Quotes by British Authors - Page 44

It has to be admitted that starving nations never seem to be quite so starving that they cannot afford to have far more expensive armaments than anybody else.
T.H. White
Always, it is the poor people who pay. And always, it is the poor people's women who pay the most.
David Mitchell
We are Craiglockhart's success stories. Look at us. We don't remember, we don't feel, we don't think - at least beyond the confines of what's needed to do the job. By any proper civilized standard (but what does that mean now?) we are objects of horror. But our nerves are completely steady. And we are still alive.
Pat Barker
I said, 'I have heard people talk about war as if it was a very fine thing.' Ah!' said [Captain], 'I should think they never saw it. No doubt it is very fine when there is no enemy, when it is just exercise and parade, and sham-fight. Yes, it is very fine then; but when thousands of good brave men and horses are killed, or crippled for life, it has a very different look.' Do you know what they fought about?' said I. No,' he said, 'that is more than a horse can understand, but the enemy must have been awfully wicked people, if it was right to go all that way over the sea on purpose to kill them.
Anna Sewell
It is a long-cherished tradition among a certain type of military thinker that huge casualties are the main thing. If they are on the other side then this is a valuable bonus.
Terry Pratchett
Perhaps ... To R.A.L.Perhaps some day the sun will shine again,And I shall see that still the skies are blue,And feel one more I do not live in vain,Although bereft of you.Perhaps the golden meadows at my feet,Will make the sunny hours of spring seem gay,And I shall find the white May-blossoms sweet,Though You have passed away.Perhaps the summer woods will shimmer bright,And crimson roses once again be fair,And autumn harvest fields a rich delight,Although You are not there.But though kind Time may many joys renew,There is one greatest joy I shall not knowAgain, because my heart for loss of YouWas broken, long ago.
Vera Brittain
If you can walk with the crowd and keep your virtue, or walk with Kings-nor lose the common touch; If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you; If all men count with you, but none too much; If you can fill the unforgiving minute with 60 seconds worth of distance run- Yours is the earth and everything that's in it, And-which is more-you'll be a man my son.
Rudyard Kipling
Police officers are among the most corrupt people that I have encountered in life.
Steven Magee
It has been my personal experience that the government engages in a wide range of frauds with the common people.
Steven Magee
I independently produce scientific advancements to share with everyone, and that is over seven billion people!
Steven Magee
All things die,' she told him. Such a truism, it was the trite utterance of any street-corner philosopher, but coming from Inaspe Raimm it sounded different. 'All things reach the end of their journey, be they trees, insects, people or even principalities. All things die so that others may take their place. To die is no tragedy. The tragedy is dying with a purpose unfulfilled.
Adrian Tchaikovsky
The people who work with solar photovoltaics (PV) tend to be sick, I've worked with many of them. They were showing classic symptoms of Radio Wave Sickness (RWS).
Steven Magee
For many people, a western lifestyle equates to living in a toxic home, working a toxic job, eating toxic food, being sick from your thirties onward and eventually dying from preventable disease.
Steven Magee
The legal system has been designed to rob the bank accounts of the common people.
Steven Magee
I am not a fan of sealed up sterile homes or Faraday cages and their use in human health, although I do understand that some people do feel relief in these environments.
Steven Magee
People feeling the need to live inside of Faraday cages is a sad reflection on modern society that humans are devolving into living inside of safe spaces.
Steven Magee
If [Patricia Highsmith] saw an acquaintance walking down the sidewalk she would deliberately cross over so as to avoid them. When she came in contact with people, she realised she split herself into many different, false, identities, but, because she loathed lying and deceit, she chose to absent herself completely rather than go through such a charade. Highsmith interpreted this characteristic as an example of 'the eternal hypocrisy in me', rather her mental shape-shifting had its source in her quite extraordinary ability to empathise. Her imaginative capacity to subsume her own identity, while taking on the qualities of those around her - her negative capability, if you like - was so powerful that she said she often felt like her inner visions were far more real than the outside world. She aligned herself with the mad and the miserable, 'the insane man who feels himself one with all mankind, all life, because in losing his mind, he has lost his ego, his self-ness', yet realised that such a state inspired her fiction. Her ambition, she said, was to write about the underlying sickness of this 'daedal planet' and capture the essence of the human condition: eternal disappointment.
