Quotes by British Authors - Page 573

Flora would have liked to ask her parents why the words ‘to father’ have such a different meaning from the words ‘to mother’.
Claire Fuller
As I child, I came to this idea with a horrified fascination. Once upon a time, I wasn’t here. Before that, my parents weren’t here. And before that…
John Burnside
We went our several ways," said Lady Dedlock, "and had little in common even before we agreed to differ. It is to be regretted, I suppose, but it could not be helped.
Charles Dickens
England is not the jewelled isle of Shakespeare's much-quoted message, nor is it the inferno depicted by Dr Goebbels. More than either it resembles a family, a rather stuffy Victorian family, with not many black sheep in it but with all its cupboards bursting with skeletons. It has rich relations who have to be kow-towed to and poor relations who are horribly sat upon, and there is a deep conspiracy of silence about the source of the family income. It is a family in which the young are generally thwarted and most of the power is in the hands of irresponsible uncles and bedridden aunts. Still, it is a family. It has its private language and its common memories, and at the approach of an enemy it closes its ranks. A family with the wrong members in control - that, perhaps is as near as one can come to describing England in a phrase.
George Orwell
Her family had of late been exceedingly fluctuating. For many years of her life she had had two sons; but the crime and annihilation of Edward a few weeks ago, had robbed her of one; the similar annihilation of Robert had left her for a fortnight without any; and now, by the resurrection of Edward, she had one again.
Jane Austen
Where does the family start? It starts with a young man falling in love with a girl - no superior alternative has yet been found.
Winston S. Churchill
A lady, without a family, was the very best preserver of furniture in the world.
Jane Austen
literature is a way in which we can learn to live deeper lives -- husband with wife, parent with child, brother with sister, fellow member with fellow member. Most good authors are better than we are. They are much better company than our own friends. What comes from good company? What comes from good company is better manners, greater sensitivity, greater sensibility, greater empathy, great sympathy. Reading good literature makes us more capable of understanding other people, of loving other people, those whom we don't particularly want to love, even our enemies, as well as those closest to us. How can we expect to have full marriages when we are not going into those marriages with full minds and fine sensibilities? We are ignoring the tremendous possibilities of a delicate, well-poised, rich, sensitive life if we ignore the literature of the past. There is no substitute.
Arthur Henry King
She had to go," said Rose."It was because of her angel," said Indigo."And because of Granddad," added Caddy."And because of her nose stud.""And because her name isn't on the color chart.""She's lonely," said Rose. "That's why.
Hilary McKay
I looked into her eyes, and saw my own staring back, the same peculiar shade, pale grey, flecked with yellow, rimmed with black. Now I knew the nature of her debt. It had weighed on her conscience for fourteen years. I was looking into the eyes of mother and I knew that I would never see her again.
Celia Rees
I remember Mum repeatedly telling us we had good hearts and good brains. When she said that we'd say 'thanks' and it might have sounded as if we were thanking her for seeing us that way but actually we were thanking her for giving us whatever goodness was in us.
Helen Oyeyemi
I was also sick of my neighbors, as most Parisians are. I now knew every second of the morning routine of the family upstairs. At 7:00 am alarm goes off, boom, Madame gets out of bed, puts on her deep-sea divers’ boots, and stomps across my ceiling to megaphone the kids awake. The kids drop bags of cannonballs onto the floor, then, apparently dragging several sledgehammers each, stampede into the kitchen. They grab their chunks of baguette and go and sit in front of the TV, which is always showing a cartoon about people who do nothing but scream at each other and explode. Every minute, one of the kids cartwheels (while bouncing cannonballs) back into the kitchen for seconds, then returns (bringing with it a family of excitable kangaroos) to the TV. Meanwhile the toilet is flushed, on average, fifty times per drop of urine expelled. Finally, there is a ten-minute period of intensive yelling, and at 8:15 on the dot they all howl and crash their way out of the apartment to school.” (p.137)
Stephen Clarke
The soldier had stamped my passport FAMILY in heavy black capital letters and I checked it now for reassurance and because I liked how fierce the word looked
Meg Rosoff
Makes a diff'rence, havin' a decent family,' he said. 'Me dad was decent. An' your mum an' dad were decent. If they'd lived, life woulda bin diff'rent, eh?''Yeah, I s'pose,' said Harry cautiously. Hagrid seemed to be in a very strange mood.'Family,' said Hagrid gloomily. 'Whatever yeh say, blood's important...
J.K. Rowling
I'm serious, Harry, don't go." But Harry only had one thought in his head, which was to get back in front of the mirror, and Ron wasn't going to stop him.That third night he found his way more quickly than before. He was walking so fast he knew he was making more noise than was wise, but he didn't meet anyone.And there were his mother and father smiling at him again, and one of his grandfathers nodding happily. Harry sank down to sit on the floor in front of the mirror. There was nothing to stop him from staying here all night with his family. Nothing at all.
