Quotes by British Authors - Page 575

Therefore it seemed a dreadful injustice that these wise races should perish at the hands of creatures who were still little more than animals. It was as if vultures feasted on and squabbled over the paralyzed body of the youthful poet who could only stare at them with puzzled eyes as they slowly robbed him of an exquisite existence they would never appreciate, never know they were taking.
Michael Moorcock
All kinds of magic are out of date and done away with, except in India, where nothing changes in spite of the shiny, top-scum stuff that people call 'civilization.
Rudyard Kipling
You know how it is -- you get older, you get wiser, you start to ask yourself 'is it any use being able to summon creatures of the nether deeps when I could be watching BBC 4?
Kate Griffin
The world is changing: I feel it in the water, I feel it in the earth, and I smell it in the air.
J.R.R. Tolkien
I propose to speak about fairy-stories, though I am aware that this is a rash adventure. Faërie is a perilous land, and in it are pitfalls for the unwary and dungeons for the overbold.
J.R.R. Tolkien
Man, Sub-creator, the refracted Lightthrough whom is splintered from a single Whiteto many hues, and endlessly combinedin living shapes that move from mind to mind.
J.R.R. Tolkien
The mind that thought of light, heavy, grey, yellow, still, swift, also conceived of magic that would make heavy things light and be able to fly, turn grey lead into yellow gold, and the still rock into a swift water.
J.R.R. Tolkien
Fantasy imposes order on the universe. Or, at least, it superimposes order on the universe. And it is a human order. Reality tells us that we exist for a brief, beleaguered span in a cold infinity; fantasy tells us that the figures in the foreground are important. Fantasy peoples the alien Outside, and it doesn’t matter a whole lot if it peoples it with good guys or bad guys. Putting ‘Hy-Brasil’ on the map is a step in the right direction, but if you can’t manage that, then ‘Here Be Dragons is better than nothing. Better than the void.
Terry Pratchett
In fact the Gods were as puzzled by all this as the wizards were, but they were powerless to do anything and in any case were engaged in an eons-old battle with the Ice Giants, who had refused to return the lawnmower.
Terry Pratchett
It's rude to stare," said the troll. Its mouth opened with a little crest of foam, and shut again in exactly the same way that water closes over a stone. "Is it? Why?" asked Rincewind. How does he hold himself together, his mind screamed at him. Why doesn't he spill?
Terry Pratchett
There's only so long you can live in a fantasy world before the reality comes along to sharply put you back in your place.
Giovanna Fletcher
Dragons were a problem sometimes, but they only came on Tuesdays, so you could work around them.
Mike Carey
Humans need fantasy to be human.
Terry Pratchett
Was it magic? Of course it was.
Brian Jacques
[Charles] Nodier’s later view was that fantasy reconciles men to their fate. Fantasy and the taste for chimeras, he wrote, are symptoms of a time of political decay and transition, when the unpleasant realities of political life are too hard to bear. They serve a useful purpose in that they give men hope when scepticism and disillusion would otherwise drive them to despair.
Peter Partner
How do you go on, when in your heart you begin to understand... there is no going back? There are some things that time cannot mend. Some hurts that go too deep.
J.R.R. Tolkien
That's half of your trouble," muttered the crocodile. "You believe everything's true.""That's because everything is," replied Mr. Bacchus.
Clive Barker
We are not at the pinnacle of our power, of our existence. We have scrambled to the top of an ant-hill at the bottom of the world’s highest mountain. We have long way still to climb.” - The Blue Mountain
G.R. Matthews
Have you ever been in love? Horrible, isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses. You build up this whole armor, for years, so nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life… You give them a piece of you. They don't ask for it. They do something dumb one day like kiss you, or smile at you, and then your life isn't your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so a simple phrase like "maybe we should just be friends" or "how very perceptive" turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination. Not just in the mind. It's a soul-hurt, a body-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. Nothing should be able to do that. Especially not love. I hate love.
