Quotes by British Authors - Page 653

And I’m stubborn, if you want absolute obedience, get a Labrador.
Suzanne Wright
Oh! Do not excite yourself. Shall I say that he interested me because he was trying to grow a mustache and as yet the result is poor." Poirot stroked his own magnificent mustache tenderly. "It is an art," he murmured, "the growing of the mustache! I have sympathy for all who attempt it.
Agatha Christie
You cannot, it seems, let children run about the streets. People who have seen them running wild in Russia say that the sight is not a pleasant one.
Virginia Woolf
When someone uses the phrase ‘the prick one’, and you know immediately that this is a synonym for the word ‘metaphorically’, you are entitled to wonder whether you know the speaker too well. You are even entitled to wonder whether you should know her at all.
Nick Hornby
Please Note:Although it is true that some havebeen captured; we would like toassure you that no thoughts, orimages, have been harmed during the making of this book.
Clive Blake
Never say a humorous thing to a man who does not possess humor. He will always use it in evidence against you.
Herbert Beerbohm Tree
When the bishop farted we were amused to hear about it. Should the ploughboy find treasure we must be told. But when the ploughboy farts... er... keep it to yourself.
Kingsley Amis
I know it’s not the right thing to say to a lady, miss, but you are sweating like a pig!""My mother always said that horses sweat, men perspire, and ladies merely glow…""Is that so? Well, miss, you are glowing like a pig!
Terry Pratchett
Someone has to do it. It's all very well calling for eye of newt, but do you mean Common, Spotted or Great Crested? Which eye, anyway? Will tapioca do just as well? If we substitute egg white will the spell a) work b) fail or c) melt the bottom out of the cauldron? Goodie Whemper's curiosity about such things was huge and insatiable*.* Nearly insatiable. It was probably satiated in her last flight to test whether a broomstick could survive having its bristles pulled out one by one in mid-air. According to the small black raven she had trained as a flight recorder, the answer was almost certainly no.
Terry Pratchett
The dwarfs can turn lead into gold...It reached the pointy ears of the dwarfs.-Can we?-Damned if I know. I can't.-Yeah, but if you could, you wouldn't say. I wouldn't say, if I could.-Can you?-No!-Ah-ha!
Terry Pratchett
[He]said something that made it impossible to continue working for him.[The exact words were]You're fired.
Christopher Hitchens
If he speaks again without me knowing who he is, I will throw him out of the window. And I won't open it first.
Dan Abnett
She whispers in my ear: ‘"Tell me that you wan' fuck me hard, make me sweat." In the excitement, she misses out a word. "I want to fuck you so hard that your body drips with sweat," I say, grammatically.
Joe Dunthorne
If you still persist in writing, "Good food at it's best", you deserve to be struck by lightning, hacked up on the spot and buried in an unmarked grave.
Lynne Truss
I'd like to think...that people in pubs would talk about my poems
Philip Larkin
He lies down next to me.He says, 'You know - you have a face to die for/''Well, don't die,' I say, "we just met.
Gwendoline Riley
No," he said, "look, it's very, very simple ... all I want ... is a cup of tea. You are going to make one for me. Keep quiet and listen." And he sat. He told the Nutri-Matic about India, he told it about China, he told it about Ceylon. He told it about broad leaves drying in the sun. He told it about silver teapots. He told it about summer afternoons on the lawn. He told it about putting in the milk before the tea so it wouldn't get scalded. He even told it (briefly) about the history of the East India Company."So that's it, is it?" said the Nutri-Matic when he had finished. "Yes," said Arthur, "that is what I want.""You want the taste of dried leaves in boiled water?""Er, yes. With milk.""Squirted out of a cow?""Well, in a manner of speaking I suppose ...
Douglas Adams
Madness has no sense of humour
Adam Foulds
Ladies, we are at a massive disadvantage in the workplace. Your male peers are flirting with their male bosses constantly. The average workplace is like f*cking Bromancing the Stone. That’s basically what male bonding is. Flirting. They’re flirting with each other playing golf, they’re flirting with each other going to the football, they’re flirting with each other chatting at the urinals – and, sadly, flirting with each other in after-hours visits to strip clubs and pubs. They are bonding with each other over their biological similarities. If the only way you can bond with them is over your biological differences, you go for it. Feel pressurised to actually f*ck them if you do? Then don’t flirt. Find it an easy way to just crack on? Then crack on – and don’t blame other women for doing it.
Caitlin Moran
I asked my publisher what would happen if he sold all the copies of my book he'd printed. He said "I'll just print another ten.
Eric Sykes
lectures broke into one's day and were clearly a terrible waste of time, necessary no doubt if you were reading law or medicine or some other vocational subject, but in the case of English, the natural thing to do was talk a lot, listen to music, drink coffee and wine, read books, and go to plays, perhaps be in plays…
Stephen Fry
Love is like a lost fart. If you have to force it, it's probably shit.
Stephen K. Amos
It was long after midnight and the stars looked damp and chilly; the air was full of the busy silence of the night, which is created by hundreds of small furry things treading very carefully in the hope of finding dinner while avoiding being the main course.