J.K. Rowling
I told myself that some families we get without asking, while others we choose. And I chose those two. I think that’s what you’d call a silver lining.
Jenny Valentine
But why people need privacy? Why privacy is important? In China, every family live together, grandparents, parents, daughter, son and their relatives too. Eat together and share everything, talk about everything. Privacy make people lonely. Privacy make family fallen apart.
Xiaolu Guo
Nobody, who has not been in the interior of a family, can say what the difficulties of any individual of that family may be.
Jane Austen
The home is the ultimate career. All other careers exist for one purpose, and that is to support the ultimate career.
C.S. Lewis
There are many reasons why so many of us choose to share our lives with a pet--it's the perfect antidote for loneliness, providing an endless supply of smiles and the certainty of unwavering companionship, and many of us have seen the way a pet can make a family feel whole.
Nick Trout
They were talking more distantly than if they were strangers who had just met, for if they had been he would have been interested in her just because of that, and curious, but their common past was a wall of indifference between them. Kitty knew too well that she had done nothing to beget her father's affection, he had never counted in the house and had been taken for granted, the bread-winner who was a little despised because he could provide no more luxuriously for his family; but she had taken for granted that he loved her just because he was her father, and it was a shock to discover that his heart was empty of feeling for her. She had known that they were all bored by him, but it had never occurred to her that he was equally bored by them. He was as ever kind and subdued, but the sad perspicacity which she had learnt in suffering suggested to her that, though he probably never acknowledged it to himself and never would, in his heart he disliked her.
W Somerset Maugham
Human lives are not pieces of string that can be separated out from a knot of others and laid out straight. Familes are webs. Impossible to touch one part of it without setting the rest vibrating. Impossible to understand one part without having a sense of the whole.
Diane Setterfield
It was the usual struggle between one who loves by accepting burdens and one who loves by refusing to be one.
Helen Oyeyemi
Jerome said, It's like, a family doesn't work anymore when everyone in it is more miserable than they would be if they were alone, You know?
Zadie Smith
Cruel blows of fate call for extreme kindness in the family circle.
Dodie Smith
It is difficult to feel sympathy for these people. It is difficult to regard some bawdy drunk and see them as sick and powerless. It is difficult to suffer the selfishness of a drug addict who will lie to you and steal from you and forgive them and offer them help. Can there be any other disease that renders its victims so unappealing? Would Great Ormond Street be so attractive a cause if its beds were riddled with obnoxious little criminals that had “brought it on themselves?
Russell Brand
They had nothing to say to each other. A five-year age gap between siblings is like a garden that needs constant attention. Even three months apart allows the weeds to grow up between you.
Zadie Smith
My father was one of those men who sit in a room and you can feel it: the simmer, the sense of some unpredictable force that might, at any moment, break loose, and do something terrible. [Burnside, p. 27]
John Burnside
We share out craziness, our neuroses, our little bit of screwed-up-ness that comes from our family. We share it. And it feels like love.
Patrick Ness
That's the best thing about little sisters: They spend so much time wishing they were elder sisters that in the end they're far wiser than the elder ones could ever be.
Gemma Burgess
Just thinking of your laughter gives me courage. . .
Rosamund Lupton
I'm allergic to family occasions. Sometimes I think we'd do better as dandelion seeds-no family, no history, just floating off into the world, each on our own piece of fluff.
Sophie Kinsella
If a man's character is to be abused, say what you will, there's nobody like a relative to do the business.
William Makepeace Thackeray
There is no doubt that it is around the family and the home that all the greatest virtues, the most dominating virtues of human, are created, strengthened and maintained.
Winston S. Churchill
She was a very pretty woman. She had dark red hair and her eyes -- her eyes are just like mine, Harry thought, edging a little closer to the glass. Bright green -- exactly the same shape, but then he noticed that she was crying; smiling, but crying at the same time. The tall, thin, black-haired man standing next to her put his arm around her. He wore glasses, and his hair was very untidy. It stuck up at the back, just like Harry's did.Harry was so close to the mirror now that his nose was nearly touching that of his reflection."Mum?" he whispered. "Dad?"They just looked at him, smiling. And slowly, Harry looked into the faces of the other people in the mirror and saw other pairs of green eyes like his, other noses like his, even a little old man who looked as though he had Harry's knobbly knees -- Harry was looking at his family, for the first time in his life.The Potters smiled and waved at Harry and he stared hungrily back at them, his hands pressed flat against the glass as though he was hoping to fall right through it and reach them. He had a powerful kind of ache inside of him, half joy, half terrible sadness.
J.K. Rowling
Hagrid, look what I’ve got for relatives!” Harry said furiously. “Look at the Dursleys!”“An excellent point,” said Professor Dumbledore. “My own brother, Aberforth, was prosecuted for practicing inappropriate charms on a goat. It was all over the papers, but did Aberforth hide? No, he did not! He held his head high and went about his business as usual! Of course, I’m not entirely sure he can read, so that may not have been bravery. . . .
