Quotes by British Authors - Page 648

I wondered: if I was so hell-bent on chaos, why would I adopt a military rank? Perhaps there was a part of me that needed rules, needed regulations and order.
Steven Poore
. . . Mrs. Arcanum considered foreign parts only marginally less unspeakable than private parts. . .
Terry Pratchett
Then he started his period.One week in bed.Two doctors in.Three painkillers four times a day.And later a letter to the powers-that-bedemanding full-paid menstrual leave twelve weeks per year.
Carol Ann Duffy
You want them to give Batman counselling sessions?""It's genius. Just make Bruce Wayne get over his shit, then, presto, no more Batman. The baddies win by default.
Jay Stringer
You can't conceive the perverse ingenuity he could put into hiding his affections.
May Sinclair
Casting a curious gaze down on planet Earth, extra-terrestrial beings could well be forgiven for assuming that we humans are programmed in every move we make, by a palm-sized, oblong, slab of glass. More perplexing than that, who on earth could convince them otherwise ?
Alex Morritt
These days, you could stage a three-point orgy in the garden and nobody would bat an eye...
Angela Carter
Save time, worry about everything all at once!
Benny Bellamacina
Alys," he exclaims happily. "I think this might work out. You're going to be excellent in getting rid of unwanted visitors.""I'm not a fucking Rottweiler," I say indignantly.
Lily Morton
Joan Durbeyfield always manged to find consolation somewhere: 'Well, as one of the genuine stock, she ought to make her way with 'en, if she plays her trump car aright. And if he don't marry her afore he will after. For that he's all afire wi' love for her any eye can see.' 'What's her trump card? Her d'Urberville blood, you mean?' 'No, stupid; her face - as 'twas mine.
Thomas Hardy
Hardship bred a bitter, quickfire humour and resilience to all but the most terminal of life's tragedies.
Ian Rankin
The elf was armed with a bow, a sword, and an overwhelming sense of his own importance.
Thaddeus White
He ate with all the restraint of a nymphomaniac at an orgy.
Thaddeus White
A golden dragon. Splendid. My life expectancy has just become shorter than a gnome’s todger.
Thaddeus White
If I wanted a life of chastity I’d live with my wife.
Thaddeus White
For the next century, no elf is to be banished to the human world. No more Star Wars, no more Harry Potter, no more Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, and no more body-doubling for Tom Cruise. Elves shouldn't be treated like shit. We're not Mexicans.
Adam Millard
Never worry if you’re excluded from the circle, sometimes it’s full of squares.
Benny Bellamacina
Always walk as if you’re running late, it’s healthier.
Benny Bellamacina
You haven't been fired," Mary said with a sigh. "You always jump to the worst possible conclusion. Why on earth would you be getting f
Lindsey Kelk
Anubis is associated with the mummification and protection of the dead for their journeys through Denver International Airport to the afterlife. He is usually portrayed as being half human and half jackal, and holding a metal detector in his hand ... Anubis is employed by the Department of Homeland Security to examine the hearts of all travellers to make sure they have not exceeded the weight limit for psychological baggage ... He is also shown frisking mummies and confiscating firearms and other contraband. It doesn't take much to tip the scales in favour of a dead body cavity search or an afterlifetime travel ban.
Stephen Moles
You can’t fight if you’re drunk,” she n
Thaddeus White
Do you like singing?" Miriam asked her."If it is good," she said.Paul, of course, coloured."You mean if it is high-class and trained?" he said."I think a voice needs training before the singing is anything," she said."You might as well insist on having people's voices trained before you allowed them to talk," he replied. "Really, people sing for their own pleasure, as a rule.""And it may be for other people's discomfort.
D.H. Lawrence
This is flight 121 to Los Angeles. If your travel plans today do not include Los Angeles, now would be the perfect time to disembark.
Douglas Adams
You can’t possibly be thinking of sending him home! He can barely walk.” Meg’s smile began to slip. Ambulance crews were queuing almost out the door, and all this lad needed was a stat dose of Man-the-Fuck-Up.
Cari Hunter
And new physical problems are arising almost daily. I'm getting problems from a painful trapped nerve in my shoulder, where my rucksack strap has been pinching it, and I can't straighten my arm above shoulder level - soon I will be limping like Richard III. By now my back is covered with eczema, the result of a perpetually sodden shirt and rucksack pressed against it day after day in this heat. In one place my pack has rubbed a painful hole in my skin through the eczema; carrying my rucksack was unpleasant before, but now it is purgatory. This eczema must be partly due to eating bad food for so long - I never had this problem at home. I'm expecting my teeth and hair to start falling out before long, and I've got more or less a permanent acid indigestion from eating so much junk. Week after week I've lived on lukewarm Coca-Cola, stale buns and doughnuts, slurps, green bananas, powdered milk and far too many cigarettes. With all the rubbishy food and sugar soft drinks I've been consuming, I'll see the east coast through a hypoglycaemic haze.
