Quotes by British Authors - Page 649

...weak of spine and flaccid of upper lip.
Toby Frost
People get the wrong idea. I blame science-fiction writers, personally. It annoys me how they confuse the whole robot issue. I tell you, if I met that Asimov bloke, I’d harm him, or at least through inaction allow him to come to harm.
Toby Frost
Mac had many admirable qualities, but not tact. He was the sort of man who would have tried to cheer Napoleon up by talking about the Winter Sports at Moscow.
P.G. Wodehouse
Ever since I discovered that my god given male member was going to give me no peace, I decided to give it no rest in return.
Christopher Hitchens
I don't ask you - fribble!' snapped his lordship, rounding on him, with the speed of a whiplash. 'You may keep your tongue between your teeth!'"Yes, sir - happy to!' uttered Claud, dismayed. 'No wish to offend you! Thought you might like to be set right!''Thought I might like to be set right?''No, no! Spoke without thinking!' said Claud hastily. ' I know you don't!
Georgette Heyer
I must own, too, that I can't be astonished at his being vexed to death over this business. It is excessively awkward! However, he doesn't lay the blame for that at my door: you mustn't think that!""I should think not indeed!" exclaimed Anthea between amusement and indignation. "How could he possibly do so?""No, very true, my love!" agreed Mrs Darracott. "I thought that myself, but it did put me on the fidgets when Richmond said he wanted to see me, because in general, you know, things I never even heard about turn out to be my fault.
Georgette Heyer
He cleared his throat. “You need to pick a safe word.”“What on earth is a safe word?”He smothered a sigh. This was proving to be more work than he thought it’d be. “It’s a word you use when you want things to stop.”“How about I use the word ‘stop’?” She sounded sarcastic.“That’s not how it works. You need a word that you wouldn’t normally use during sex.”“Fine. How about ‘dumbass’?”“I don’t think you’re getting into the spirit of this.”“Really? You think?”“Fine. Dumbass it is.” There was no dealing with her when she was in this mood. “If you use your safe word, everything stops.”“Good.” She took a deep breath. “Dumbass,” she shouted.Andrew wasn’t sure what to do next. This was not going the way it did in the books.
Janet Elizabeth Henderson
When Montmorency meets a cat, the whole street knows about it; and there is enough bad language wasted in ten seconds to last an ordinarily respectable man all his life, with care.
Jerome K. Jerome
Company, you see - company is - is - it's a very different thing from solitude - an't it?
Charles Dickens
Queen Bee hates me. I know, as I reach the door, that nothing good waits for me on the other side. When you're called to see the Commanding Officer, you're either getting a medal or a kick in the arse.And I'm not getting any medals.
John Owen Theobald
But he survived, that radio announcer. His ship and five others out of the flotilla of ten came through, a bit radioactive, but otherwise unharmed. And I understand that the first thing that happened to him when he reported back to his office after treatmentwas a reprimand for the use of overcolloquial language which had given offense to a number of listeners by its neglect of the Third Commandment.
John Wyndham
Yes, you are still grieving for the fact that Olly is not loving you as you love him. But death is no solution. Certainly not this horrible, messy death. Could you at least not consider possible option that is not leaving you looking diabolical at funeral?"Oh, for the love of God.
Lucy Holliday
Oh, well, I know that Libby." He rolls his eyes. "I've never met anyone more committed to, well, life that you are.""Really?" I swallow rather hard. "Even though I keep on screwing my life up?""Sweetheart, precisely because you keep screwing your life up! I mean look at you. You had the crappiest career eve in the world before you turned everything around and became this shit-hot jewellery designer. You set your head on fire with a cigarette and ended up being utterly adored by the guy who had to put you out... And I do adore you, by the way," he adds, in a nonchalant sort of way, "in case you ever had wondered. Oh, and then there's your love of life. Loads of girls would have just sunk...
Lucy Holliday
where actual evidence had been a bit sparse he had, in the best traditions of the keen ethnic historian, inferred from revealed self-evident wisdom* *Made it upand extrapolated from associated sources** **had read a lot of stuff that other people had made up, too.
Terry Pratchett
Mr. Cupples came out of his reverie. "I think," he said, "I will have milk and soda-water." "Speak lower!" urged Trent. "The head-waiter has a weak heart, and he might hear you.
E.C. Bentley
There’s always an opportunity to fish for something – even if it’s just for laughs or ideas.
Fennel Hudson
I couldn't possibly repeat the words he used .They were so unsettling that I sent Nancy indoors to find my spectacles.
John Bude
Some of my best friends are women,' I snapped, 'though I certainly wouldn't want my daughter to marry one of them.