Neil Gaiman
Meadow's Waltz...the meadow had becomeher sanctuary of spiritoffering an escape from a painno child should ever endureforeboding clouds began...
Muse
The Decision...I wiped my hands on my pinaforenow sullied and stainednot crisp or pressedas it had been before...
Muse
The River SwishDeftly maneuvered through the dark green abyss ~The wooden raft seemed in tune with this ~Canorous rush of theriver swish....
Muse
Calico KittyMy calico kittywas painted and primedshe could prowlthe night away ~without spending a dime...
Muse
Fantasy is unconstrained by truth.
Hilary Mantel
He turned his gaze upon her, and their eyes not only met, the pupils shook hands, exchanged business cards, and sat down for tea together.
John Moore
White IrisThe iris danced acrossthe ancient Grecian skiesgliding with her embossedsatiny milken sides ...
Muse
Little Maiden Encounters FearDeepest regions walked she therelittle maiden sweet and fairventured far from the pathnever a whispernever a laugh...
Muse
Brahma and AiravataLong ago in lands of golden sandBrahma turned to Saraswatiand gently kissed her inked hand....
Muse
Sleeping AtlantisSilent cool watersdancing upon her skin ~silent cool waterushering dreams within...
Muse
Git'er DoneThey beat their swords upon their shieldsTo no beast or man would they yield
Muse
A book can’t be a half-fantasy any more than a woman can be half pregnant
David Mitchell
I just think the world ought to be more sort of organized.''That's just fantasy,' said Twoflower.'I know. That's the trouble.' Rincewind sighed again.
Terry Pratchett
Freud wrote that love involves the undervaluation of reality and the overvaluation of the desired object. While the correct valuation of a person is an odd, if not impossible idea, we might say Freud meant something like this: for various reasons, many of them masochistic, we become involved with others who cannot possibly give what we ask for; we can wait as long as we wish, but they do not have it, and one day, if we bear to abandon our fantasy and see clearly, we might face reality straight on. We will then look elsewhere for fulfillment, to a place where our needs can, in fact, be satisfied.
Hanif Kureishi
it was like staring at a whitewashed wall, but without all the emotion
Joe Abercrombie
A crush of bodies surrounded the featureless monument. The enraged dead clambered atop their ghastly kin. Caiaphas tucked his knees to his chest and hugged his legs tightly, staring at the scores of ragged, flailing hands as they scratched for purchase over the edge of the cylinder. Metal thrummed and thunder roared, filling his head.tNow there were words within the deafening roar. t“Straaaange,” they seemed to say. tt“Daaaace…”t“Straaaangerrrr…”tThen a quick, awful chant: “CAIAPHAS! FOREVER! CAI—”tAnd with a piercing whistle it ended as his eardrums burst.
Scott Kaelen
- "Surely you have considered terrorist activity?"There was another pause. Then the spokesman said, in the quiet tones of someone who has had enough and who is going to quit after this and raise chickens somewhere, "Yes, I suppose we must. All we need to do is find some terrorists who are capable of taking an entire nuclear reactor out of its can while it's running and without anyone noticing. It weighs about a thousand tons and is forty feet high. So they'll be quite strong terrorists. Perhaps you'd like to ring them up, sir, and ask them questions in that supercilious, accusatory way of yours."-- The BBC interviews a nuclear spokesperson (Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman, Good Omens)
Terry Pratchett
He continued to attack the gate. His arm started to ache. The hammer was designed for neither brute nor force. "Are you all right up there?" asked Eleanor. "Want me to go see if I can find a small child to give you a lift?" "Maybe if we swapped positions and you condescended at the gate, we'd get through faster?
Gary Meehan
Even the best-laid plans turn to hell when exposed to reality.
Michael Anthony
Don't threaten me with a good time.