J.K. Rowling
It's very hard to grow up in a perfect family when you're not perfect.
E.L. James
A dog reflects the family life. Whoever saw a frisky dog in a gloomy family, or a sad dog in a happy one? Snarling people have snarling dogs, dangerous people have dangerous ones.
Arthur Conan Doyle
The homemaker has the ultimate career. All other careers exist for one purpose only - and that is to support the ultimate career.
C.S. Lewis
Youth can not know how age thinks and feels. But old men are guilty if they forget what it was to be young.
J.K. Rowling
Vigilance enables wisdom and is the key to freewill
Michael J. Cooper
Prayer is a mighty ministry that any believer can have—anywhere, anytime, and in any circumstance.
Elizabeth George
Each Christian comes from a different background, upbringing, lineage, and environment. But in Christ we are unified.
Elizabeth George
As you abide in Christ, you will have strength for today’s trials as well as for all tomorrow’s challenges.
Elizabeth George
YOU might be limited by a life situation, but GOD is never hampered. Praise Him!
Elizabeth George
The moment we care for anything deeply, the world - that is, all the other miscellaneous interests - becomes our enemy. Christians showed it when they talked of keeping one's self "unspotted from the world;" but lovers talk of it just as much when they talk of the "world well lost." Astronomically speaking, I understand that England is situated on the world; similarly, I suppose that the Church was a part of the world, and even the lovers inhabitants of that orb. But they all felt a certain truth - the truth that the moment you love anything the world becomes your foe.
G.K. Chesterton
God’s Word is a map you can safely follow as you travel through life.
Elizabeth George
Sometimes it's very difficult to keep momentum when it's you that you are following. - Andrew Lloyd Webber
Andrew Lloyd Webber
Is there any pleasure on earth as great as the circle of Christian friends by a good fire?
J.R.R. Tolkien
If, therefore, those called to office and leadership roles in the church remain content merely to organize and manage the internal affairs of the church, they are leaving a vacuum exactly where there ought to be vibrant, pulsating life. Of course Christian leaders need to be trained and equipped for management, for running of the organization. The church will not thrive by performing in a bumbling, amateur fashion and hoping that piety and goodwill will make up for incompetence. But how much more should a Christian minister be a serious professional when it comes to grappling with scripture and discovering how it enables him or her, in preaching, teaching, prayer, and pastoral work, to engage with the huge issues that confront us as a society and as individuals. If we are professional about other things, we ought to be ashamed not to be properly equipped both to study the Bible ouselves and to bring its ever-fresh word to others.
N.T. Wright
A christian martyrdom is never an accident, for Saints are not made by accident.
T.S Eliot
How like God's love yours has been to me- so wise, so generous, and so unsparing!" exclaimed Pancratius. "Promise me one thing more- that is, that you will stay near to me to the end, and carry my last legacy to my mother.
Nicholas Wiseman
To shrink back from all that can be called Nature into negative spirituality is as if we ran away from horses instead of learning to ride. There is in our present pilgrim condition plenty of room (more room than most of us like) for abstinence and renunciation and mortifying our natural desires. But behind all asceticism the thought should be, ‘Who will trust us with the true wealth if we cannot be trusted even with the wealth that perishes?’ Who will trust me with a spiritual body if I cannot control even an earthly body? These small and perishable bodies we now have were given to us as ponies are given to schoolboys. We must learn to manage: not that we may some day be free of horses altogether but that some day we may ride bare-back, confident and rejoicing, those greater mounts, those winged, shining and world- shaking horses which perhaps even now expect us with impatience, pawing and snorting in the King’s stables. Not that the gallop would be of any value unless it were a gallop with the King; but how else— since He has retained His own charger—should we accompany Him?
C.S. Lewis
It was a common saying among the Christians in the primitive Church, "The soul and the body make a man; the spirit and discipline make a Christian;" implying, that none could be real Christians, without the help of Christian discipline. But if this be so, is it any wonder that we find so few Christians; for where is Christian discipline
John Wesley
He may be a Christian by common profession; but, in a saving sense, no man is a Christian, in whose soul any thing hath a greater and higher interest than God the Father, and the Mediator (352).
Richard Baxter
Events are not determined by the wheel of fortune, which is blind, but by the wheels of Providence, which are full of eyes
Matthew Henry
Beloved, there is no way to measure the continuing influence of one godly mother.
Elizabeth George
I know I am awful. But how much more awful I should be without the Faith.
Evelyn Waugh
Most High God, let your servant see but a little ahead. Or, if not give me the hope that drives out fear
Stephen Lawhead
A godly man often grows best when his worldly circumstances decay. He who follows Christ for his bag is a Judas; they who follow for loaves and fishes are children of the devil; but they who attend him out of love to himself are his own beloved ones. Lord, let me find my life in thee...!
Charles Haddon Spurgeon