Kyril Bonfiglioli
I hope you grow up to be as good a mother as your father
Robert Rankin
I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired,' said Maxie.'I know how that feels,' said Blue.'I think some Pharaoh had that carved on his tomb,' Maxie added.'Yeah? Times don't change much, do they?
Charlie Higson
You see football isn’t just about 90 minutes, it‘s about passion and, yes, if you like, about life. We men will do things under the umbrella of football fandom that we would never dream of doing in any other sphere of life, and within the pages that follow I will try and explain why.
Dougie Brimson
I always enjoy the day after a hangover. Each time it happens, it’s my own little victory over the demon drink.
Dougie Brimson
One of the things about football fans in general is that they all think that they’re the same. But they are not. This is a myth put about by people who wish that they were the same as the geezers. There are, in fact, a number of distinctive types of supporter, and although they all have a role to play, they are all very different indeed.
Dougie Brimson
Two hours later, a noise resembling a hippo rolling along a corrugated iron roof shook Jane from her doze and Rob bursts through the living room door.
Dougie Brimson
the great advantage of really contemporary fiction is that one finds oneself mirror on every page
Peter Ackroyd
the great advantage of really contemporary fiction is that one finds oneself mirrored on every page
Peter Ackroyd
One can forgive Shakespeare anything, except one's own bad lines.
Peter Ackroyd
Some drink to forget, I drink to remember. I drink in order to understand what I mean and to discover what I know. Under its benign influence all the stories and dramas which properly belong to the sphere of art are announced by me in conversation.
Peter Ackroyd
absinthe removes the bitter taste of failure and grants me strange visions which are charming principally because they cannot be written down. Only in absinthe do I become entirely free and, when I drink it, I understand the symbolic mysteries of odour and of colour.
Peter Ackroyd
Time travel is complicated, or so we think, since we have not yet managed to actually figure out how to do it.
Serena Yates
God, I felt as if I had just been flattened by ‘Elmer’ the elephant.
Adele Rose
The first two tracks were pop songs from the 1970s, sung in Danish in a style that was best described as Abba without joy.
Claire North
I think you're a shit,’ said Keith sharply. ‘I think much of what you’ve done this season is shit and I think what you've put everyone involved with this club through is shit. How’s that?
Dougie Brimson
Well we certainly don't want to see that kind of thing,’ admonished Jeff Stelling. ‘Did it calm down?’‘No,’ shouted Kamara. ‘It got worse. The police were just getting involved when the chairman was hit by a pie thrown from the crowd.’‘Was he injured?’ asked Stelling, struggling to suppress a giggle.‘I don’t think so,’ laughed Kamara. ‘He sat down and started eating it!
Dougie Brimson
Oh really?’ said Mayes raising a mocking eyebrow which put Rob in mind of a poor man’s Roger Moore. ‘And what on earth makes you think that you of all people would be allowed anywhere near our board meeting? Rob’s smile widened as he realised that he was about to have one of those golden bombshell moments of the type he’d been on the receiving end of all too frequently over the last few days. ‘Because Mr. Mayes, I’m your new chairman.
Dougie Brimson
Jane turned and looked at Rob who was still staring into space with a crazed look on his face. ‘Are you listening to this?’ she said as she thumped him on the arm. Rob turned to her and broke into a broad grin. ‘Listening to what?’ he laughed. ‘I’m loaded. I don’t have to listen to anything!’‘Yes you do,’ said England calmly. ‘You have to listen very carefully.
Dougie Brimson
A game?’ Rob spluttered. ‘A bloody game?’ He turned to face his father. ‘This is your bloody fault! I’m living your bloody karma!
Dougie Brimson
To imagine that I was pleased would have been an understatement, if I was a dog, my tail would be wagging my arse off.
Gary Edward Gedall
Sir Hamish Graham has many of the qualities & most of the failings that result from being born to a middle-class Scottish family. He was well educated, hard working & honest, while at the same time being narrow-minded, uncompromising & proud.
Jeffrey Archer
He leans back in his seat. His legs are spread and his head tipped back, with his eyes challenging me. “Okay what’s next, boss?”I shudder theatrically. “I see why you like it. Just the word makes me feel all powerful.
Lily Morton
Charlotte Richmond says of herself: “I have few ladylike accomplishments. I cannot sing, I cannot draw, I cannot play the pianoforte or the harp and I cannot produce delicately beautiful embroideries. Sadly, the ability to do quantities of mending, to cook a good plain dinner and to shoot a marauding crocodile as I once did, is not appreciated in Polite Society.
