Quotes by British Authors - Page 200

I have never fully unbosomed myself to any human being; I have never been encouraged to trust much in the sympathy of my fellow men. But we have all a chance of meeting with some pity, some tenderness, some charity, when we are dead: it is the living only who cannot be forgiven - the living only from whom men's indulgence and reverence are held off, like the rain by the hard east wind. While the heart beats, bruise it - it is your only opportunity; while the eye can still turn towards you with moist, timid entreaty, freeze it with an icy unanswering gaze; while the ear, that delicate messenger to the inmost sanctuary of the soul, can still take in the tones of kindness, put it off with hard civility, or sneering compliment, or envious affectation of indifference; while the creative brain can still throb with the sense of injustice, with the yearning for brotherly recognition - make haste - oppress it with your ill-considered judgements, your trivial comparisons, your careless misrepresentations. The heart will by and by be still - ubi saeoa indignatio ulterius cor lacerate nequit; the eye will cease to entreat; the ear will be deaf; the brain will have ceased from all wants as well as from all work. Then your charitable speeches may find vent; then you may remember and pity the toil and the struggle and the failure; then you may give due honour to the work achieved; then you may find extenuation for errors, and may consent to bury them ("The Lifted Veil")
George Eliot
And all the winds go sighing, For sweet things dying
Christina Rossetti
Writing about the indignities of old age: the daunting stairway to the restaurant restroom, the benefits of a wheelchair in airports and its disadvantages at cocktail parties, giving the user what he described as a child's-eye view of the party and a crotch-level view of the guests.Dying is a matter of slapstick and pratfalls. The aging process is not gradual or gentle. It rushes up, pushes you over and runs off laughing. No one should grow old who isn't ready to appear ridiculous.
John Mortimer
Dying is a dull, dreary affair. my advice is that you have nothing whatever to with it.
W Somerset Maugham
He's lost his colour very far from here,Poured it down shell-holes till the veins ran dry
Wilfred Owen
A sematary," I say. "A what?" Viola says, looking round at all the square stones marking out their graves. Must be a hundred, maybe two, in orderly rows and well-kept grass. Settler life is hard and it's short and lotsa New World people have lost the battle."It's a place for burying dead folk,"
Patrick Ness
Death straps me to the hospital bed, claws its way onto my chest and sits there.I didn't know it would hurt this much. I didn't know that everything good that's ever happened in my life would be emptied out by it.
Jenny Downham
Science is not, as so many seem to think, something apart, which has to do with telescopes, retorts, and test-tubes, and especially with nasty smells, but it is a way of searching out by observation, trial and classification; whether the phenomena investigated be the outcome of human activities, or of the more direct workings of nature's laws. Its methods admit of nothing untidy or slip-shod; its keynote is accuracy and its goal is truth.
Archibald E. Garrod
Your ultimate goal for marriage is that both of you—as husband and wife—commit to keep growing spiritually.
Elizabeth George
It felt like one of those movies where a bunch of misfits, each gifted in his own way - one in explosives, another in disguise, another in forgery or karate- are thrown together to achieve a dangerous mission.
Philip Delves Broughton
Don't be afraid to take a big step if one is indicated. You can't cross a chasm in two small jumps.
David Lloyd George
Time flies when you grow fangs and fur.
Dianna Hardy
Learning how not to do things is as hard as learning how to do them. Harder, maybe. There'd be a sight more frogs in this world if I didn't know how not to turn people into them. And big pink balloons, too.
Terry Pratchett
He was just drifting off to sleep when it occurred to him that perhaps the dog was not so ordinary after all. Perhaps he was someone the ogre had changed, and Ivo was going to spend the night hugging a headmaster or a tax inspector
Eva Ibbotson
Nobody really metamorphoses. Cinderella is always Cinderella, just in a nicer dress. The Ugly Duckling was always a swan, just a smaller version. And I bet the tadpole and the caterpillar still feel the same, even when they're jumping and flying, swimming and floating.Just like I am now.
Holly Smale
How does one become butterfly?' Pooh asked pensively.'You must want to fly so much that you are willing to give up being a caterpillar,' Piglet replied.'You mean to die?' asked Pooh.'Yes and now,' he answered. 'What looks like you will die, but what's really you will live on.
