Quotes by British Authors - Page 203

We are much too much inclined in these days to divide people into permanent categories, forgetting that a category only exists for its special purpose and must be forgotten as soon as that purpose is served.
Dorothy L. Sayers
Once a man strays out of the common herd, he's more likely to meet wolves in the thickets than angels.
Walter de la Mare
I'd rather be a freak than a clone.
Joanne Harris
I act with complete certainty. But this certainty is my own.
Ludwig Wittgenstein
The Naming of Cats is a difficult matter,It isn't just one of your holiday games;You may think at first I'm as mad as a hatterWhen I tell you, a cat must have THREE DIFFERENT NAMES.First of all, there's the name that the family use daily,Such as Peter, Augustus, Alonzo or James,Such as Victor or Jonathan, or George or Bill Bailey -All of them sensible everyday names.There are fancier names if you think they sound sweeter,Some for the gentlemen, some for the dames:Such as Plato, Admetus, Electra, Demeter -But all of them sensible everyday names.But I tell you, a cat needs a name that's particular,A name that's peculiar, and more dignified,Else how can he keep up his tail perpendicular,Or spread out his whiskers, or cherish his pride?Of names of this kind, I can give you a quorum,Such as Munkustrap, Quaxo, or Coricopat,Such as Bombalurina, or else Jellylorum -Names that never belong to more than one cat.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
The things that make me different are the things that make me.
A.A. Milne
Think outside the box, collapse the box, and take a fucking sharp knife to it.
Banksy
I am not eccentric. It's just that I am more alive than most people. I am an unpopular electric eel set in a pond of catfish.
Edith Sitwell
When the ignorant have become numerous or powerful enough, they have been referred to by a special name. This names is 'the Wise'.
Idries Shah
There are few people whom I really love, and still fewer of whom I think well.The more I see of the world, the more am I dissatisfied with it; and every day confirms my belief of the inconsistency of all human characters, and the little dependence that can be placed on the appearance of merit sense
Jane Austen
The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so sure of themselves and wiser people so full of doubts.
Bertrand Russell
Life would be simpler if only we were all unicorns.
Olley White
It's the deep breath before the plunge.
J.R.R. Tolkien
Looking for positives is always wise in any situation that you may encounter.
Steven Redhead
we are all half fool, half wise , there is no wisdom without foolishness and no pride without shame .
Elif Shafak
Sometimes the truth stares us in the face, but we just choose not to look.
Gill Lewis
Beware the irrational, however seductive. Shun the ‘transcendent’ and all who invite you to subordinate or annihilate yourself. Don’t be afraid to be thought arrogant or selfish. Picture all experts as if they were mammals. Never be a spectator of unfairness or stupidity. Seek out argument and disputation for their own sake; the grave will provide plenty of time for silence.
Christopher Hitchens
So may the New Year be a happy one to you, happy to many more whose happiness depends on you!
Charles Dickens
The trouble with Grace, she thought, is that she is so literal. But that was the trouble with most people, when it came down to it; there were very few who enjoyed flights of fantasy, and to have that sort of mind--one which enjoyed dry with and understood the absurd--left one in a shrinking minority.
Alexander McCall Smith
Finding this, she was much perplexed as to Henchard's motives in opening the matter at all; for in such cases we attribute to an enemy a power of consistent action which we never find in ourselves or or in our friends...
Thomas Hardy
Anything is possible if you've got enough nerve.
J.K. Rowling
It is not always the motives behind an action that make it noble. Sometimes it is as simple as the action itself.
Jocelyn Murray
Infinite potential exists for what actions can be taken.
Steven Redhead
We judge one another by our outward actions, but in the motive underlying those actions our judgment may be widely at fault. Preoccupied by our own private interpretation of the matter, we can see only the one possible motive behind the action, so that our solution may be quite plausible, quite coherent, and quite wrong. - Dorothy L. Sayers, Introduction, Pg. 4
The Detection Club
A person may cause evil to others not only by his actions but by his inactions, and in either case he is justly accountable to them for the injury
John Mills
I have always thought the actions of men the best interpreters of their thoughts.
John Locke
Oh, this time I was doing the gossiping. You should really dismiss me for disloyalty, not to mention the disrespect I'm showing right now by talking to you like this.
Jayne Bauling
For the space of half a year, the gunpowder lay as harmless as sand, because no fire came near to explode it.
Emily Brontë
I'm under strict instructions to write a happy ending. Rule number ninety-seven: You're not allowed to make a dragon cry.""Right," Said Sophie, starting the engine. "Tears might quench their fire.
Chris d'Lacey
There's a kinship among men who have sat by a dying fire and measured the worth of their life by it.
