Quotes by British Authors - Page 73

He concluded that governments were like wars: the reasons and the forces might change, but it was still the same dying over the same soil.
Nick Harkaway
You can be rich or deliberately refuse to be rich. You can possess money, or you can despise money; the one fatal thing is to worship money and fail to get it
George Orwell
To be the father of growing daughters is to understand something of what Yeats evokes with his imperishable phrase 'terrible beauty.' Nothing can make one so happily exhilarated or so frightened: it's a solid lesson in the limitations of self to realize that your heart is running around inside someone else's body. It also makes me quite astonishingly calm at the thought of death: I know whom I would die to protect and I also understand that nobody but a lugubrious serf can possibly wish for a father who never goes away.
Christopher Hitchens
Those who do not feel pain seldom think that it is felt.
Samuel Johnson
At the sound of my name, those two worlds on either side of me collide, and my lips meet his. Time ceases to exist, and so, apparently does any logic that my mind is hanging on to. Logic would say that this is insane; every other fibre of my being says it's right.
Dianna Hardy
My father always used to tell one of his dreams, because it somehow seemed of a piece with what was to follow. He believed that it was a consequence of the thing's presence in the next room. My father dreamed of blood.It was the vividness of the dreams that was impressive, their minute detail and horrible reality. The blood came through the keyhole of a locked door which communicated with the next room. I suppose the two rooms had originally been designed en suite. It ran down the door panel with a viscous ripple, like the artificial one created in the conduit of Trumpingdon Street. But it was heavy, and smelled. The slow welling of it sopped the carpet and reached the bed. It was warm and sticky. My father woke up with the impression that it was all over his hands. He was rubbing his first two fingers together, trying to rid them of the greasy adhesion where the fingers joined." ("The Troll")
T.H. White
But there are people who take salt with their coffee. They say it gives a tang, a savour, which is peculiar and fascinating. In the same way there are certain places, surrounded by a halo of romance, to which the inevitable disillusionment you experience on seeing them gives a singular spice. You had expected something wholly beautiful and you get an impression which is infinitely more complicated than any that beauty can give you. It is the weakness in the character of a great man which may make him less admirable but certainly more interesting. Nothing had prepared me for Honolulu...
W Somerset Maugham
Isn't this enough? Just this world? Just THIS?
Tim Minchin
We are all broken, but none of us are beyond fixing".
Bella Forrest
How could I persuade the in-laws I was the right one for their daughter when, instead of focusing on small talk, all I could think about was not to kill them? I could only imagine what I'd say to the prospective in-laws, "Hello, it's a pleasure to eat, I mean, meet you.
Jayde Scott
But the truth is, it's not the idea, it's never the idea, it's always what you do wit
Neil Gaiman
No offense, doll, but that’s not something I’m willing to share. I’d prefer to live a long and happy life if it’s all the same to you.”“You can’t just throw out vague allegations and then say nothing else!”“See, that’s the good thing about being a fugitive like me. I can do what the hell I like, and I’m not answerable to anyone.” Stepping away from the bars, he stands with his legs stretched out wide. His stance matches his grin.“Sure looks like that’s working out well for you,” I say, piercing him with a scornful look.
Siobhan Davis
It's a matter of dishonour, and when it gets out, which it's bound to, this will be the one act you'll be remembered for. Everything else you achieved will be irrelevant. Your reputation will rest only on this, because ultimately reality is social, it's among others that we have to live and their judgements matter. - Pg. 198
Ian McEwan
I would not bring one shadow on his life, and this I know would break his noble heart.
Arthur Conan Doyle
I certainly don’t like the idea of missionaries. In fact, the whole business fills me with fear and alarm. I don’t believe in God, or at least not in the one we’ve invented for ourselves in England to fulfill our peculiarly English needs, and certainly not in the ones they’ve invented in America, who supply their servants with toupees, television stations, and, most important, toll-free telephone numbers. I wish that people who did believe in such things would keep them to themselves and not export them to the developing world.
Douglas Adams
There is no giving advice to a young man so much in love.