Fran Sandham
...methinks the older that one grows, Inclines us more to laugh the scold, though laughterLeaves us so doubly serious shortly after.
George Gordon Byron
And yet methinks the older that one growsInclines us more to laugh than scold, though laughterLeaves us so doubly serious shortly after.
George Gordon Byron
[On setting all clocks at varying times in advance...]A selfless gesture on my part which ensures I am never late, but really only means that I spend time waiting not only for people who are late but also for people who are on time.
Jon Richardson
Talking of snakes, Mrs. Montgomery told me that once she nearly stood upon a krait - one of the most venomous snakes in India. She has been very ill at the time, suffering from acute facial neuralgia, 'so that I didn't care if I trod on fifty kraits. I was quite stupid with pain, and was going back in the evening to my bungalow, preceded by a servant who was carrying a lamp. Suddenly he stopped and said "Krait, Mem-sahib!" - but I was far too ill to notice what he was saying, and went straight on, and the krait was lying right in the middle of the path! The servant did a thing absolutely without precedent in India - he touched me! - he put hand on my shoulder and pulled me back. My shoe came off and I stopped. Of course if he hadn't done that I should have undoubtedly have been killed; but I didn't like it all the same same, and got rid of him soon after.
J.R. Ackerley
In the bazaar today I noticed a shopkeeper sitting cross-legged on the platform of his shop making up his ledger. A common sight - but there was something wrong, I could not at first see what. Then I understood: what was his heavy ledge resting on? It was lying open before him, on his stomach, but unsupported by his free hand, not resting against his knees. What on earth was propping it up?The problem teased my mind so much that I had to retrace my steps for another look. There he was, comfortably scribbling away in the large ledger, which was standing up, apparently unsupported, in his lap. Then, as I stared, he closed it, and got to his feet - and the mystery was explained. He had elephantiasis of the scrotum, and had been utilising this huge football of tissue as a book-rest.
J.R. Ackerley
Humans need fantasy to be human. To be the place where the falling angel meets the rising ape.
Terry Pratchett
Maybe people do like wine. It's not as nice as just eating the grapes, but it's okay.
Ben Brooks
...Andrew Feldman put £2,000 behind the bar, and [David] Cameron told a joke about a farmer inviting a new neighbour to come to his house for a party where there might be dancing, drinking and ‘rough sex’. When the neighbour asks what to wear, the farmer says, ‘It doesn’t matter, it’s only going to be you and me.
Tim Shipman
Colonel Talbot? he is a very disagreeable person, to be sure. He looks as if he thought no Scottish woman worth the trouble of handing her a cup of tea.
Walter Scott
His Scotch bear-leader, Mr Boswell, was a butt of the first quality.
William Makepeace Thackeray
They were like animals, men. They found too much eye contact threatening.
Jojo Moyes
Steerpike of the Many Problems,” said the Doctor. “What did you say they were? My memory is so very untrustworthy. It’s as fickle as a fox. Ask me to name the third lateral bloodvessel from the extremity of my index finger that runs east to west when I lie on my face at sundown, or the percentage of chalk to be found in the knuckles of an average spinster in her fifty-seventh year, ha, ha, ha! – or even ask me, my dear boy, to give details of the pulse rate of frogs two minutes before they die of scabies – these things are no tax upon my memory, ha, ha, ha! But ask me to remember exactly what you said you problems were, a minute ago, and you will find that my memory has forsaken me utterly. Now why is that, my dear Master Steerpike, why is that?”“Because I never mentioned them,” said Steerpike.“That accounts for it,” said Prunesquallor. “That, no doubt, accounts for it.
Mervyn Peake
When I am alone in the forest at night-time and jump from one tree to another, I often think that life is so strange.
George Mikes
All Chelsea's internet dates were gorgeous. Until she met them.
Jojo Moyes
There is, perhaps, no greater hardship at present inflicted on mankind in civilised and free countries than the necessity of listening to sermons.
Anthony Trollope
When an artist friend of mine explained she was working her way up the creative ladder, I asked if she would kindly paint the front of my house on the way up.
Benny Bellamacina
Wow, that is so deep.'He meant it, of course.'You're really real,' he added breathily. 'Say something else.'I decided he wasn't worth punching, and walked away.