William Golding
If you want to get warm you must stand near the fire: if you want to be wet you must get into the water. If you want joy, power, peace, eternal life, you must get close to, or even into, the thing that has them.
C.S. Lewis
The hiss of the quenched element, the breakage of the pitcher which I had flung from my hand when I had emptied it, and, above all, the splash of the shower-bath I had liberally bestowed, roused Mr Rochester at last though it was dark, I knew he was awake; because I heard him fulminating strange anathemas at finding himself lying in a pool of water. 'Is there a flood?' he cried
Charlotte Brontë
An inn, of course, was a place you came to at night (not at three o'clock in the afternoon), preferably a rainy night—wind, too, if it could be managed; and it should be situated on a moor (“bleak,” Kate knew, was the adjective here). And there should be scullions; mine host should be gravy-stained and broad in the beam with a tousled apron pulled across his stomach; and there should be a tall, dark stranger—the one who speaks to nobody—warming thin hands before the fire. And the fire should be a fire—crackling and blazing, laid with an impossible size log and roaring its great heart out up the chimney. And there should be some sort of cauldron, Kate felt, somewhere about—and, perhaps, a couple of mastiffs thrown in for good measure.
Mary Norton
Fire’s the sun, unwindin’ itself out o’ the wood.
David Mitchell
Now I will burn you back, I will burn you through,Though I am damned for it we two will lieAnd burn, here where the starlings fly
Charlotte Mew
The demon at length fell to singing a gentle, flickering little song. It was not in any language Sophie knew - or she thought not, until she distinctly heard the word "saucepan" in it several times...
Diana Wynne Jones
You light the Spark in my Bonfire Heart.
James Blunt
The house was burning, the yellow-red sky was like the sunset...Nothing would be left, the golden ferns and the silver ferns, the orchids, the ginger lilies and the roses...When they had finished, there would be nothing left but blackened walls and the mounting stone. That was always left. That could not be stolen or burned.
Jean Rhys
It's a poem about moths. But it's also a poem about psychopaths.I get it copied. And stick it in a frame. And now it glowers redoubtably above my desk:an entomological keepsake of the horizons of existence.And the brutal, star-crossed wisdom of those who seek them out.i was talking to a moththe other eveninghe was trying to break intoan electric bulband fry himself on the wireswhy do you fellowspull this stunt i asked himbecause it is the conventionalthing for moths or whyif that had been an uncoveredcandle instead of an electriclight bulb you wouldnow be a small unsightly cinderhave you no senseplenty of it he answeredbut at times we get tiredof using itwe get bored with routineand crave beautyand excitementfire is beautifuland we know that if we gettoo close it will kill usbut what does that matterit is better to be happyfor a momentand be burned up with beautythan to live a long timeand be bored all the whileso we wad all our life upinto one little rolland then we shoot the rollthat is what life is forit is better to be part of beautyour attitude toward lifeis come easy go easywe are like human beingsused to be before they becametoo civilized to enjoy themselvesand before i could argue himout of his philosophyhe went and immolated himselfon a patent cigar lighteri do not agree with himmyself i would rather havehalf the happiness and twicethe longevitybut at the same time i wishthere was something i wantedas badly as he wanted to fry himself
Kevin Dutton
You're playing with fire," she warned him."That's how I know I'm alive.
Neil Gaiman
When I was out on the battlements it was cool and I could hardly hear them. I sat there quietly. I don't know how long I sat. Then I turned round and saw the sky. It was red and all my life was in it.
Jean Rhys
Is that not the Promethean fable, that the fire stolen from the gods will light men their way even while it burns their hands?
Zia Haider Rahman
Fire will save the Clan," she murmured, and Fireheart remembered the mysterious prophecy that he had heard from his earliest days in ThunderClan. "You never understood, did you?" Bluestar went on. "Not even when I gave you your apprentice name, Firepaw. And I doubted it myself, when fire raged through our camp. Yet I see the truth now. Fireheart, you are the fire who will save ThunderClan.
Erin Hunter
I love you so much I could burst into flames.
Philip Ridley
I have a suspicion that when first built, Stonehenge may have glowed blue with St. Elmo's fire during certain times of the year
Steven Magee
When I was commissioning a brand new solar photovoltaic utility site, I came across metal tubes installed into the fuseholders that were marked up as 100 amp fuses on the diagram. Needless to say, it had already gone on fire.
Steven Magee
As different as a moonbeam from lightning, or frost from fire.
Emily Brontë
Still, perhaps that's all lives are, all the world is, a collision of vast conflagrations, each sparked from nothing.
