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
I can see why people find him [Hugo Chávez] charming. He's very ebullient, as they say. I've heard him make a speech, though, and he has a vice that's always very well worth noticing because it's always a bad sign: he doesn't know when to sit down. He's worse than Castro was. He won't shut up. Then he told me that he didn't think the United States landed on the moon and didn't believe in the existence of Osama bin Laden. He thought all of this was all a put-up job. He's a wacko.
Christopher Hitchens
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
When Iran starts to regulate USA nuclear facilities, it will be a step in the right direction for the safety and security of 300 million people.
Steven Magee
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
Oats n.s. A grain which in England is generally given to horses but in Scotland supports the people.
Samuel Johnson
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
Nothing is more hopeless than a scheme of merriment.
Samuel Johnson
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 feast of reason and the flow of soul.
Alexander Pope
Let us have wine and woman mirth and laughter. Sermons and soda-water the day after.
Lord Byron
Eat bread at pleasure drink wine by measure.
Randle Cotgrave
Demagogues and agitators are very unpleasant but they are incidents to a free and constitutional country and you must put up with these inconveniences or do without many important advantages.
Benjamin Disraeli
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
The essence of diversity is the individual's experience of it. Diversity is about personalised shades of experience emanating from universal colours of humanity, but each person takes from the universal what is relevant to them and alters it by their own interpersonal experience.
Camila Batmanghelidjh
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
Libraries are brothels for the mind. Which means that librarians are the madams, greeting punters, understanding their strange tastes and needs, and pimping their books.
Guy Browning
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
Upon my word, you five your opinion very decidedly for so young a person.
Jane Austen
The attempt to interpret human behavior in terms of models derived from the natural sciences eventually destroys personal responsibility.
Lesslie Newbigin
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
A friendliness, as of dwarfs shaking hands, was in the air...
E.M. Forster
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
All have their worth and each contributes to the worth of the others.
J.R.R. Tolkien
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
The true business of the philosopher, though not flattering to his vanity, is merely to ascertain, arrange and condense the facts.
John Leslie
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