Quotes by British Authors - Page 654

As women glide from their twenties to thirties, Shazzer argues, the balance of power subtly shifts. Even the most outrageous minxes lose their nerve, wrestling with the first twinges of existential angst: fears of dying alone and being found three weeks later half-eaten by an Alsatian.
Helen Fielding
Whirrun ignored ‘em. ‘Then, when I’ve got two cut,’ and he dropped a pale slab of cheese on one slice then slapped the other on top like he was catching a fly, ‘I trap the cheese between then, and there you have it!’‘Bread and cheese.’ Yon weighed the half-loaf in one hand and the cheese in the other. ‘Just the same as I’ve got.’ And he bit off the cheese and tossed it to Scorry.Whirrun sighed. ‘Have none of you no vision?’ He held up his masterpiece to such light as there was, which was almost none. ‘This is no more bread and cheese than a fine axe is wood and iron, or a live person is meat and har.’‘What is it, then?’ asked Drfod, rocking back from his wet wood and tossing the flint aside in disgust.‘A whole new thing. A forging of the humble part of bread and cheese into a greater whole. I call it … a cheese-trap.’ Whirrun took a dainty nibble from one corner. ‘Oh, yes, my friends. This tastes like … progress…
Joe Abercrombie
Cheat? Good heavens, this is an amateur cricket match amongst leading prep schools, I'm an Englishman and a schoolmaster supposedly setting an example to his young charges. We are playing the most artistic and beautiful game ever devised. Of course I'll cunting well cheat. Now, give me my robe and put on my crown. I have immortal longings in me.
Stephen Fry
There was a deep silence, only scraped on its surfaces by the faint quiver of empty seed-plumes, and broken grass-blades trembling in small air-movements they could not feel.'Not a bird!' said Sam mournfully.'No, no birds,' said Gollum. 'Nice birds!' He licked his teeth. 'No birds here. There are snakeses, wormses, things in the pools. Lots of things, lots of nasty things. No birds,' he ended sadly. Sam looked at him with distaste.
J.R.R. Tolkien
He's never known anything like it! But then, he has never known anything to write home about, so this is nothing to write home about.
Tom Stoppard
First of all, you must never speak of anything by its name -- in that country. So, if you see a tree on a mountain, it will be better to say 'Look at the green on the high'; for that's how they talk -- in that country. And whatever you do, you must find a false reason for doing it -- in that country. If you rob a man, you must say it is to help and protect him: that's the ethics -- of that country. And everything of value has no value at all -- in that country. You must be perfectly commonplace if you want to be a genius -- in that country. And everything you like you must pretend not to like; and anything that is there you must pretend is not there -- in that country. And you must always say that you are sacrificing yourself in the cause of religion, and morality, and humanity, and liberty, and progress, when you want to cheat your neighbour -- in that country."Good heavens!" cried Iliel, 'are we going to England?
Aleister Crowley
I could eat a knob at night.
Karl Pilkington
She moved closer to me, put her hands to my face, and kissed me softly on the lips.God, it felt so good.So perfect, so right...It felt so good, I nearly fell off the roof.
Kevin Brooks
Fred and George turned to each other and said together, “Wow — we’re identical!
J.K. Rowling
It's unwise to pay too much, but it's worse to pay too little. Whenyou pay too much, you lose a little money - that's all. When you paytoo little, you sometimes lose everything, because the thing youbought was incapable of doing the thing it was bought to do. Thecommon law of business balance prohibits paying a little and getting alot - it can't be done. If you deal with the lowest bidder, it is wellto add something for the risk you run, and if you do that you willhave enough to pay for something better.
John Ruskin
Then what do we call you?" another of the heat forms asked. "We are Rutan." "Our species need something a little more particular," the first heat form of the Time Lord said. "I think we’ll call you Fred, for ease of reference.
David A. McIntee
Alltami (n.)The ancient art of being able to balance the hot and cold shower taps.
Douglas Adams
Don't talk for five minutes, there's a good chap! I've a strange feeling come over me--almost as if I were going to think!
Aleister Crowley
Personally, I don’t think there's intelligent life on other planets. Why should other planets be any different from this one?
Bob Monkhouse
None of us like to think we are silly. But all must acknowledge that they are capable of silliness, from time to time
Jude Morgan
A dog has got human eyes.
Karl Pilkington
The cook was a good cook, as cooks go; and as cooks go, she went.
Saki
Every man is surrounded by a neighborhood of voluntary spies.
Jane Austen
The matter with human beans," the BFG went on, "is that they is absolutely refusing to believe in anything unless they is actually seeing it right in front of their own schnozzles.