Michael Anthony
Even the best laid plans turn to hell when exposed to reality
Michael Anthony
With the fading of the final notes the saxophone player turns to me. Its baleful, otherworldly gaze bores into my soul. It lowers its instrument to the disc and extends a podgy, grey hand to point at me. It looms closer, its head expanding, arm elongating. A clammy digit brushes the tip of my nose and a tingling numbness spreads over my face like an ice-cold spider web. tA voice like the rustle of dried leaves whispers inside my head: “Forever…” The last syllable stretches, just like my grandfather’s dying breath.tAnd the beady, black orbs are no longer eyes but deep, obsidian pits…
Scott Kaelen
Lilith came to Longinus in the night, as she often did, and the darkness of the cave was filled with the lustful sounds of their passionate couplings. Afterwards, as he lay back with his eyes closed, she ran her cool fingers playfully across his chest and whispered honeyed words in his ear.
Alan Kinross
Closed head trauma is about as much fun as nude paintballing.
D.C. Farmer
Matt shrugged. It was a good shrug, too. All it was missing was a beret, a stripy shirt and a Gauloise cigarette.
D.C. Farmer
As the daydreams grew longer, the distinction between what was real and what was imaginary grew less. Soon I existed in a blissful world of my own creation.
Fennel Hudson
The Evasive Cartwheel ™ © etc., Bartimaeus of Uruk, circa. 2800 B.C.E. Often imitated, never surpassed. As famously memorialized in the New Kingdom tomb paintings of Ramses III— you can just see me in the background of The Dedication of the Royal Family before Ra, wheeling out of sight behind the pharaoh.
Jonathan Stroud
Among the great struggles of man-good/evil, reason/unreason, etc.-there is also this mighty conflict between the fantasy of Home and the fantasy of Away, the dream of roots and the mirage of the journey.
Salman Rushdie
Far more beguiling than the idea that evil can be destroyed by throwing a piece of expensive jewelry into a volcano is the possibility that evil can be defused by talking. The fantasy of justice is more interesting than the fantasy of fairies, and more truly fantastic.
Terry Pratchett
Too much alleged ‘fantasy’ is just empty sugar, life with the crusts cut off.
Terry Pratchett
I write in a fantasy world so I can make up my own rules and can change facts when I want to. It's all about having control.
C.S. Woolley
He hated her because she was young and pretty and sexless,because he wanted to go to bed with her and would never do so ...
George Orwell
We are not so different, and yet we are worlds apart." Ahkeel/Akil, The Veil Series prequel.
Pippa DaCosta
The best thing to do when someone is trying to argue with you is to repeatedly state "Stay Away" and video record the entire event. You may need that video for the police afterwords when the aggressor starts fabricating fantasies about the event.
Steven Magee
Already she knew that an idea could pain him like a bruise. He had grey eyes that showed every thought, and sometimes Charlotte worried that he might be hurt in some way that she would not be able to prevent.
Lauren Owen
You know that when a utility company is going down the fantasy route, they are likely hiding some illegal activity that they are engaging in. Fabricating fictional stories to their government regulator is just one of the many illegal activities that they engage in.
Steven Magee
We need heroes, however outlandish, because although we might not be slaying real dragons, we all have our quests.
Russ Thorne
It simply isn't an adventure worth telling if there aren't any dragons.
J.R.R. Tolkien
You want fantasy? Here's one... There's this species that lives on a planet a few miles above molten rock and a few miles below a vacuum that'd suck the air right out of them. They live in a brief geological period between ice ages, when giant asteroids have temporarily stopped smacking into the surface. As far as they can tell, there's nowhere else in the universe where they could stay alive for ten seconds. And what do they call their fragile little slice of space and time? They call it real life.
Terry Pratchett
What use is Order without Chaos to challenge its rule? And by the same standard, what lies ahead for us if nothing opposes our ways?
Louise Cooper
Anyway, it’s unthinkable! Dragons and knights are born enemies. They need to be enemies just like dogs hate cats, cats hate mice and mice hate scientists. Without somebody to hate where would all the hate go? The hate would just boil up inside you, eat away and cause you to have indigestion then a heart attack. We need to release the anger, and we release it on dragons who release it back on us. We slay them and they roast us. It is the natural order of things, Emma.
Elias Zapple