Quotes by British Authors - Page 650

When a man is happy enough to win the affections of a sweet girl, who can soothe his cares with crochet, and respond to all his most cherished ideas with beaded urn-rugs and chair-covers in German wool, he has, at least, a guarantee of domestic comfort, whatever trials may await him out of doors. What a resource it is under fatigue and irritation to have your drawing-room well supplied with small mats, which would always be ready if you ever wanted to set anything on them ! And what styptic for a bleeding heart can equal copious squares of crochet, which are useful for slipping down the moment you touch them ? How our fathers managed without crochet is the wonder; but I believe some small and feeble substitute existed in their time under the name of 'tatting'.
George Eliot
Tucker, please put him down," said Annie. "You're frightening Jackson.""He's not," said Jackson. "It's cool. I don't like that guy anyway. Punch him, Dad.
Nick Hornby
Has anyone sen Mr Snark " "I saw him in the tunnel about 15 minutes ago." "Oh no " wailed Dr Ferman "he will have been atomised." "Oh dear" muttered an MP. "Bye-election.
Alexander McCall Smith
Over the years, I have been subjected to many indignities, all for the sake of Art. If I ever catch him, I'm going to kill the guy.
Bob Hope
It ought to be an offense to be excruciating and unfunny in circumstances where your audience is almost morally obliged to enthuse.
Christopher Hitchens
There's an emergency link to the defence grid, but that's only for use in the direst emergencies." "And of course a mile-long unknown intruder approaching your main source of power isn't an emergency?" Karan hesitated, his chins wobbling slightly with their own momentum. "It'll take time, but I could access the defence grid's sensor logs for that sector..." "I won't tell if you don't.
David A. McIntee
Anyway, my writer gang: they kind of did their comedy apprenticeship with me and, during that period, when they were young and impressionable, I think I infected them with my pun virus. They grew to enjoy puns, think puns, just as much as me. The problem is people don't really like puns any more, so I worry I've rendered the poor fuckers virtually unemployable.
Frank Skinner
The strong man lit a cigarette. It looked too frail for his hand. They looked like King Kong and Fay Wray, that hand, that cigarette. There was a movie going on right under his nose and he didn't even know. The guy had about one brain cell and he was doing time in it.
Rupert Thomson
A funny yet interesting read, Will Self knowa his stuff and must do a lot of deep research.
Will Self
With a roof over his head he had ceased to work, living off his [war] pension and his wits, both hopelessly inadequate.
Spike Milligan
Like a good-looking John Merrick, mine was a face that looked really shit.
Alan Partridge
A married man is just a single man who couldn’t say no.
Colin Tegerdine
He stopped at the gate on his way back to the temple, where Gracilis, the Twentieth’s hard-case wolf hunter from the Campanian mountains, was supervising the strengthening of the defences.‘Take some men and tear down the huts along the west wall. And while you’re at it, clear everything for a javelin throw in front of this gate. I want a killing ground from there to about there.’Gracilis grinned and saluted. Like all legionaries, the only thing he liked better than fighting and drinking was destroying someone else’s property. ‘Should we burn them, sir?’ he said hopefully. Valerius shook his head. No point in creating smoke to warn the enemy. ‘Just break them up and add them to the barriers.
Douglas Jackson
Bisexuals are really attracted to senior Lib Dems - as they are both a man and a great big pussy.
Frankie Boyle
I also think pronunciation of a foreign tongue could be better taught than by demanding from the pupil those internal acrobatic feats that are generally impossible and always useless. This is the sort of instruction one receives: 'Press your tonsils against the underside of your larynx. Then with the convex part of the septum curved upwards so as almost but not quite to touch the uvula try with the tip of your tongue to reach your thyroid. Take a deep breath and compress your glottis. Now without opening your lips say "Garoo".' And when you have done it they are not satisfied.
Jerome K. Jerome
Seducing Jordana was solid – she's got such high standards – but when I finally got the snogs in it was all worth it." I transform Jordana's blather into high-level discourse: Lounging in a post-osculatory glow, I knew that all those months of hard chivalry had been worthwhile.
Joe Dunthorne
I am one of those servants – butlers usually – who respectfully points out when their master is about to do something stupid: "You should probably only burn the document once the blackmail has been completed, m' lady.
Joe Dunthorne
If you really want space on public transport you should carry some pornography from the 1970s and a pair of children's safety scissors, then delicately cut out all the eyes of the glamour models whilst whistling. Every now and again mutter, 'Why are women more beautiful when they are eyeless?' You will be able to stretch out, though this can have ramifications such as ending up on a police list or being run out of town.