Cecil Woodham-Smith
The two words 'information' and 'communication' are often used interchangeably but they signify quite different things. Information is giving out communication is getting through.
Sydney J. Harris
I grow old … I grow old …t I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.tShall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?tI shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.tI have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.tI do not think that they will sing to me.t I have seen them riding seaward on the wavestCombing the white hair of the waves blown backtWhen the wind blows the water white and black.tWe have lingered in the chambers of the seatBy sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brownt Till human voices wake us, and we drown.
T.S Eliot
We are told, that the subjection of Americans may tend to the diminution of our own liberties; an event, which none but very perspicacious politicians are able to foresee. If slavery be thus fatally contagious, how is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?
Samuel Johnson
I gaped at what I saw next. She yanked his arm off and ate it. Gross! I knew she was hungry, but that was just...well, against the school rules for one thing.
Imogen Rose
For spiritual change, we need to see and understand ourselves. What sees is consciousness, it is what perceives, and is essentially what we are. To understand ourselves we need to look within and study how we think and feel, and doing that is called self-observation.
Belsebuub
The way to rock oneself back into writing is this. First gentle exercise in the air. Second the reading of good literature. It is a mistake to think that literature can be produced from the raw. One must get out of life...one must become externalised; very, very concentrated, all at one point, not having to draw upon the scattered parts of one's character, living in the brain.
Virginia Woolf
Mind you,” said Ponder, “the universe does have a rhythm. Day and night, light and dark, life and death—” “Chicken soup and croutons,” said Ridcully. "Well, not evert metaphor bears close examination".
Terry Pratchett
Mindfulness is about focusing on the magic of the present moment. Rather than fretting about the past or worrying about the future, the aim is to experience life as it unfolds moment by moment. This simple practice is immensely powerful. As we rush through our lives, mindfulness encourages us to stop constantly striving for something new or better and to embrace acceptance and gratitude. This allows us to tap into the joy and wonder in our lives, and to listen to the wisdom of our hearts. This book will show you how to experience small but beautiful moments of mindfulness every day and so guide you along the path to finding more peace and contentment in your life.
Anna Barnes
It was a common complaint amongst the Arts students that their library was in dire need of refurbishment. To call the old building shabby chic was being kind. It didn’t have automated stacks or self-service machines like the Management and Sciences library the other side of campus and the carpets and bookcases looked like they were probably the Victorian originals. But on days like this one, where the springtime sunshine streamed in through the high windows and set the dust motes dancing, Harriet sincerely felt that those BSc lot could stuff their vending machines and state of the art study pods. The Old Library was clearly suited for those who had poetry in their souls, rather than numbers in their heads.
Erin Lawless
Nim handed me a mug of tea. I took a sip and it was just how I like it, strong and sweet. If you added psychotic and emotionally unavailable to that, it would also cover my taste in women.
Alexis Hall
Mr. Moony presents his compliments to Professor Snape, and begs him to keep his abnormally large nose out of other people's business.Mr. Prongs agrees with Mr. Moony, and would like to add that Professor Snape is an ugly git.Mr. Padfoot would like to register his astonishment that an idiot like that ever became a professor.Mr. Wormtail bids Professor Snape good day, and advises him to wash his hair, the slimeball.
J.K. Rowling
Only a few hairline fractures around his eyes and lips spoke of the torment he’d been through. I wanted to smooth those lines away, and wished it was that easy to erase the scars of our past." ~ Muse, Drowning In The Dark #4 The Veil Series.
Pippa DaCosta
Experiment and reason, tempered by intuition, were to him preferable to solid plodding in the well-trodden paths of experience.
Richard Davenport-Hines
To a happy war!' laughter echoed with all the insane glee of an army of psychopaths.
Stuart Hill
The downtrodden who are the great creators of slang hurl pithiness and colour at poverty and oppression.
Anthony Burgess
When a person is down in the world an ounce of help is better than a pound of preaching.
Edward Bulwer-Lytton
For attractive lips speak words of kindness. For lovely eyes seek out the good in people. For a slim figure share your food with the hungry. For beautiful hair let a child run his or her fingers through it once a day. For poise walk with the knowledge you'll never walk alone.