Roald Dahl
Mr Wisdom,' said the girl who had led him into the presence.'Ah,' said Howard Saxby, and there was a pause of perhaps three minutes, during which his needles clicked busily. 'Wisdom, did she say?''Yes. I wrote "Cocktail Time"''You couldn't have done better,' said Mr Saxby cordially. 'How's your wife, Mr Wisdom?'Cosmo said he had no wife.'Surely?'"I'm a bachelor.'Then Wordsworth was wrong. He said you were married to immortal verse. Excuse me a moment,' murmured Mr Saxby, applying himself to the sock again. 'I'm just turning the heel. Do you knit?''No.''Sleep does. It knits the ravelled sleave of care.'(After a period of engrossed knitting, Cosmo coughs loudly to draw attention to his presence.)'Goodness, you made me jump!' he (Saxby) said. 'Who are you?''My name, as I have already told you, is Wisdom''How did you get in?' asked Mr Saxby with a show of interest.'I was shown in.''And stayed in. I see, Tennyson was right. Knowledge comes, but Wisdom lingers. Take a chair.''I have.''Take another,' said Mr Saxby hospitably.
P.G. Wodehouse
Am sorry to note that abuse and condemnation of a common acquaintance often constitutes very strong bond of union between otherwise uncongenial spirits.
E.M. Delafield
Charm is often despised but I can never see why. No one has it who isn't capable of genuinely liking others, at least at the actual moment of meeting and speaking. Charm is always genuine; it may be superficial but it isn't false.
P.D. James
I'm living so far beyond my means that we may almost be said to be living apart.
Saki
The universe is, instant by instant, recreated anew. There is in truth no past, only a memory of the past. Blink your eyes, and the world you see next did not exist when you closed them. Therefore, the only appropriate state of the mind is surprise. The only appropriate state of the heart is joy. The sky you see now, you have never seen before. The perfect moment is now. Be glad of it.
Terry Pratchett
Never trust a species that grins all the time. It’s up to something.
Terry Pratchett
Idiots emit bogons, causing machinery to malfunction in their presence. System administrators absorb bogons, letting machinery work again.
Charles Stross
I’d bet a month of dawn patrols those apprentices had something to do with it,” Birchfall meowed. “Why else would they disappear back to ShadowClan without their mother?”Dustpelt let out a snort of amusement. “I can just picture those three holding Blackstar down until he agreed.
Erin Hunter
If anyone else asked that question, O He Who Is Terrible and Great, I would have said they were an ignorant fool; in you it is a sign of the disarming simplicity which is the fount of all virtue.
Jonathan Stroud
She gave me the jabs and said I was covered for every worst-case scenario, including being bitten by a dirty chimp. I told her this is why we have over-population problems. Why are idiots who annoy dirty chimps being protected?
Karl Pilkington
Hagrid looked down at his umbrella and scratched his beard. 'Shouldn'ta lost me temper,' he said ruefully, 'but it didn't work anyway. Meant ter turn him into a pig, but I suppose he was so much like a pig anyway there wasn't much left ter do.
J.K. Rowling
A lot of people say there's a fine line between genius and insanity. I don't think there's a fine line, I actually think there's a yawning gulf. You see some poor bugger scuffling up the road with balloons tied to his ears, he's not going home to invent a rocket, is he?
Bill Bailey
An old joke has an Oxford professor meeting an American former graduate student and asking him what he's working on these days. 'My thesis is on the survival of the class system in the United States.' 'Oh really, that's interesting: one didn't think there was a class system in the United States.' 'Nobody does. That's how it survives.
Christopher Hitchens
At first I assumed he was a Mexican, but slowly began to realise that a real Mexican probably wouldn't be wearing a sombrero in a London nightclub. And he'd probably have a real moustache, not a stick-on one. A Mexican with a stick-on moustache would be like a Super-Mexican, because he'd have two moustaches, and that'd be cool, because a Super-Mexican could probably use his poncho as a cape, and then I realised I was saying all this to the man's face.
Danny Wallace
There was some women in a café the other week that I was sat in, and she came up and she sat down with her mate and she was talkin' loudly goin' on about "oh the baby's lovely." They said it's got, er, lovely big eyes, er, really big hands and feet. Now that doesn't sound like a nice baby to me. I felt like sayin' it sounds like a frog. But I thought I don't know her, there's only so much you can say to a stranger. I don't know what kept me from sayin' it.
Karl Pilkington
I love you," I whispered hoarsely. "You're my favourite person." The tears blurred in my eyes again. "And if you ever tell anyone I cried during this moment I will withhold sex for a year.