Robin Ince
Hi!'The chirpy little voice greeted me with such energised enthusiasm it made me jump nearly a foot out of my seat. I turned around, expecting to see the usual cocky little Bezzer-in-training Tyler, who every once in a while enjoys pissing off as many people on the bus as possible, but to my surprise it was the scruffy little quiet Year 7 who sits at the front of the bus with his big orange hair bouncing around.'Hello,' I replied dubiously. (You can't assume that a kid isn't intending to give you grief just because he has ginger hair, not these days. What is the world coming to?)
Tom Clempson
Get down,' Bunty says grimly. 'Mummy's thinking.' (Although what Mummy's actually doing is wondering what it would be like if her entire family was wiped out and she could start again.)
Kate Atkinson
My mother tells me I do not chew my food enough; she says I am making it harder for my body to get the essential nutrients it needs. If she were here, I would remind her that I am eating a blueberry Pop-Tart.
Joe Dunthorne
I want the evening upon which we lose our collective virginities to be special. I'm no parthenologist but I suspect that Jordana's virginity is still intact. Her biological knowledge is minimal. She thinks that a perineum is to do with glacial moraine.
Joe Dunthorne
I swiftly discovered that there are few things in DIY (and possibly life) that can't be solved with a large mallet, a bag of ten-centimetre nails and some swearing.
Monty Halls
Anand finished up his cola cube transaction. I stepped up and slammed three pound coins on the counter like an oppressed inner-city youth born with the skills of rhythm and rhyme.
Nikesh Shukla
Yo, bredren, we be the illest,' went my proclamation. 'We be the dopest,' Anand would follow. 'Our tunes are going to be good,' Nishant would finish with.
Nikesh Shukla
Tell me about Gang Starr,' said Nishant, in an effort to start a conversation I'd be interested in. 'One MC, one DJ...' 'Classic combo,' Anand affirmed.'No hype man?''No.''What do we need Anand for?' Nishant shrugged, ever the pragmatist, never the catcher of feelings.
Nikesh Shukla
While 'Rap Trax!' recorded, Neel found some scrap paper and we started writing our first lyrics. Bandying about subject matter and title, we got stuck on the idea of 'cool', so my first rap song became 'Pretty Cool'. It was a symbol of our confidence. We weren't awesome cool or mega cool. We were only... pretty cool.
Nikesh Shukla
We'd taken up our positions on the benches between the school hall and a newly-installed outdoor basketball court. Being hip-hoppers, we were obliged to be obsessed with basketball. None of us had a ball.
Nikesh Shukla
Writing is like a lump of coal. Put it under enough pressure and polish it enough and you might just end up with a diamond. Otherwise, you can burn it to keep warm.
A.J. Dalton
Who's got a mirror?” I ask. Spider shrugs at me. “We're all fellas. Why would any of us have mirrors?”“I've got a mirror!” Brandon declares happily, digging a compact out of his pocket. No-one is surprised.
Melanie Tushmore
…a waitress came out and plonked in front of each of us a small standard terra-cotta flowerpot in which had been baked a little loaf of bread."What's this?" I asked."It's bread," she replied."But it's in a flowerpot?" She gave me a look that I was beginning to think of as the Darwin stare. It was a look that said, "Yeah? So?""Well, isn't that kind of unusual?"She considered for a moment. "Is a bit, I suppose." "And will we be following a horticultural theme throughout the meal?" Her expression contorted in a deeply pained look, as if she were trying to suck her face into the back of her head. "What?""Will the main course arrive in a wheelbarrow?" I elaborated helpfully. "Will you be serving the salad with a pitchfork?""Oh, no. It's just the bread that's special.""I'm so pleased to hear it.
Bill Bryson
How did you . . . pass the time?’ Sunday asked. ‘You couldn’t just ching out of it, could you?’‘We had a different form of chinging,’ Eunice said. ‘An earlier type of virtual-reality technology, much more robust and completely unaffected by time lag. You may have heard of it. We called it “reading”.