Audrey Hepburn
There are occasions when it pays better to fight and be beaten than not to fight at all.
George Orwell
Intolerance is a form of divided consciousness in which abstract, conceptual, ideological hatred vanquishes concrete, real and individual moments of identification.
Michael Ignatieff
This thing was what existed before life, before the first stars, before the big bang. It was the emptiness before the universe, and the emptiness that would follow.
Alexander Gordon Smith
I'm gonna take all my sadness, frustration, anger and energy and channel it into becoming the best possible student.I am going to become a learning machine...Go ahead, go to all your parties. Go ahead and go home to your families and friends every weekend. You are probably smarter than me. But it doesn't matter. While you are goofing around, I'm gonna be studying, and I'm gonna catch you.
Peter Rogers
When your dreams tire they go underground and out of kindness that's where they stay.
Libby Houston
I've always said, stuff the engagement ring! Just build me a really big library.
Emma Watson
Unfortunately most ways of making big money take a long time. By the time one has made the money one is too old to enjoy it.
Ian Fleming
A jazz musician is a juggler who uses harmonies instead of oranges.
Benny Green
The damage and destruction from the soft brush of pen on paper, a minuscule twitch of muscles at the end of manicured fingers, and people's lives forever altered.
Jason Greensides
It was one of those brief spells of complete happiness that come once in a rare while, an unlooked for gift of God, when the forces of darkness, of sorrow and temptation seem miraculously held back, a breathing space in the battle.
Penelope Wilcock
Patriotism has nothing to do with Conservatism. It is actually the opposite of Conservatism, since it is a devotion to something that is always changing and yet is felt to be mystically the same.
George Orwell
Maybe. Just maybe... Lettie smiled. That would do. It might be an impossible plan but it's worth a try.
Sam Gayton
Writing a novel without being asked seems a bit like having a baby when you have nowhere to live.
Lucy Ellman
Might have just been an innocent bystander, sir,’ said Carrot‘What, in Ankh-Morpork?’‘Yes, sir.’‘We should have grabbed him, then, just for the rarity value
Terry Pratchett
There is no good and evil, there is only power and those too weak to seek it.
J.K. Rowling
Some are born weird, some achieve it, others have weirdness thrust upon them.
Dick Francis
The great danger of law in modern student affairs practice is apathy, acceptance, and blind disobedience.
Peter Lake
It is better to listen to a crow that lives in trees than to a learned man who lives only in ideas.
Kate Horsley
I cannot, I cannot,' cried Marianne; 'leave me, leave me, if I distress you; leave me, hate me, forget me! But do not torture me so. Oh! how easy for those who have no sorrow of their own to talk of extertion!
Jane Austen
Happiness is awaiting you every moment of each day for you to embrace. You just make the mistake that you need to achieve 'this' or 'that' or reach something you call 'success' in order to gain it.
Rasheed Ogunlaru
She heard Piers give an excited little cry and someone gave an excited little cry in return, and Grace Vaughn appeared in the open doorway, laden down with garment bags.For one fleeting moment, Ellie saw both husband and wife’s faces light up before they resembled their usual expressions – a scowl and a pout respectively.
Sarra Manning
Marriage has many pains but celibacy has no pleasures.
Samuel Johnson
The pure the beautiful the bright That stirred our hearts in youth The impulse to a wordless prayer The dreams of love and truth The longings after something lost The spirit's yearning cry The strivings after better hopes These things can never die.
Sarah Doudney
You consider me for a moment, perhaps balancing the weight of your fear against the loneliness you will later feel in your room if you do not speak now
Guy Mankowski
A student was given a mentoring opportunity, "in the hope that when you had somebody to lean on you, you would begin to stand a little steadier yourself, and get manliness and thoughtfulness.
Thomas Hughes
[T]he source of everything respectable in man either as an intellectual or as a moral being namely, that his errors are corrigible.
John Stuart Mill
I got tired of feeling like Dracula. I wanted to see some daylight, and not just at six o’clock in the morning.
Kate Moss