A.A. Milne
Does a caterpillar sit on the same leaf when it's a butterfly? No! It goes for a little fly and sees something of the world. Does the tadpole stay in the same pond once it's a frog? No! It stretches its legs, goes for a jump, explores other waters. Did Cinderella go back cleaning hearths once she married the prince? ... Transformation means moving forward. If a butterfly stays on the same leaf and a frog stays in the same pond, then they may as well have stayed a caterpillar or a tadpole. There was no point in metamorphosing.
Holly Smale
Tragedy is like a strong acid - it dissolves away all but the very gold of truth.
D H Lawwrence
He had turned into a dragon while he was asleep. Sleeping on a dragon's hoard with greedy, dragonish thoughts in his heart, he had become a dragon himself.
C.S. Lewis
Yes, I am white now,' said Gandalf. 'Indeed I am Saruman, one might almost say, Saruman as he should have been.
J.R.R. Tolkien
And each stroke of his tongue ripped off skin after successive skin, all the skins of a life in the world, and left behind a nascent patina of shining hairs. My earrings turned back to water and trickled down my shoulders; I shrugged the drops off my beautiful fur.
Angela Carter
If we stay with animal analogies for a moment, owners of dogs will have noticed that, if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they will think you are god. Whereas owners of cats are compelled to realize that, if you provide them with food and water and shelter and affection, they draw the conclusion that they are god. (Cats may sometimes share the cold entrails of a kill with you, but this is just what a god might do if he was in a good mood.)
Christopher Hitchens
The human race can be roughly divided into two categories: ailurophiles and ailurophobes - cat lovers and the underprivileged.
David Taylor
My old black cat, he passed away this morning. He never knew what a heartache was. Woke up late and he danced till noon. If questioned why, answered just because. He never spoke much, preferring silence. Eight lost lives was all he had.
Ian Anderson
Even gods decay. Like, in 1890 somebody sold off thousands of mummified Ancient Egyptian sacred cats - _for fertilizer_. Get the point? Constancy isn't.
Jonathan Gash
For he will doAs he do doAnd there's no doing anything about it!
T.S Eliot
But above and beyond there's still one name left over,And that is the name that you never will guess;The name that no human research can discover--But the cat himself knows, and will never confess.When you notice a cat in profound meditation,The reason, I tell you, is always the same:His mind is engaged in a rapt contemplationOf the thought, of the thought, of the thought of his name:His ineffable effableEffanineffableDeep and inscrutable singular Name.
T.S Eliot
Annette sighs. Manfred's been upgrading this robot cat for years, and his ex-wife Pamela used to mess with its neural configuration, too: This is its third body, and it's getting more realistically uncooperative with every hardware upgrade. Sooner or later it's going to demand a litter tray and start throwing up on the carpet.
Charles Stross
Surely you're not saying that the life of a human and the life of an animal are of the same value?' he ven
David Michie
There's no thrilling anticipation of the day's first cup of coffee...nor the eye-closing delight of that first swallow of sauvignon blanc in the evening. We cats have no access to everyday mood-enhancing substances. Apart from humble catnip, there is no pharmaceutical refuge if we're suffering from boredom, depression, existential crisis, or even an everyday headache.
David Michie
I didn't know you had a cat!' she excl
David Michie
Even cats have questions – like “Can’t you see my bowl is empty?” or “Why don’t you turn off the ***! rain now?” From their perspective we are gods!
Jay Woodman
Indeed, organizing atheists has been compared to herding cats, because they tend to think independently and will not conform to authority.
Richard Dawkins
Nothing snubs quite like a cat. What evolutionary purpose did it serve, this inherent disdain, this artful blanking?
Will Wiles
No one has ever been able to discover how they make this subtle sound, and what is more, no one ever will. It is a secret that has endured from the very beginning of the time of cats and will never be revealed.
Paul Gallico
You know, Professor, this stray kitten and you have one very important thing in common.''I can't imagine,' responded the professor coolly.'Your life is the most important thing in the world to you,' said His Holiness. 'Same for this kitten.
David Michie
Well, that's just what I'm talking about. All Maslow would need to do is rub against your legs and start purring, and you'd immediately forget all this Hitler/Card nonsense. No one does PR like a cat. Why do you think I'm so desperate to hire him?
Manny Rayner
An old couple came running from a motorhome, scribbling as they ran. Their sign read, Can you check on our cat, Ariel?No one would answer that, because the cats had all been eaten.
Michael Grant
But there was a kitten on my pillow, and it was purring in my face and vibrating gently with every purr, and, very soon, I slept.
Neil Gaiman
The ball of dark fur pressed itself into my chest, and I wished she was my kitten, and knew that she was not.