Andrew Wilson
A lot of people, especially psychoanalysts, assume that happiness can only be found in a couple - but not all of us are made for a relationship.
Stephen Grosz
[Patricia Highsmith] was an extremely unbalanced person, extremely hostile and misanthropic and totally incapable of any kind of relationship, not just intimate ones. I felt sorry for her, because it wasn't her fault. There was something in her early days or whatever that made her incapable. She drove everybody away and people who really wanted to be friends ended up putting the phone down on her.It seemed to me as if she had to ape feelings and behaviour, like Ripley. Of course sometimes having no sense of social behaviour can be charming, but in her case it was alarming. I remember once, when she was trying to have a dinner party with people she barely knew, she deliberately leaned towards the candle on the table and set fire to her hair. People didn't know what to do as it was a very hostile act and the smell of singeing and burning filled the room.
Andrew Wilson
Utility smart/AMR/AMI meters, cell phones and wi-fi are problem for people who do not want to get cancer, electromagnetic radiation (EMR) sickness, or Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity (EHS) in the future.
Steven Magee
NASA astronauts have only managed to live continuously on the International Space Station (ISS) for a year and Biosphere 2 on Earth failed at two years of uninterrupted human habitation. Both cases required extracting the sickened people from the toxic environments. At this point it is ludicrous to talk about a permanent manned base on Mars.
Steven Magee
An electrical utility company that blatantly lies to law enforcement about an electrical fraud researcher would be considered suicidal by many people.
Steven Magee
Western police officers are an arguably corrupt group of people that have rigged the system to make them almost untouchable.
Steven Magee
Most people do not realize that they are one car crash away from death.
Steven Magee
When the police willfully break the law on video and then deny the event in writing, you know that you are dealing with a blatantly corrupt group of people.
Steven Magee
Very few people that have installed solar photovoltaics (PV) on their home have realized that by spending an additional five thousand dollars that they can completely disconnect from the electrical utility.
Steven Magee
The biggest enemy of western people is not war or terrorism, it is their own governments lack of regulation of public health and safety.
Steven Magee
Computers and mobile devices are becoming known for their inherent insecurities and the ability to damage the long term health of the users.
Steven Magee
They drain you sometimes. They really do. "What's it all about then mate? What's the secret of life? You should know. You're a fucking cab driver." Yeah, right. (As if I'll learn the secret of life talking to arseholes like you all night). "Got any saucepan lids, mate? I've got two. I hate them. Bastards, they are. Ruined my life. I hate the bastards."I keep quiet "Don't try and rip us off, mate. I've got a key between my knuckles." (Whatever). The life of a cab driver. Glimpses into other people's lives.
Karl Wiggins
What do you think the world is if not just an endless parade of madness? To make war is madness. To seek power is madness." She laughed louder, throwing her arms wide. "And madness is glorious!
Anthony Ryan
It is the function of creative people to perceive relations between thoughts, or things, or forms of expressions that seem utterly different, and to be able to Connect the seemingly Unconnected".
William Plomer
In the first place, Cranford is in possession of the Amazons; all the holders of houses above a certain rent are women. If a married couple come to settle in the town, somehow the gentleman disappears; he is either fairly frightened to death by being the only man in the Cranford parties, or he is accounted for by being with his regiment, his hip, or closely engaged in business all the week in the great neighbouring commercial town of Drumble, distant only twenty miles on a railroad. In short, whatever does become of the gentlemen, they are not at Cranford.
Elizabeth Gaskell
It had not hurt his hands at all and the sudden release of energy, twinned with Dom's fall, gave him a sudden lunatic rush of euphoria.
