Quotes by British Authors - Page 77

He runs his eye along the row of knives in their racks, the cleavers for splitting bones. He picks one up, looks at its edge, decides it needs sharpening and says, "Do you think I look like a murderer? In your good opinion?"A silence. After a while, Thurston proffers, "At this moment, master, I would have to say...
Hilary Mantel
Each new day offers the chance to start afresh, to achieve those things you most desires.
Steven Redhead
Cats will amusingly tolerate humans only until someone comes up with a tin opener that can be operated with a paw.
Terry Pratchett
Choose empathy over apathy.
Mango Wodzak
When you are young, you think that the old lament the deterioration of life because this makes it easier for them to die without regret. When you are old, you become impatient with the way in which the young applaud the most insignificant improvements … while remaining heedless of the world’s barbarism. I don’t say things have got worse; I merely say the young wouldn’t notice if they had. The old times were good because then we were young, and ignorant of how ignorant the young can be.
Julian Barnes
Wrong will be right, when Aslan comes in sight,At the sound of his roar, sorrows will be no more,When he bares his teeth, winter meets its death,And when he shakes his mane, we shall have spring again.
C.S. Lewis
Prayer is in essence rebellion—rebellion against the world in its fallenness. Prayer is the undying refusal to accept as normal what is pervasively abnormal. It is the refusal of every agenda, every scheme, every interpretation that is at odds with the norm as originally established by God.
David G. Wells
Reading isn't an occupation we encourage among police officers. We try to keep the paperwork down to a minimum.
Joe Orton
A proverb is one man's wit and all men's wisdom.
John Russell
Read over your compositions and when you meet a passage which you think is particularly fine strike it out.
Samuel Johnson
When was it exactly that I became... this? By small degrees, I suppose. One act presses hard upon another, on a path we have no choice but to follow, and each time there are reasons. We do what we must, we do what we are told, we do what is easiest. What else can we do but solve one sordid problem at a time? Then one day we look up and fine we are... this.
Joe Abercrombie
Simple. I got very bored and depressed, so I went and plugged myself in to its external computer feed. I talked to the computer at great length and explained my view of the Universe to it," said Marvin."And what happened?" pressed Ford."It committed suicide," said Marvin and stalked off back to the Heart of Gold.
Douglas Adams
Thoughts, pictures of him would come to me just a second after waking, shocking me from the forgetfulness of sleep, striking blows that were almost physical. And even in sleep I was not completely free. So often sleep brought dreams of him.
Bernard Taylor
In his library he had been always sure of leisure and tranquility; and though prepared, as he told Elizabeth, to meet with folly and conceit in every other room in the house, he was used to be free from them there
Jane Austen
If a book is worth reading it is worth buying.
John Ruskin
Shunting closer, I snuggle into his chest, soaking up his fresh woodsy scent. His arms encircle me and pull me close. “You always smell like home,” I whisper under my breath. Smooth, soft fingers tilt my chin upward, and I’m startled when my face meets his. Tears glisten in his eyes as he looks at me adoringly. Pressing his forehead to mine, he kisses me sweetly, his lips making brisk tantalizing sweeps across my mouth.“My heart is your home,” he whispers, his voice breathless. “It always will be.
Siobhan Davis
All progress is based upon a universal innate desire on the part of every living organism to live beyond its income.
Samuel Butler
Soul meets soul on lovers' lips.
Percy Bysshe Shelley
The inspector had interviewed boys before, boys from the poorest parts of town. He had the habit of not specifying "mam" or "dad" or even "parents." They were things he knew not every child possessed and so he was careful.
Sylvia Waugh
if admiration were not generally deemed the exclusive property of the rich, and contempt the constant lackey of poverty, the love of gain would cease to be an universal problem.
William Godwin
This rose is not so fragrant as a summer flower, but it has stood through hardships none of them could bear: the cold rain of winter has sufficed to nourish it, and its faint sun to warm it; the bleak winds have not blanched it, or broken its stem, and the keen frost has not blighted it. Look, Gilbert, it is still fresh and blooming as a flower can be, with the cold snow even now on its petals.
Anne Brontë
The Problem is Not the Problem.The Problem is Your Attitude Towards the Problem
Captain Jack Sparrow
I believe in making my potential models comfortable,’ he explained when she shot a surprised look at him. ‘I’m considerate, unlike some artists who bend their sitters into difficult positions and expect them to stay there for hours. My demands are entirely reasonable.’For a moment, her libido got interested in his demands. What would it be like to listen to the soft caress of his voice as he told her how he wanted her? To have those midnight-blue eyes roam over every inch of her body? To be passive, helpless, whilst he did whatever he pleased?
Christine Stovell
The continuous narrative of existence is a lie. There is no continuous narrative, there are lit-up moments, and the rest is dark.
Jeanette Winterson
If a woman is interested in her own struggle into identity and power, then she will be interested in other women. The lives of these, and other women, show me what a woman can do even without formal power, education, or rights, in a world dominated by men. They are inspirational examples of the strength of the female spirit.
Philippa Gregory
I suspect there is something in our very mode of thought which makes it inevitable that we should always be baffled by actual existence, whatever character actual existence may have.
C.S. Lewis
Inside every sane person there's a madman struggling to get out," said the shopkeeper. "That's what I've always thought. No one goes mad quicker than a totally sane person.
Terry Pratchett
The biggest surprise that I had during my time in high altitude astronomy was being prevented from arranging a free Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA) onsite evaluation to assist with bringing the observatory into OSHA compliance by the upper management team that I reported to.
