Quotes by British Authors

...[She] was not nearly so intrusive. If she happened to observe the comings and goings of her friends out of the corner of her eye (which she could hardly fail to do, given the nature of her favorite sitting-place) and chanced to be able to remember when she had seen them and where they had been going, it was simply a tribute to her keen powers of observation and recall. Conscious spying was beneath her altogether.
Tom Holt
Hairspray and blusher, eyelash curlers, eye-shadow palettes the size of tea-trays. Even before they left school it was as if they were already rehearsing for some witless kind of womanhood.
Alison Fell
Scientifically, just because the spiritual person can manifest a drink of coffee, does not mean that he or she knows how it happens!
Richard Gentle
There is no such thing as notoriety in the United States these days, let alone infamy. Celebrity is all.
Christopher Hitchens
Don't be so obsessed with stardom that you miss out on success
Rasheed Ogunlaru
I don’t know if you have had the same experience, but the snag I always come up against when I’m telling a story is this dashed difficult problem of where to begin it.
P.G. Wodehouse
I never thought I'd hear myself say it, but safety first!
J.K. Rowling
During my five years on Mauna Kea, workers routinely displayed the symptoms of Cerebral Hypoxia
Steven Magee
Suddenly I had to laugh. It was like realising you definitely need to projectile vomit when you thought you had it under control in some imprisoning form of public space.
Olivia Sudjic
My word is iron," Kublai said to the guards, as Meng Guang was led away. "Your people will come to know this, in time.
Conn Iggulden
A person who has not done one half his day's work by ten o' clock runs a chance of leaving the other half undone.
Emily Brontë
Few things surpass old wine and they may preach Who please the more because they preach in vain - Let us have wine and women mirth and laughter Sermons and soda-water the day after.
Lord Byron
That great artillery of God Almighty.
William Temple
To mankind in general Macbeth and Lady Macbeth stand out as the supreme type of all that a host and hostess should not be.
Max Beerbohm
The only causes of regret are laziness outbursts of temper hurting others prejudice jealousy and envy.
Germaine Greer
The first years of man must make provision for the last.
Samuel Johnson
To have his path made clear for him is the aspiration of every human being in our beclouded and tempestuous existence.
Joseph Conrad
It is the hour when from the boughs The nightingale's high note is heard It is the hour when lovers' vows Seem sweet in every whisper'd word.
Lord Byron
Leonard Woolf in a letter to Lytton Strachey said he hated John Maynard Keynes "for his crass stupidity and hideous face".
Leonard Woolf
Never have a friend that's poorer than yourself.
Douglas Jerrold
The perplexity of life arises from there being too many interesting things in it for us to be interested properly in any of them.
G.K. Chesterton
Every man has his price.
Sir Robert Walpole
It (urban peacekeeping) was quite a task, requiring a permanent balancing act between communities, each with their own interests, festivals, traditions and historical rivalries imported from the wide-open spaces of the countryside into close quarters.
Charles Emmerson
How’s things, man?” The black man extended his hand for a handshake. Mathematical formulae were jotted on the sleeve of his shirt, right up to the elbow.“Very good,” said Peter. It had never occurred to him before that dark-skinned people didn’t have the option of jotting numbers on their skin. You learned something new about human diversity every day.
Michel Faber
In the context of the autism world (and my outlook in general) this is were I stand equality is for everyone, everybody in the world - I look at both sides of the the coin and take into account peoples realities (that makes me neutral/moderate/in the middle). That means that you look in a more three dimensional perspective of peoples diverse realities you cannot speak for all but one can learn from EACH OTHER through listening and experiencing. I also try my best to live with the good cards I was given not over-investing in my autism being the defining factor of my being (but having a healthy acknowledgement of it) that it's there but also thinking about other qualities I have such as being a writer, poet and artist.I do have disability, I do have autism and I have a "mild" learning disability that is true but I a human being first and foremost. And for someone to be seen as person equal to everyone else is a basic human right.