Adam Nevill
An odour of camphor and burnt vinegar warned me when I came near the fever room: and i passed its door quickly, fearful lest the nurse who sat up all night should here me. I dreaded being discovered and sent back; for I must see Helen,- I must embrace her before she died,- I must give her one last kiss, exchange with her one last word.
Charlotte Brontë
A disloyal friend is no friend.
Wayne Gerard Trotman
I fell over twice. It was loud. The garden was black outside our circle of light. The endless night stretched all around us, so we told each other that we had to be close together, together in the dark.
Laure Eve
I must be able to say, 'Percival, a ridiculous name'. At the same time let me tell you, men and women, hurrying to the tube station, you would have had to respect him. You would have had to form up and follow behind him. How strange to oar one's way through crowds seeing life through hollow eyes, burning eyes.
Virginia Woolf
You must work to live, not live to work.
Jane Green
I am not a people pleaser. I am not a person who says things because she thinks it will make the other person happy, nor am I a person who offers things she cannot deliver because I want the other person to like me.
Jane Green
Forever feels a long time when you're eighteen. When you're away from home for the first time in your life, when you forge instant friendships that are so strong they are destined, surely, to be with you until the bitter end.
Jane Green
That's the problem with lying. You can never remember what you've said.
Jane Green
If you want to talk about it with someone, then I`m happy to listen, or try and help, but you should only tell me if you want to.
Jane Green
I felt Holmes's hand steal into mine and give me a reassuring shake.- Watson
Arthur Conan Doyle
There came an awful day when I picked up the phone and knew at once, as one does with some old friends even before they speak, that it was Edward. He sounded as if he were calling from the bottom of a well. I still thank my stars that I didn't say what I nearly said, because the good professor's phone pals were used to cheering or teasing him out of bouts of pessimism and insecurity when he would sometimes say ridiculous things like: 'I hope you don't mind being disturbed by some mere wog and upstart.' The remedy for this was not to indulge it but to reply with bracing and satirical stuff which would soon get the gurgling laugh back into his throat. But I'm glad I didn't say, 'What, Edward, splashing about again in the waters of self-pity?' because this time he was calling to tell me that he had contracted a rare strain of leukemia. Not at all untypically, he used the occasion to remind me that it was very important always to make and keep regular appointments with one’s physician.
Christopher Hitchens
Before a Cat will condescendTo treat you as a trusted friend,Some little token of esteemIs needed, like a dish of cream;And you might now and then supplySome caviare, or Strassburg Pie,Some potted grouse, or salmon paste —He's sure to have his personal taste.(I know a Cat, who makes a habitOf eating nothing else but rabbit,And when he's finished, licks his pawsSo's not to waste the onion sauce.)A Cat's entitled to expectThese evidences of respect.And so in time you reach your aim,And finally call him by his name.
T.S Eliot
My letters! all dead paper, mute and white!And yet they seem alive and quiveringAgainst my tremulous hands which loose the stringAnd let them drop down on my knee to-night.This said, -- he wished to have me in his sightOnce, as a friend: this fixed a day in springTo come and touch my hand ... a simple thing,Yet I wept for it! -- this, ... the paper's light ...Said, Dear I love thee; and I sank and quailedAs if God's future thundered on my past.This said, I am thine -- and so its ink has paledWith lying at my heart that beat too fast.And this ... O Love, thy words have ill availedIf, what this said, I dared repeat at last!
Elizabeth Barrett-Browning
Was Mrs. Wilcox one of the unsatisfactory people- there are many of them- who dangle intimacy and then withdraw it? They evoke our interests and affections, and keep the life of the spirit dawdling around them. Then they withdraw. When physical passion is involved, there is a definite name for such behaviour- flirting- and if carried far enough, it is punishable by law. But no law- not public opinion, even- punishes those who coquette with friendship, though the dull ache that they inflict, the sense of misdirected effort and exhaustion, may be as intolerable. Was she one of these?