Nicola Slade
Much has been written on the excellence of bats' navigation equipment. It is all false. Tropical bats spend their entire time flying into obstacles with a horrible thudding noise. They specialize in slamming into walls and falling, fluttering onto your face. As my own 'piece of equipment essential for the field' I would strongly recommend a tennis racket; it is devastatingly effective in clearing a room of bats.
Nigel Barley
I had made an early policy decision to drink the native beer despite the undoubted horrors of the process of fabrication. On my very first visit to a Dowayo beer party, this was put severely to the test. "Will you have beer?" I was asked. "Beer is furrowed," I replied, having got the tones wrong. "He said 'yes' ", my assistant replied in a tired voice. They were amazed. No white man, at this time, had ever been known to touch beer. Seizing a calabash, they proceeded to wash it out in deference to my exotic sensibilities. They did this by offering it to a dog to lick out. Dowayo dogs are not beautiful at the best of times; this one was particularly loathsome, emaciated, open wounds on its ears where flies feasted, huge distended ticks hanging from its belly. It licked the calabash with relish. It was refilled and passed to me. Everyone regarded me, beaming expectantly. There was nothing to be done; I drained it and gasped out my enjoyment. Several more calabashes followed.
Nigel Barley
University of Life. Year One - Advance Adventure Playgrounds. Part One Exam - go to the Third World and survive. No revision, interest, intellect or sensitivity required.
William Sutcliffe
I have not yet tranquillised myself enough to see Frederica.
Jane Austen
One cannot help feeling that some alternative occupation—lettuce farming, say—would offer somewhat less of a risk of being put to death by installments. Why do you persist in it?”Goldeneyes Dactylos shrugged.“I’m good at it,” he said.
Terry Pratchett
Rincewind picked up a spare paper and read it.It was headed: Examination for the post of Assistant Night-Soil Operative for the District of W'ung.He read question one. It required candidates to write a sixteen-line poem on evening mist over the reed beds.Question two seemed to be about the use of metaphor in some book Rincewind had never heard of.Then there was a question about music . . .Rincewind turned the paper over a couple of times. There didn't seem to be any mention, anywhere, of words like 'compost' or 'bucket' or 'wheelbarrow'. But presumably all this produced a better class of person than the Ankh-Morpork system, which asked just one question: 'Got your own shovel, have you?
Terry Pratchett
OK, so the guy is cool, but... I mean own up, this is barking time, this is major lunch, this is stool approaching critical mass, this is... this is... total vocabulary failure!
Douglas Adams
We may be pilgrims passing through this world, but let's not be grim-pills in the process!
Arthur D Bardswell
Manners are for those who have neither beauty or talent but want people to like them despite their lack of attractions
Brigid Brophy
He stares at me. “So you’re telling me that you obey all my orders, because honestly that would be news to me?”“I always obey your orders,” I say indignantly. “I am quite possibly the best assistant in history.”“That would certainly be true, if you were the only assistant in history.
Lily Morton
His only mistake, naturally enough, was to keep his attention on the bloke with the saw. He should have been watching the naked girls. Amazing how finely balanced that choice can be.
Mark Huntley-James
Lucas took a tentative sip of his coffee. It tasted like an otter had pissed in a tea urn and it had been left to go stale over a prolonged period.
Adam Maxwell
News of the death of James V on 14 December gave even further cause for rejoicing, because his heir was a week-old girl, the infant Mary, Queen of Scots. Scotland would be subject to yet another weakening regency—it had endured six during the past 150 years—and should give no further trouble.
Alison Weir
There's a hero in all of us, it merely needs the right incentive.
Carol Salter
Nothing more likely,"said Hannasyde. "I've got to try and rattle him.""It's him that'll do the rattling,"said the Sergeant darkly. "he's the nearest thing to a snake I've seen outside of the Zoo.
Georgette Heyer
When will the Home Office realize that when judges retire, not only are they sent home for the rest of their lives, but the only people they have left to judge are their innocent wives.''So what are you recommending?'asked Alex as they walked into the drawing room.'That judges should be shot on their seventieth birthday, and their wives granted a royal pardon and given their pensions by a grateful nation.''I may have come up with a more acceptable solution,' suggested Alex.'Like what? Making it legal to assist judges' wives to commit suicide?''Something a little less drastic,' said Alex.
Jeffrey Archer
Stone me, what a life!
Tony Hancock
They made for his noise far quicker than he had expected. They were frightfully angry. Quite apart from the stones no spider has ever like being called Attercop, and Tomnoddy of course, is insulting to anybody.
J.R.R. Tolkien
Human relations, at least between the sexes, were carried on as relations between countries are now - with ambassadors, and treaties. The parties concerned met on the great occasion of the proposal. If this were refused, a state of war was declared.
Virginia Woolf