Terry Pratchett
Red sky at night, the city's alight.
Terry Pratchett
After a moment or two a man in brown crimplene looked in at us, did not at all like the look of us and asked us if we were transit passengers. We said we were. He shook his head with infinite weariness and told us that if we were transit passengers then we were supposed to be in the other of the two rooms. We were obviously very crazy and stupid not to have realized this. He stayed there slumped against the door jamb, raising his eyebrows pointedly at us until we eventually gathered our gear together and dragged it off down thecorridor to the other room. He watched us go past him shaking his head in wonder and sorrow at the stupid futility of the human condition in general and ours in particular, and then closed the door behind us.The second room was identical to the first. Identical in all respects other than one, which was that it had a hatchway let into one wall. A large vacant-looking girl was leaning through it with her elbows on the counter and her fists jammed up into her cheekbones. She was watching some flies crawling up the wall, not with any great interest because they were not doing anything unexpected, but at least they were doing something. Behind her was a table stacked with biscuits, chocolate bars, cola, and a pot of coffee, and we headed straight towards this like a pack of stoats. Just before we reached it, however, we were suddenly headed off by a man in blue crimplene, who asked us what we thought we were doing in there. We explained that we were transit passengers on our way to Zaire, and he looked at us as if we had completely taken leave of our senses.'Transit passengers? he said. 'It is not allowed for transit passengers to be in here.' He waved us magnificently away from the snack counter, made us pick up all our gear again, and herded us back through the door and away into the first room where, a minute later, the man in the brown crimplene found us again.He looked at us. Slow incomprehension engulfed him, followed by sadness, anger, deep frustration and a sense that the world had been created specifically to cause him vexation. He leaned back against the wall, frowned, closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose.'You are in the wrong room,' he said simply. `You are transit passengers. Please go to the other room.'There is a wonderful calm that comes over you in such situations, particularly when there is a refreshment kiosk involved. We nodded, picked up our gear in a Zen-like manner and made our way back down the corridor to the second room. Here the man in blue crimplene accosted us once more but we patiently explained to him that he could fuck off.
Douglas Adams
Our Euripides the human,With his droppings of warm tears,and his touchings of things common Till they rose to meet the spheres.
Elizabeth Barrett-Browning
I should say we’d reach England by Tuesday or thereabouts, with a decent wind behind us. It would be a lot quicker than that if we could just sail straight there, but I was looking at the nautical charts, and there’s a dirty great sea serpent right in the middle of the ocean! It has a horrible gaping maw and one of those scaly tails that looks like it could snap a boat clean in two. So I thought it best to sail around that.’FitzRoy frowned. ‘I think they just draw those on maps to add a bit of decoration. It doesn’t actually mean there’s a sea serpent there.’The galley went rather quiet. A few of the pirate crew stared intently out of the portholes, embarrassed at their Captain’s mistake. But to everyone’s relief, instead of running somebody through, the Pirate Captain just narrowed his eyes thoughtfully.That explains a lot,’ he said. ‘I suppose it’s also why we’ve never glimpsed that giant compass in the corner of the Atlantic. I have to say, I’m a little disappointed.
Gideon Defoe
She recalled him as a forceful and witty speaker with a ready repartee and a penetrating voice. He had once, for example, put down a spokesman for the pesticide industry with a remark that people still quoted at parties: "And I presume on the eighth day God called you and said, 'I changed my mind about insects!
John Brunner
Dor woke again as dawn came. The sun had somehow gotten around to the east, where the land was, and dried off so that it could shine again.
Piers Anthony
The search for a life-style involves a journey to the interior. This is not altogether a pleasant experience, because you not only have to take stock of what you consider your assets but you also have to take a long look at what your friends call “the trouble with you.” Nevertheless, the journey is worth making.
Quentin Crisp
Did you slip in some cheese? Did it make you hate cheese, which you had previously loved? Why not sue a cheese-maker? Sue him for all the cheese he's got, drive him out of the cheese-making business!Did you burn your face with an iron? Why not sue Prometheus, the god that invented fire? Or an Iron Age chieftain, for having the temerity to popularise the metal.
Stewart Lee
Igor?' said Moist. 'You have an Igor?'Oh, yes,' said Hubert. 'That's how I get this wonderful light. They know the secret of storing lightning in jars! But don't let that worry you, Mr Lipspick. Just because I'm employing an Igor and working in a cellar doesn't mean I'm some sort of madman, ha ha ha!'Ha ha,' agreed Moist.Ha hah hah!,' said Hubert. 'Hahahahahaha!! Ahahahahahahhhhh!!!!!-'Bent slapped him on the back. Hubert coughed.Sorry about that, it's the air down here,' he mumbled.
Terry Pratchett
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a sane employee in possession of his wits must be in want of a good manager.
Charles Stross
My poetic aspirationIs to become,A Jack of all stylesAnd a master of pun.
Clive Blake
I learned early and at that kitchen table that there are ways of avoiding, without guilt, the commitments of love.
P.D. James
Hey, don't you ever fake orgasms with me."She huffed. "I don't get why guys get so pissed when girls do that. Hell, your gender can fake an actual relationship.