Claire North
(When told that he is a drunk) My dear, you are ugly; but in the morning I will be sober and you will still be ugly.
Sir Winston Churchill
He was cold, standing in a wood, talking to a big black bird who was currently brunching on Bambi.
Neil Gaiman
This was beyond a joke. This had moved beyond foolishness, slipped over the line into genuine 24 karat Jesus-Christ-I-fucked-up-bigtime territory.
Neil Gaiman
.....it's hard to describe a psychosoteric battle at close quarters..... Think of those tennis-ball firing machines, but loaded with hand-grenades trapped in a shipping container, on a ship caught in a force-ten gale.
David Mitchell
Don't panic and carry a towel
Douglas Adams
Beware the ideas of March... just one little letter changes the whole meaning. I love the way worms can do that.
Alan Dapre
The clown knows that life is cruel. The ancient jester's motley coloured costume turned his usually melancholy expression in to a joke. The clown is used to loss. Loss is his prologue.
John Berger
I was woken early and had breakfast with the guru. We had some spicy Rice Krispies and a spicy biscuit with some really sweet, milky tea. Not the way I normally like it, but I drank it anyway as I didn’t want to offend him. I suppose that is my heart telling me how to act instead of my head again. My arse may get involved later though.
Karl Pilkington
I’d heard street food was a big thing here in Mexico but I didn’t think it meant the creatures that lived on the street.
Karl Pilkington
Frightfully pale and perpetually odd
Sue Perkins
Moons have passed since last we met, battles fought and enemies fallen. At the bridge of Anrag I took fifteen heads. I overthrew the tyrant Dagrud War-Scythe and took his cattle as tribute to my skill. It was a glorious day.’ ‘Sounds pretty wild. I’m having a new patio put down. You and me both, eh?’ ‘Square slabs or crazy paving?’ ‘Square slabs.
Toby Frost
Well?" said Loki. "What about you, Heimdall? Do you have any suggestions?""I do," said Heimdall. "But you won't like it."Thor banged his fist down upon the table. "It does not matter whether or not we like it," he said. "We are gods! There is nothing that any of us gathered here would not do to get back Mjollnir, the hammer of the gods. Tell us your idea, and if it is a good idea, we will like it.""You won't like it," said Heimdall."We will like it!" said Thor."Well," said Heimdall, "I think we should dress Thor as a bride. Have him put on the necklace of the Brisings. Have him wear a bridal crown. Stuff his dress so he looks like a woman. Veil his face. We'll have him wear keys that jingle, as women do, drape him with jewels -""I don't like it!" said Thor. "People will think... well, for a start they'll think I dress up in women's clothes. Absolutely out of the question. I don't like it. I am definitely not going to be wearing a bridal veil. None of us like this idea, do we? Terrible, terrible idea. I've got a beard. I can't shave off my beard.""Shut up, Thor," said Loki son of Laufey. "It's an excellent idea.
Neil Gaiman
But I see you're not standing in a bleedin' shadow, Perks, nor have you done anything to change your bleedin' shape, you're silhouetted against the bleedin' light and your sabre's shining like a diamond in a chimney-sweep's bleedin' ear'ole! Explain!""It's because of the one C, sarge!" said Polly, still staring straight ahead. "And that is?" "Colour, sarge! I'm wearing bleedin' red and white in a bleedin' grey forest, sarge!
Terry Pratchett
A jaw like a mastiff's, a frame like a giant's, eyes like two daggers, a smile like a tiger's snarl,"Bernard murmured."Aye, he is all that!!" Master Herbert said."A murrain be on him! And when I came to him,what did I do? I did bow in all politeness, yet stiffly withal to show him I'd not brook his surliness.""I did hear ye did bow so low that your head came below your knees,"Bernard said.
Georgette Heyer
He then, with great presence of mind, put a stop to any further recriminations by kissing her; and his indignant betrothed, apparently feeling that he was too deeply sunk in depravity to be reclaimable, abandoned (for the time being, at all events) any further attempt to bring him to a sense of his iniquity.
Georgette Heyer
Why were kings cross? Maybe their trains were late! Some say warrior Queen Boudica was buried under platform 8.
Terry Deary
You’ll slip up, just like everyone else who tries to mess with the British Empire. They all get it wrong somehow – forget some detail, make some tiny error, invade Russia – and then it’s all downhill from there.
Toby Frost
Remember you’re all representing your country, and you ought to behave as the Empire does.’ ‘So we can kill and loot at will, steal their goods and claim the planet as our own?’ Suruk said.
Toby Frost