Neil Gaiman
In the end, the cats were rounded up and put into a room. My father went into the room with his First World War revolver, more reliable, he said, than a shotgun. The gun sounded again, again, again, again. The cats that were still uncaught had sensed their fate and were raging and screaming all over the bush, with people after them. My father came out of the room at one point, very white, with tight angry lips and wet eyes. He was sick. Then he swore a good deal, then he went back into the room and the shooting continued. At last he came out. The servants went in and carried off the corpses to the disused well. Some of the cats had escaped – three never came back at all to the murderous household, so they must have gone wild and taken their chances. When my mother returned from her trip, and the neighbour who had brought her had gone, she walked quiet and uncommenting through the house where there was now one cat, her old favourite, asleep on her bed. My mother had not asked for this cat to be spared, because it was old, and not very well. But she was looking for it; and she sat a long time stroking and talking to it. Then she came out to the verandah. There sat my father and there I sat, murderers, and feeling it. She sat down. He was rolling a cigarette. His hands were still shaking. He looked up at her and said: ‘That must never happen again.’ And I suppose it never did.
Doris Lessing
When the man was disgraced and told to go away, he was allowed to ask all the animals whether any of them would come with him and share his fortunes and his life. There were only two who agreed to come entirely of their own accord, and they were the dog and the cat. And ever since then, those two have been jealous of each other, and each is for ever trying to make man choose which one he likes best. Every man prefers one or the other.
Richard Adams
A garden without cats, it will be generally agreed, can scarcely deserve to be called a garden at all...much of the magic of the heather beds would vanish if, as we bent over them, there was no chance that we might hear a faint rustle among the blossoms, and find ourselves staring into a pair of sleepy green eyes.
Beverley Nichols
Cats don’t have names,” it said.“No?” said Coraline.“No,” said the cat. “Now, you people have names. That’s because you don’t know who you are. We know who we are, so we don’t need names.”There was something irritatingly self-centered about the cat, Coraline decided. As if it were, in its opinion, the only thing in any world or place that could possibly be of any importance.Half of her wanted to be very rude to it; the other half of her wanted to be polite and deferential. The polite half won.
Neil Gaiman
There were only four dissentients, the three dogs and the cat, who was afterwards discovered to have voted on both sides.
George Orwell
Every sacrifice I make is for the good of my Clan—and for the other Clans around the lake. Even if that means sacrificing myself.
Erin Hunter
We have to let the Warrior Code rule our hearts. The death of a warrior does not mean victory.
Erin Hunter
I would not have survived that dark time if it weren't for Cloudtail. He gave me another destiny, and I knew that no matter what I looked like, I would be all right. As long as Cloudtail loved me, I was no longer Lostface, but Brightheart.
Erin Hunter
This will not be the end of the Clans. As long as I have breath in body, the Clans will be safe.
Erin Hunter
You can not live with a paw in each world.
Erin Hunter
Loyalty is proved by what we do, not where we come from!
Erin Hunter
She's a skilled and swift fight, and I know she'll pass on her training on to you.
Erin Hunter
More water will flow before we join StarClan. This is not an end. This is a beginning. You will need the courage of a lion to face this journey.
Erin Hunter
Dovepaw made a mess of the hunting, true. But she ran to help a Clanmate in trouble when she had no idea what danger she would have to face on the other side of that bramble thicket. And when we couldn't get Icecloud out of the hole, she was quick to volunteer to be lowered down to help her, even though no cat really knew what might have been down there.
Erin Hunter
Dogs own space and cats own time.
Nicola Griffith
Maybe this was why people filled their house with stinking cats, so they didn't notice that they were alone, so they wouldn't die without a living soul noticing.
Kate Atkinson
When you set out, you were four. Six with friends who could not stay behind. Now you are one.
Erin Hunter
Cats will be cats.
Morrissey
I close my eyes for a moment and open my inner eye. I stare at Pete, and the thing in his arms. Human. Cat. Human. Cat. No doubled vision: it's a cat, singular. A solitary diurnal ambush hunter with good hearing and binocular vision, and a predilection for biting the neck of its prey in half while disemboweling it with the scythe-like claws on its hind legs. Basically it's a velociraptor with a fur coat and an outsize sense of entitlement.
Charlie Stross
When she bought the cats her mother asked her straight out if they were 'baby substitutes'. 'No,' Ruth had answered, straight-faced. 'They're kittens. If I had a baby it would be a cat substitute.
Elly Griffiths