Suzanne Wright
Some people have great ideas maybe once or twice in their life, and then they discover electricity or fire or outer space or something. I mean, the kind of brilliant ideas that change the whole world. Some people never have them at all... I get them two or three times a week.
Neil Gaiman
Be one of the crowd? It went against everything a wizard stood for, and a wizard would not stand for anything if he could sit down for it, but even sitting down, you had to stand out.
Terry Pratchett
They were small, brightly coloured, happy little creatures who secreted some of the nastiest toxins in the world, which is why the job of looking after the large vivarium where they happily passed their days was given to first-year students, on the basis that if they got things wrong there wouldn't be too much education wasted.
Terry Pratchett
The lovely Hazard girls', they used to call them. Huh. Lovely is as lovely does; if they looked like what they behave like, they'd frighten little children.
Angela Carter
I was tempted to tell her it was because we were British and actually had a sense of humour, but I try not to be cruel to foreigners, especially when they're that strung out.
Ben Aaronovitch
My God - it's a green child!" said the American. "What is this place - the House of Usher?
Dodie Smith
I bought a packet of Trojan® Ultra Pleasure Extra Sensitive condoms: ‘No. 1 in AMERICA’. They smell nothing like a positive first sexual experience.
Joe Dunthorne
Don't lose today by worrying about tomorrow!!!
John F. Herbert
I had always been warned that American didn't always get sarcasm
Lindsey Kelk
A bird in The Strand is worth two in Shepherds Bush
Spike Milligan
Aberystwyth (n.)A nostalgic yearning which is in itself more pleasant than the thing being yearned for.
Douglas Adams
Miss Runcible wore trousers and Miles touched up his eye-lashes in the dining-room of the hotel where they stopped for luncheon. So they were asked to leave.
Evelyn Waugh
Is she dead?" called Zenda.Sort of," I shouted, "And the pizza's completely fucked too.
Michael Marshall Smith
How would it be,” said Pooh slowly, “if, as soon as we’re out of sight of this Pit, we try to find it again?”“What’s the good of that?” said Rabbit.“Well,” said Pooh, “we keep looking for Home and not finding it, so I thought that if we looked for this Pit, we’d be sure not to find it, which would be a Good Thing, because then we might find something that we weren’t looking for, which might be just what we were looking for, really.”“I don’t see much sense in that,” said Rabbit.“No,” said Pooh humbly, “there isn’t. But there was going to be when I began it. It’s just that something happened to it on the way.
Milne
I regret that I didn’t realize that actually they’ve got no power over you at school — it’s all just a trick to indoctrinate you into being a conditioned, tame, placid citizen. Rebel, children, I urge you, fight the turgid slick of conformity with which they seek to smother your glory.
Russell Brand
He had them as spellbound as a room full of Ewoks listening to C-3PO.
Cory Doctorow
You do know you could find yourself charged with being a dominant species while under the influence of impulse-driven consumerism, don't you?
Terry Pratchett
If they were going to be like that, then I just wished they hadn't actually been German. It was too easy. Too obvious. It was like coming across an Irishman who actually was stupid, a mother-in-law who actually was fat, or an American businessman who actually did have a middle initial and smoked a cigar. You feel as if you are unwillingly performing in a music-hall sketch and wishing you could rewrite the script. If Helmut and Kurt had been Brazilian or Chinese or Latvian or anything else at all, they could then have behaved in exactly the same way and it would have been surprising and intriguing and, more to the point from my perspective, much easier to write about. Writers should not be in the business of propping up stereotypes. I wondered what to do about it, decided that they could simply be Latvians if I wanted, and then at last drifted off peacefully to worrying about my boots.
Douglas Adams
I had never before been a special fan of that great comedian Phyllis Diller, but she utterly won my heart this week by sending me an envelope that, when opened, contained a torn-off square of brown-bag paper of the kind suitable for latrine duty in an ill-run correctional facility. Duly unfurled, it carried a handwritten salutation reading as follows:Money's scarceTimes are hardHere's your f******I could not possibly improve on the sentiment, but I don't think it ought to depend on the current austerities. Isn't Christmas a moral and aesthetic nightmare whether or not the days are prosperous?
Christopher Hitchens
How could you receive a member of the Male Sex in your bedroom, and in your dressing gown?Sir, I must request you to leave immediately!""You don't mean to tell me that's a dressing gown?" interrupted Mr Carlton, a dangerous gleam in his eyes." Well, it's by far the most elegant one I've ever been priviledged to see, and I suppose I must have seen scores of 'em in my time-paid for them too!
Georgette Heyer
I would never say snog. I would say osculate." She looks at me as if to say: why do you exist?
Joe Dunthorne
I thought the fart was a human thing. It's something to do with like, arse cheeks, or whatever.
Karl Pilkington
Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on where you were sitting) Libby let off the smelliest, loudest fart known to humanity. It came out of her bum-oley with such force that she lifted off my knee - like a hovercraft. Even she looked surprised by what had come out of her.
Louise Rennison
The Captain of the Watch says if you're still in the City by sunrise he will personally have you buried alive.
Terry Pratchett