Steven Magee
Cease trying to work everything out with your mind. It will get you nowhere. Live by intuition and inspiration and let your whole life be a Revelation.
Eileen Cady
Death Laughs In The Faces Of Clocks
Dean Cavanagh
It's red hot, mate. I hate to think of this sort of book getting in the wrong hands. As soon as I've finished this, I shall recommend they ban it.
Tony Hancock
We aren't either afraid or brave, we’re usually both.
Beth Kempton
The select natures who pant after the ideal, and find nothing in pantaloons or petticoats great enough to command their reverence and love, are curiously in unison with the narrowest and pettiest.
George Eliot
No society can work unless its members feel responsibilities as well as rights.
Richard Layard
The day we find the perfect church, it becomes imperfect the moment we join it.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
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
The bow is bent the arrow flies The winged shaft of fate.
Ira Aldridge
Abortions are never seen as a positive thing, as any other operation to remedy a potentially life-ruining condition would.
Caitlin Moran
The happy combination of fortuitous circumstances.
Walter Scott
Just because something is a metaphor doesn't mean it can't be real.
Terry Pratchett
Wars are not fought for territory but for words. Man's deadliest weapon is language. He is as susceptible to being hypnotized by slogans as he is to infectious diseases. And where there is an epidemic the group-mind takes over.
Arthur Koestler
O what a blessed day that will be when I shall . . . stand on the shore and look back on the raging seas I have safely passed; when I shall review my pains and sorrows, my fears and tears, and possess the glory which was the end of all!
Richard Baxter
To master magical realism, one must make the real seem unreal but, more importantly, make the unreal seem real.
Kevin Ansbro
All Egypt is obsessed with death! And do you know why, Renisenb? Because we have eyes in our bodies, but none in our minds. We cannot conceive of a life other than this one - of a life after death. We can visualize only a continuation of what we know. We have no real belief in a God.
Agatha Christie
Jesus’ command to love our neighbours is a command to love all strangers precisely because we too have been strangers to God and welcomed in.
Kester Brewin
So please, oh please, we beg, we pray,Go throw your TV set away,And in its place you can installA lovely bookshelf on the wall.Then fill the shelves with lots of books.
Roald Dahl
Where should I go?" -Alice. "That depends on where you want to end up." - The Cheshire Cat.
Lewis Carroll
What frightened me most was, I could no longer believe in my own life as a story. Everyone needs a story, a part to play in order to avoid the realization that life is without significance. How else do any of us survive? It’s what makes life bearable, even interesting. When it becomes neither, people say you’ve lost the plot. Or just lost it.
Amanda Craig
Facing up to non-being enables us to put our life into perspective, see it in its entirety, and thereby lend it a sense of direction and unity. If the ultimate source of anxiety is fear of the future, the future ends in death; and if the ultimate source of anxiety is uncertainty, death is the only certainty. It is only by facing up to death, accepting its inevitability, and integrating it into life that we can escape from the pettiness and paralysis of anxiety, and, in so doing, free ourselves to make the most out of our lives and out of ourselves.
Neel Burton
And I put my hand on her arm to stop her rowing.Aaron’s Noise roars up in red and black.The current takes us on.“I’m sorry!” I cry as the river takes us away, my words ragged things torn from me, my chest pulled so tight I can’t barely breathe. “I’m sorry, Manchee!”?”“Manchee!” I scream.Aaron brings his free hand towards my dog.“MANCHEE!”?”And Aaron wrenches his arms and there’s a CRACK and a scream and a cut-off yelp that tears my heart in two forever and forever.And the pain is too much it’s too much it’s too much and my hands are on my head and I’m rearing back and my mouth is open in a never-ending wordless wail of all the blackness that’s inside of me.
Patrick Ness
To a man and woman, all of her elderly patients had been surprised to be old - which Avery privately regarded as a serious failure to pay attention.
Lionel Shriver
Have you ever been lonely? No, neither have I. Solitary, yes. Alone, certainly. But lonely means minding about being on your own. I've never minded about it.
Sebastian Faulks
The long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead.
John Maynard Keynes
Tears blurred her vision as she leaned over him. His mouth was surely made for smiling. For laughing. For kissing. Grief welled up along with the feeling that he might never do any of those things again.She closed her eyes and pressed her lips to his. They were cool and unresponsive.Then they parted.She jerked back, saw his eyes flutter open.“Don’t stop now,” he whispered.
Elena Greene
If I really care for you, if I try to think myself into your position and orientation, then the world is bettered by my effort at understanding and comprehension. If you respond to my effort by trying to extend the same sympathy and understanding to others in turn, then the betterment of the world has been minutely but significantly extended. We want people to feel with us, more than to act for us.
George Eliot
When I have come to you, at last (as I have always done), I have come topeace and happiness. I come home, now, like a tired traveller, and findsuch a blessed sense of rest!
Charles Dickens
I do not look at myself. I have given up myself. I had to, you know, after the murder. That was what it did for me. And that was how everything began
C.S. Lewis
All I have is a voice.
W.H. Auden
However smart and determined you are, your life is always going to consist of light and darkness, joy and sadness, good or bad, up and down, yang and yin.
Gary Hayden
I have been looking at the marriage service in the Prayer-book, and it seems to me very humiliating that a giver-away should be required at all. According to the ceremony as there printed, my bridegroom chooses me of his own will and pleasure; but I don’t choose him. Somebody gives me to him, like a she-ass or she-goat, or any other domestic animal.
Thomas Hardy