Alastair Reynolds
The Hamians!'The centurion‟s voice was little better than a squeak. Julius snorted his disdain.'What about the Hamians? Useless bow-waving women. All they‟re good for is hunting game. There‟s a war on, in case you hadn‟t noticed. We need infantrymen, big lads withspears and shields to strengthen our line. Archers are no bloody use in an infantry cohort.'He raised his meaty fist. 'No, mate, you‟re going to get what‟s coming your way.'The other man gabbled desperately, staring helplessly at the poised fist.'There‟s two centuries of them, two centuries. Take them and the Tungrians and that‟s two hundred and fifty men.'Marcus spoke, having stood quietly in the background so far.'So we could make a century of the best of them, dump the rest on the Second Cohort when we catch up with them and take back the century he sold them in return.'Julius turned his head to look at the younger man, keeping the transit officer clamped inplace with seemingly effortless strength.'Are you mad? There won‟t be a decent man among them. They‟ll be arse-poking,make-up-wearing faggots, the lot of them. All those easterners are, it‟s in the blood. They‟ll mince round the camp holding hands and tossing each other off in the bathhouse.
Anthony Riches
Sion calls Anne an eel, he calls her a slippery dipper from the slime, and he remembers what the cardinal had called her: my serpentine enemy. Sion says, she goes to it with her brother; he says, what, her brother George? ‘Any brother she's got. Those kind keep it in the family. They do filthy French tricks, like –’‘Can you keep your voice down?’ He looks around, as if spies might be swimming by the boat.‘– and that's how she trusts herself she don't give in to Henry, because if she lets him do it and she gets a boy he's, thanks very much, now clear off, girl – so she's oh, Your Highness, I never could allow – because she knows that very night her brother's inside her, licking her up to the lungs, and then he's, excuse me, sister, what shall I do with this big package – she says, oh,don't distress yourself, my lord brother, shove it up the back entry, it'll come to no harm there.
Hilary Mantel
I was proud to be brown in my own way. Well, I was at school; at school I was brown about the funky stuff that came with being vegetarian, like being really arrogant about it, declaring proudly to a room full of beefeaters when Mad Cow disease initially broke that it was 'Vishnu's way of telling y'all to stop eating and start worshipping'.
Nikesh Shukla
There is a certain amount which I shan't mention publicly," Elizabeth said. "Things about Lucia which I should never dream of stating openly.""Those are just the ones I should like to hear about most," said Diva. "Just a few little titbits.
E.F. Benson
Pamper a tomato, overfeed it, overwater it and you will get a Paris Hilton of a tomato.
Nigel Slater
Ah! The English language was a wonderful thing! You could always find the right word. He only wished he could speak the language.
Terry Jones
Never be a pioneer. It's the early Christian that gets the fattest lion.
Saki
I do think your brother grows more peculiar every day,' I complain to Edward when he comes to my rooms in Whitehall Palace to escort me to dinner.'Which one?' he asks lazily. 'For you know I can do nothing right in the eyes of either. You would think they would be glad to have a York on the throne and peace in Christendom, and one of the finest Christmas feasts we have ever arranged; but no: Richard is leaving court to go back north as soon as the feast is over, to demonstrate his outrage that we are not slogging away in a battle with the French, and George is simply bad tempered.
Philippa Gregory
She scarcely spoke at all and might have been one of those huge dolls which, when inclined backwards, say "Ma-ma" or "Pa-pa": though impossible to imagine in any position so undignified as that required for the mechanism to produce these syllables.
Anthony Powell
This Earle of Oxford, making of his low obeisance to Queen Elizabeth, happened to let a Fart, at which he was so abashed and ashamed that he went to Travell, 7 yeares. On his returne the Queen welcomed him home, and sayd, My Lord, I had forgott the Fart.
John Aubrey
Captain Midlands: "I met the real you once."John (Lennon) the Skrull: "You're meeting the real me now."Captain Midlands: "I told him to get his bleedin' hair cut.
Paul Cornell
John the Skrull: (as Merlyn) "Here, listen. It's me, Merlyn, the magic man. There's no need for all this conflict, like. I command you to--"Tink: "Suck my tits, you fairy fuckers!"John the Skrull: "I was going to say 'give peace a chance'...
Paul Cornell
A pair of young mothers now became the centre of interest. They had risen from their lying-in much sooner than the doctors would otherwise have allowed. (French doctors are always very good about recognizing the importance of social events, and certainly in this case had the patients been forbidden the ball the might easily have fretted themselves to death.) One came as the Duchesse de Berri with l’Enfant du Miracle, and the other as Madame de Montespan and the Duc du Maine. The two husbands, the ghost of the Duc de Berri, a dagger sticking out of his evening dress, and Louis XIV, were rather embarrassed really by the horrible screams of their so very young heirs, and hurried to the bar together. The noise was indeed terrific, and Albertine said crossly that had she been consulted she would, in this case, have permitted and even encouraged the substitution of dolls. The infants were then dumped down to cry themselves to sleep among the coats on her bed, whence they were presently collected by their mothers’ monthly nannies. Nobody thereafter could feel quite sure that the noble families of Bregendir and Belestat were not hopelessly and for ever interchanged. As their initials and coronets were, unfortunately, the same, and their baby linen came from the same shop, it was impossible to identify the children for certain. The mothers were sent for, but the pleasures of society rediscovered having greatly befogged their maternal instincts, they were obliged to admit they had no idea which was which. With a tremendous amount of guilty giggling they spun a coin for the prettier of the two babies and left it at that.