Paul Isaacs
At a lunchtime reception for the diplomatic corps in Washington, given the day before the inauguration of Barack Obama as president, I was approached by a good-looking man who extended his hand. 'We once met many years ago,' he said. 'And you knew and befriended my father.' My mind emptied, as so often happens on such occasions. I had to inform him that he had the advantage of me. 'My name is Hector Timerman. I am the ambassador of Argen
Christopher Hitchens
I do wish," said Lucy, "now that we're not thirsty, we could go on feeling as not-hungry as we did when we were thirsty.
C.S. Lewis
Everything ok here ?"Ryan grunted urging her with a hand on her lower back."He thinks you should mind your own business,"Makenna told the Beta,translating the grunt.Dominic cocked his head."You understand his grunts?"She lifted her chin."I thought it was crystal clear."Dominic turned to Ryan."Marry her."Ryan grunted again before heading for the door."What did he say?"Dominic asked her."Fuck off,"she translated.
Suzanne Wright
When there is abuse by itself it's scary enough. When there is abuse within a religious setting it is so terrifying to people. Look how long its taken the Ryan report of 2009 took till then to talk about ritualistic kinds of abuse children in Ireland went through at the hands of nuns and priests, so nobody can bear it when its linked to religion, but when it's linked to religion that is not mainstream it seems to frighten people more. As if yes, abuse exists, Satanism exists, but you can't have Satanist abuse.
Valerie Sinason
...it only takes one voice, at the right pitch, to start an avalanche.
Dianna Hardy
For most men the world is centered in self, which is misery: to have one's world centered in God is peace.
Donald Hankey
Over the years I have come to understand three things about the police: 1) They cover up virtually everything involving a police officer. 2) They will not enforce the laws for people that they do not like. 3) They will target people that they do not like for prosecution using various techniques that include unwarranted stops, drug testing, faked police reports, tickets, fines, blatantly mislead the judge at court, and removal of USA federal rights.
Steven Magee
High time he had another tutor,' said Larry. 'You leave the house for five minutes and come back and find him disembowelling Moby Dick on the front porch.' 'I'm sure he didn't mean any harm,' said Mother, ' but it was rather silly for him to do it on the veranda.
Gerald Durrell
Working on the summit of Mauna Kea was comparable to working on the hospital pulmonary ward with sick people sucking on oxygen cylinders.
Steven Magee
Thinking Reports enable the prisoners to wash their brains, and become new!" he announced cheerfully. "Washing the brain is very important to your reform, and improving your real situation.
Dominic Stevenson
I became a journalist because I did not want to rely on newspapers for information.
Christopher Hitchens
The point of the list wasn't just to tick items off and forget about them, it was to learn something new.
Lindsey Kelk
My name is Mr Bread." He began writing his name neatly on the board. "But you can call me Peter."Suddenly there was quiet, as thirty little brains whirred."Pita Bread!" proclaimed a ginger-haired boy from the back.
David Walliams
It was rather too late in the day to set about being simple-minded and ignorant.
Jane Austen
Our first point of discussion is the hunt. (...) My idea is to start the film with an image of the vixen locked out of her lair which has been plugged up. Her terror as she's pursued across the country. This is a big deal. It means training a fox from birth or dressing up a dog to look like a fox. Or hiring David Attenbrorough, who probably knows a few foxes well enough to ask a favour.
Emma Thompson
Paparazzi arrived for Hugh [Grant]. We had to stand under a tree and smile for them.Photographer: 'Hugh, could you look less -- um --'Hugh: 'Pained?
Emma Thompson
After six months of building muscle mass I can now confirm that muscle mass creates increased tolerance to biologically harmful radiation sources.
Steven Magee
To devastate is easier and more spectacular than to create.
Anthony Burgess
You are one brave woman," he whispers, "I am in awe of you.
E.L. James
Such is the condition of organic nature! whose first law might be expressed in the words 'Eat or be eaten!' and which would seem to be one great slaughter-house, one universal scene of rapacity and injustice!
Erasmus Darwin
So you’ll get your kicks by exerting your will over me.”“It’s about gaining your trust and your respect, so you’ll let me exert my will over you. I will gain a great deal of pleasure, joy, even in your submission. The more you submit, the greater my joy – it’s a very simple equation.”“Okay, and what do I get out of this?”He shrugs and looks almost apologetic.“Me,” he says simply.
