting, not by thousands, but by millions; each one of whom as he struck his enemy wounded horribly some other innocent heart far away.
William Makepeace Thackeray
It is not possible for others to keep us prisoners if we want to be free
Mimi Novic
Of course the Neverlands vary a good deal. John’s, for instance, had a lagoon with flamingos flying over it at which John was shooting, while Michael, who was very small, had a flamingo with lagoons flying over it. John lived in a boat turned upside down on the sands, Michael in a wigwam, Wendy in a house of leaves deftly sewn together. John had no friends, Michael had friends at night, Wendy had a pet wolf forsaken by its parents...
J.M. Barrie
I ended up comparing any girl I was ever with to you. I was never going to find you in any of them was I, AJ? Because there will never be another you.
Jaimie Roberts
Love is something far more than desire for sexual intercourse; it is the principal means of escape from the loneliness which afflicts most men and women throughout the greater part of their lives. There is a deep-seated fear, in most people, of the cold world and the possible cruelty of the herd; there is a longing for affection, which is often concealed by roughness, boorishness or a bullying manner in men, and by nagging and scolding in women. Passionate mutual love while it lasts puts an end to this feeling; it breaks down the hard walls of the ego, producing a new being composed of two in one.
Bertrand Russell
Did I live? The human world is like a vast musical instrument on which we play our individual part while simultaneously listening to the compositions of others in an effort to contribute to the whole. We don't chose whether to engage, only how to; we either harmonize or create dissonance. Our words, our deeds, our very presence create and leave impressions in the minds of others just as a writer makes impressions with their words. Who you are is an unfolding narrative. You came from nothing and will return there eventually. Instead of taking ourselves so seriously all the time, we can discover the playful irony of a story that has never been told in quite this way before. -- Stephen Batchelor, Buddhism Without Beliefs
Stephen Batchelor
Now, what am I to do with this creature when I get it home?" when it grunted again, so violently, that she looked down into its face in some alarm. This time there could be no mistake about it: it was neither more nor less than a pig, and she felt that it would be quite absurd for her to carry it any further. | So she set the little creature down, and felt quite relieved to see it trot away quietly into the wood. "If it had grown up," she said to herself, "it would have made a dreadfully ugly child: but it makes a rather handsome pig, I think." And she began thinking over other children she knew, who might do very well as pigs, and was just saying to herself, "if one only knew the right way to change them--" when she was a little startled by seeing the Cheshire Cat sitting on a bough of a tree a few yards off.
Lewis Carroll
The old are often forgotten. Life moves on without a care for those who wish to remain in the past. We tend to talk too much because it’s rare that we’re listened to.
Tami Egonu
Much as he detested Filch, Harry couldn't help feeling a bit sorry for him, though not nearly as sorry as he felt for himself.
J.K. Rowling
She did not care where he was or how she was going to find him, all she knew is the reward would be worth it...however, alive, kicking and raring to go would be preferable
Virginia Alison
Let us not take it for granted that life exists more in what is commonly thought big than in what is commonly thought small.
Virginia Woolf
This pain, this terrible seeing-through that is in me now. It wasn't necessary. It is all pain, and it buys nothing. Gives birth to nothing.All in vain. All wasted.The older the world becomes, the more obvious it is. The bomb and the tortures in Algeria and the starving babies in the Congo. It gets bigger and darker.More and more suffering for more and more. And more and more in vain.
John Fowles
There is something in man which can detect real love. We rub it out, or muffle it, by substitute-love.
Idries Shah
Clarity within your vibrational energy embraces the journey of your soul giving you clear direction.
Debbie A. Anderson
Life is a prison in which we find ourselves.
Anthony T.Hincks
A pretty building I'm making, without either bricks or timber. I'm up i' the garret a'ready, and haven't so much as dug the foundation.
George Eliot
The other person always has a point, Listen to each other, and you'll hear it.
Sophie Kinsella
Truth, simplicity and love. These are the three main aspects of Eden Fruitarianism which the acolyte seeks to embrace, expand and better understand.
Mango Wodzak
Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about.
G.K. Chesterton
What happens when you don't know the truth but you can't believe the lies, when you can't find a way--through fact or fiction--to give meaning to your own existence? Without a narrative for you own life, do you ever really exist at all?
Maria Goodin
The current best estimate for the Earth’s weight is 5.9725 billion trillion tonnes, a difference of only about 1 per cent from Cavendish’s finding.
Bill Bryson
Even so-called 'short novels' are pretty long and can take several hours to read, so make sure you stay hydrated. I like to keep an isotonic sports drink handy if I'm going to be reading for any longer than forty minutes. I'll also take regular breaks and make sure I'm wearing loose-fitting clothing.
Richard Ayoade
This will not be the end of the Clans. As long as I have breath in body, the Clans will be safe.
Erin Hunter
Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity (EHS) is the most fascinating subject that I have ever encountered in human health!
Steven Magee
Wainscott, Deepspace Operations Group,’ said the man. ‘Wasn’t here, don’t exist, pleased to meet you.
Toby Frost
There are no boundaries among the geese. How can you have boundaries if you fly?
T.H. White