Nancy Mitford
WHAT? YOU AGAIN?' he shouted in capital letters.
Noel Langley
When a Lady chooses to Change Her Mind,' said the Mouse with a touch of hauteur, 'a Gentleman would consider it no more than her Privilege, and not Badger Her About It.
Noel Langley
Tiffany knew what the problem was immediately. She'd seen it before, atbirthday parties. Her brother was suffering from tragic sweetdeprivation. Yes, he was surrounded by sweets. But the moment he took anysweet at all, said his sugar-addled brain, that meant he was not takingall the rest. And there were so many sweets he'd never be able to eatthem all. It was too much to cope with. The only solution was to burstinto tears.
Terry Pratchett
If you count sheep before you go to sleep, are you barrrrr'd from dreams?
Benny Bellamacina
Oh, sheep. I've lost all my sobbing colours.
Dave McKean
Baldrick: Have you got a plan, my lord?Blackadder: Yes I have, and it's so cunning you can brush your teeth with it!
Richard Curtis
On my first day in London I made an early start. Reaching the Public Record Office not much after ten, I soon secured the papers I needed for my research and settled in my place. I became, as is the way of the scholar, so deeply absorbed as to lose all consciousness of my surroundings or of the passage of time. When at last I came to myself, it was almost eleven and I was quite exhausted: I knew I could not prudently continue without refreshment.
Sarah Caudwell
Spring had come finally and after much hesitation, to Lincoln's Inn Fields and there were daffodils out upon the green grass and gilly-flowers blooming in the window-boxes of the ground floor sets. This being Lincoln's Inn, where an air of general severity prevails, they did so with an unconscionable meekness, as if they feared that some legal eminence- Mr Crabbe perhaps- would descend in wrath from his chambers and present them with a writ for unlicensed blossoming or occupying too great a proportion of space.
D.J. Taylor
The clock in the church tower said 4.32, as it had done for three hundred years. It was right once a day and that was better than no clock at all.
Spike Milligan
R.I.P.Tom Conlon O'Rourke.Not Dead, just Sleeping.
Spike Milligan
Why couldn't Rachel be a little more specific about the type of person she was? Goodness knew; if she were a hippie I'd talk to her about her drug experiences, the zodiac, tarot cards. If she were left-wing I'd look miserable, hate Greece, and eat baked beans straight from the tin. If she were the sporty type I'd play her at... chess and backgammon and things.
Martin Amis
Glenn could see I was bricking it and turned round to me as I sat there, gripping the armrests."You all right?" he said."I hate flying, Boss. I'm shitting myself.""Don't worry, Merse. It's going to be OK. We *won't* crash."I thought, "Thank God for that. Glenn's said we're going to be safe. Nothing's going to fuck with us now.
Paul Merson
I crawled back to bed, knowing I was done for. Hours later, the phone in our room started ringing. It was George. He was not happy."Room 312. Now!" he shouted.Bouldy got up. I tried to pull myself together, splashing my face with water and hauling on my shorts and flip flops. It was a lovely day outside, the sun was scorching hot and there wasn't a cloud in the sky, but it might as well have been a pissing wet morning in St Albans for all I cared. I felt sick to the pit of my stomach as we made the Walk of Death to Room 312, which I knew was Paul and Gus's room.When we walked in, I thought I'd arrived in downtown Baghdad. Water dripped from the ceiling. The board games were in pieces and all the plastic parts were scattered over the floor. The balcony window was wide open and I could see a bed upended by the pool outside.
Paul Merson
The great are eternally at the mercy of tiny men. And also, tiny madwomen.
Salman Rushdie
Julia's unhappy relationship with the Inland Revenue was due to her omission, during four years of modestly successful practice at the Bar, to pay any income tax. The truth is, I think, that she did not, in her heart of hearts, really believe in income tax. It was a subject which she had studied for examinations and on which she had thereafter advised a number of clients: she naturally did not suppose, in these circumstances, that it had anything to do with real life.
Sarah Caudwell