Mark Lawrence
Out of all the things you would expect when facing a dragon, silence was not on the list. Roaring? Certainly! Snarling? Why, yes - of course! Fire-breathing? Couldn’t possibly do without it. Wouldn’t feel right if it wasn’t there.But silence?No. Definitely not.It was as out of place as a potter at a blacksmith’s.
Ness Kingsley
When I was a child I burnt the back of my right hand on a hot iron. I can't recall the pain, but there's an eye-shaped scar as testament to it. As a teenager I used to think it was the all seeing eye of the anti-Christ and that I was the devil incarnate. Or at least a minion. It was my right hand, innit?What I do remember though is my father, or Dad as we called him, abandoning the polite Abbu, telling me not to cry and to be patient because the fires of hell were seventy times hotter than the fire of the iron.
Ruth Ahmed
Police Officer Angry Aggression Theory (POAAT) is why you need to video record the police before they shoot you. Always start the video camera at the first contact, as it can go sour at any time and without warning.
Steven Magee
Why, after all, did she do these things? Why seek pinnacles and stand drenched in fire? Might it consume her anyhow! Burn her to cinders! Better anything, better brandish one's torch and hurl it to earth than taper and dwindle away
Virginia Woolf
You play with ice - you get cold.You play with fire - you get burnt.you play with me - you get lucky.
Anthony T.Hincks
As Sam came to a panting stop, a jet of orange flame burst from a high window.Several dozen kids were standing, watching. A crowd that struck Sam as very strange, until he realized why it was strange: there were no adults, just kids.“Is anyone in there?” Astrid called out. No one answered.“It could spread,” Sam said.“There’s no 911,” someone pointed out.“If it spreads, it could burn down half the town.”“You see a fireman anywhere?” A helpless shrug.The day care shared a wall with the hardware store, and both were only a narrow alley away from the burning building. Sam figured they had time to get the kids out of the day care if they acted fast, but the hardware store was something they could not afford to lose.There had to be forty kids just standing there gawking. No one seemed about to start doing anything.“Great,” Sam said. He grabbed two kids he sort of knew. “You guys, go to the day care. Tell them to get the littles out of there.”The kids stared at him without moving.“Now. Go. Do it!” he said, and they took off running.Sam pointed at two other kids. “You and you. Go into the hardware store, get the longest hose you can find. Get a spray nozzle, too. I think there’s a spigot in that alley. Start spraying water on the side of the hardware store and up on the roof.”These two also stared blankly. “Dudes: Not tomorrow. Now. Now. Go! Quinn? You better go with them. We want to wet down the hardware—that’s where the wind will take the fire next.”Quinn hesitated.People were not getting this. How could they not see that they had to do something, not just stand around?Sam pushed to the front of the crowd and in a loud voice said, “Hey, listen up, this isn’t the Disney Channel. We can’t just watch this happen. There are no adults. There’s no fire department. We are the fire department.”Edilio was there. He said, “Sam’s right. What do you need, Sam? I’m with you.”“Okay. Quinn? The hoses from the hardware store. Edilio? Let’s get the big hoses from the fire station, hook ’em up to the hydrant.”“They’ll be heavy. I’ll need some strong guys.”“You, you, you, you.” Sam grabbed each person’s shoulder, shaking each one, pushing them into motion. “Come on. You. You. Let’s go!
Michael Grant
Don't burn the corpse!Zombies don't like fire!
Anthony T.Hincks
The fire alarm went off. Fire engines came racing; we all rushed out on the gravel drive, everyone thinking it was us. In fact, one of the elderly residents of Saltram had left a pan on the oven in her flat. Apparently this happens all the time. The tenant in question is appearing as an extra -- playing one of the cooks.
Emma Thompson
As soon as I turned the key I saw it hanging, the color of fire and sunset. the colour of flamboyant flowers. ‘If you are buried under a flamboyant tree, ‘ I said, ‘your soul is lifted up when it flowers. Everyone wants that.’She shook her head but she did not move or touch me.
Jean Rhys
I want more of this feeling - fire and wings.
Jean Rhys
Your red dress,’ she said, and laughed.But I looked at the dress on the floor and it was as if the fire had spread across the room. It was beautiful and it reminded me of something I must do. I will remember I thought. I will remember quite soon now.
Jean Rhys
I just wondered where you —” Ron broke off, shrugging. “Nothing. I’m going back to bed.”“Just thought you’d come nosing around, did you?” Harry shouted. He knew that Ron had no idea what he’d walked in on, knew he hadn’t done it on purpose, but he didn’t care — at this moment he hated everything about Ron, right down to the several inches of bare ankle showing beneath his pajama trousers.
J.K. Rowling