E.L. James
A spirit of candor and frankness, when wholly unaccompanied with coarseness, headmired in others, but he could not acquire it himself.
Anne Brontë
The problem with radiation research is that you are constantly battling the biological effects of delayed radiation complications.
Steven Magee
Dickens writes that one of his characters, "listened to everything without seeming to, which showed he understood his business.
Charles Dickens
It was that culture of denial that allowed my abuse to take place to start with. Did you know that it wasn't until 1984 that the Department of Health added the category of "sexual abuse" to its list of harms that can befall children? When I was being raped and made pregnant at the age of 11, it wasn't just my own dissociative process that told me that it wasn't happening; it was society too. "We don't have a category for that. Computer says no."͏
Carolyn Spring
Telling us to obey instinct is like telling us to obey 'people.' People say different things: so do instincts. Our instincts are at war... Each instinct, if you listen to it, will claim to be gratified at the expense of the rest.
C.S. Lewis
It is a rather remarkable trick of the mind that there can be a wicked little voice that whispers in your ear that you’ve done it before and nothing happened, so why not do it again? Everything will be OK, it says. Things are bad now, but something will turn up. The good will prevail, you’ll be rescued, you’ll find the answer at the last minute. No one dies in a story…
F.D. Lee
Jokes and media slurs about rape and its survivors not only desensitize the issue but also have an impact on rape conviction rates!"Widespread “myths and stereotypes” about rape victims may give jurors “preconceived ideas” that could affect their decisions in court. When victims were demonised in the media, you can see how juries would bring their preconceptions to bear."-Alison Saunders, head of the Crown Prosecution Service, UK.
Alison Saunders head of the Crown Prosecution Service
Amid the worry of a self- condemnatory soliloquy, his demeanour seemed grave, perhaps cold, both to me and his mother. And yet there was no bad feeling, no malice, no rancour, no littleness in his countenance, beautiful with a man's best beauty, even in its depression. When I placed his chair at the table, which I hastened to do, anticipating the servant, and when I handed him his tea, which I did with trembling care, he said: "Thank you, Lucy," in as kindly a tone of his full pleasant voice as ever my ear welcomed.
Charlotte Brontë
The line of traffic advancing towards the rising sun looked like a procession of the returning dead. Every one of them, solitaries in clean shirts, smoking, checking mirrors to see if their reflections were still there, wore dark glasses.
Iain Sinclair
The murky world of terrorism is more relevant than ever today: terrorist organizations, whether Bolshevik at the beginning of the twentieth century or Jihadi at the start of the twenty-first, have much in common.
Simon Sebag Montefiore
Counterinsurgency rests on the assumption that the enemy has significant support in the communities from which it recruits. The aim of counterinsurgency strategy is to deny the enemy any propaganda victories that can further fuel its recruitment. Insurgents must be isolated from their targeted host communities. This requires a combination of psychological, physical and economic warfare, all with the aim of undermining the insurgents’ ideological, operational and financial capabilities.From: Maajid Nawaz's article titled, 'How to Beat Islamic State', December 11th, 2015
Maajid Nawaz
The similarities between groups like Al Qaeda or the Islamic State and USSR are too numerous and fundamental to be ignored. Both groups are driven by a totalitarian vision. The followers of Karl Marx envisioned a world transformed into a workers’ paradise in which all other classes had been destroyed and only one party, the Communist Party, was in control. Today’s jihadists also have a universal vision. They look forward to a global caliphate in which all have submitted to the will of Allah and live as Muslims, the infidels and apostates having been slain. Both visions are exclusive, absolutist, and totalitarian. They are predicated on a ‘them or us’ vision of how the world must be. There is no possibility for peaceful coexistence with the ‘other'.
Sebastian Gorka
Explorers like to pretend that they are a select breed of people with iron nerve and an ability to endure terrible hardship.
Tahir Shah
Don’t jump to—”“I’m not,” Dekka said. “But if that’s what it is, if it’s those things, I’m going to ask you to take care of me.”“We’ve been over this,” Sam said, pulling his hand away.“If I tell you it’s time, you do it, okay, Sam?”He couldn’t answer.“I’m not afraid to die,” Dekka said.
Michael Grant