E.M. Forster
That men of this kind despise women, though a not uncommon belief, is one which hardly appears to be justified. Indeed, though naturally not inclined to 'fall in love' in this direction, such men are by their nature drawn rather near to women, and it would seem that they often feel a singular appreciation and understanding of the emotional needs and destinies of the other sex, leading in many cases to a genuine though what is called 'Platonic' friendship. There is little doubt that they are often instinctively sought after by women, who, without suspecting the real cause, are conscious of a sympathetic chord in the homogenic which they miss in the normal man.
Edward Carpenter
Madam, I have been looking for a person who disliked gravy all my life; let us swear eternal friendship.
Sydney Smith
It may...be judged indecent in me to come forward on this occasion; but when I see a fellow-creature about to perish through the cowardice of her pretended friends, I wish to be allowed to speak, that I may say what I know of her character.
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
I have one last hope for you, which is something that I already had at 21. The friends with whom I sat on graduation day have been my friends for life. They are my children’s godparents, the people to whom I’ve been able to turn in times of trouble, friends who have been kind enough not to sue me when I’ve used their names for Death Eaters. At our graduation we were bound by enormous affection, by our shared experience of a time that could never come again, and, of course, by the knowledge that we held certain photographic evidence that would be exceptionally valuable if any of us ran for Prime Minister.
J.K. Rowling
If you're with someone, but you're constantly worried about what they think of you, you're with the wrong person.
Wayne Gerard Trotman
My wife is a thief...She takes the last cookieTakes forever to get readyShe takes her time in the showerTakes all of the hot waterShe takes my favorite seat on the couchTakes the high road when I lose controlMy wife is a thief...She took my last nameTook the time to get to know me, love meShe took the back seat and let me leadTook on motherhood and the emotional toll that it bringsShe took care of me the many times that I've gotten sickTook on the pain of pregnancy so that the Jackson legacy would live onMy wife takes, and takes, and takes...I'm so proud of my perpetual thief who stole my heart and won't give it back.
David Jackson
This world needs much more kissing and far less fighting.
Wayne Gerard Trotman
Ardour in well-doing is a misleading and a treacherous thing. It cries out loudly for employment; you can't satisfy it at first; it wants more and more; it is eager to move mountains and divert the course of rivers. It isn't content till it perspires. And then, too often, when it feels the perspiration on its brow, it wearies all of a sudden and dies, without even putting itself to the trouble of saying, "I've had enough of this.
Arnold Bennett
Find the thing you want to do most intensely, make sure that’s it, and do it with all your might. If you live, well and good. If you die, well and good. Your purpose is done
H.G.Wells
Mum was determinate to crush my spirit and put a stop to my behavior once and for all and she beat me up so violently, so often, that I finally understood I must never question her or so much as look at her directly again.
Joe Peters
Being one’s true and honest self can often be dangerous; and poetry should always be a place where, if only between the pages, that danger and energy and fear and excitement and love can fizz and spark without ever threatening to burn something down.
Andrew McMillan
After reading Burgum, [Patricia Highsmith] wrote in her cahier that, like Kafka, she felt she was a pessimist, unable to formulate a system in which an individual could believe in God, government or self. Again like Kafka, she looked into the great abyss which separated the spiritual and the material and saw the terrifying emptiness, the hollowness, at the heart of every man, a sense of alienation she felt compelled to explore in her fiction. As her next hero, she would take an architect, 'a young man whose authority is art and therefore himself,' who when he murders, 'feels no guilt or even fear when he thinks of legal retribution'. The more she read of Kafka the more she felt afraid as she came to realise, 'I am so similar to him.
Andrew Wilson
[Patricia Highsmith] was overwhelmed by sensory stimulation - there were too many people and too much noise and she just could not handle the supermarket. She continually jumped, afraid that someone might recognise or touch her. She could not make the simplest of decisions - which type of bread did she want, or what kind of salami? I tried to do the shopping as quickly as possible, but at the check-out she started to panic. She took out her wallet, knocked off her glasses, dropped the money on the floor, stuff was going all over the place.
Andrew Wilson