Samantha Young
I sense a learning: that much dumber people than you end up in charge.
D.B.C. Pierre
Draco Malfoy is a bad boy!" squeaked Dobby angrily.
J.K. Rowling
Were you proposing to shoot these people in cold blood, sergeant?""Nossir. Just a warning shot inna head, sir.
Terry Pratchett
I fell in love with football as I was later to fall in love with women: suddenly, inexplicably, uncritically, giving no thought to the pain or disruption it would bring with it.
Nick Hornby
Being born in a stable does not make one a horse.
Arthur Wellesley
Miss Grantham's sense of humour got the better of her at this point, and, tottering towards a chair, she sank into it, exclaiming in tragic accents:'Oh Heavens! I am betrayed!' His lordship blenched; both he and Miss Laxton regarded her with guilty dismay. Miss Grantham buried her face in her handkerchief, and uttered one shattering word: 'Wretch!
Georgette Heyer
When we did eventually get to the party - me walking next to Dad's Volvo driving at five miles an hour - I had a horrible time. Everyone laughed at first but then more or less ignored me. In a mood of defiant stuffed oliveness I did have a dance by myself but things kept crashing to the floor around me. The host asked if I would sit down. I had a go at that but it was useless. In the end I was at the gate for about an hour before Dad arrived.
Louise Rennison
Only mediocrity can be trusted to be always at its best. Genius must always have lapses proportionate to its triumphs.
Max Beerbohm
War is a game that is played with a smile. If you can't smile, grin. If you can't grin, keep out of the way till you can.
Winston S. Churchill
Yes?" she asked, eyeing me guardedly.I struck out a hand and said "Shake."Arra stared at the hand, then into my unfocused eyes. "One good fight doesn't make you a warrior," she said."Shake!" I repeated angrily."And if I don't?" she asked."I'll get back up on the bars and fight you till you do," I growled.Arra studied me at length, then nodded and took my hand. "Power to you, Darren Shan," she said gruffly."Power," I repeated weakly, then fainted into her arms and knew no more till I came to in my hammock the next night.
Darren Shan
What are we doing here? Has something gone wrong?”“Oh no, Ron,” came Fred’s voice, very sarcastically. “No, this is exactly where we wanted to end up.
J.K. Rowling
Sober or blotto, this is your motto: keep muddling through.
P.G. Wodehouse
I don't know very much but what I do know I know better than anybody, and I don't want to argue about it…My mind is not a bed to be made and re-made.
James Agate
If you neglected to warn Djetth beforehand that you were going to shoot him down, Your Highness, he may consider you in breach of contr
Rowena Cherry
Oh! And they read English novels! David! Did you ever look into an English novel? Well, do not trouble yourself. It is nothing but a lot of nonsense about girls with fanciful names getting married.
Susanna Clarke
All young people worry about things, it's a natural and inevitable part of growing up, and at the age of sixteen my greatest anxiety in life was that I'd never again achieve anything as good, or pure, or noble, or true, as my O-level results.
David Nicholls
It struck him that how you spent Christmas was a message to the world about where you were in life, some indication of how deep a hole you had managed to burrow for yourself
Nick Hornby
My patience has dreadful chilblains from standing so long on a monument.
Elizabeth Barrett-Browning
Amy: Pond and her boys . . . my poncho boys. If we're going to die, let's die looking like a peruvian folk band.
Simon Nye
Letitia! What a name. Halfway between a salad and a sneeze.
Terry Pratchett
Like the famous mad philosopher said, when you stare into the void, the void stares also; but if you cast into the void, you get a type conversion error. (Which just goes to show Nietzsche wasn't a C++ programmer.)
Charles Stross
I don't know the rules of grammar. If you're trying to persuade people to do something, or buy something, it seems to me you should use their language.
David Ogilvy
The weather had freshened almost to coldness, for the wind was coming more easterly, from the chilly currents between Tristan and the Cape; the sloth was amazed by the change; it shunned the deck and spent its time below. Jack was in his cabin, pricking the chart with less satisfaction than he could have wished: progress, slow, serious trouble with the mainmast-- unaccountable headwinds by night-- and sipping a glass of grog; Stephen was in the mizentop, teaching Bonden to write and scanning the sea for his first albatross. The sloth sneezed, and looking up, Jack caught its gaze fixed upon him; its inverted face had an expression of anxiety and concern. 'Try a piece of this, old cock,' he said, dipping his cake in the grog and proffering the sop. 'It might put a little heart into you.' The sloth sighed, closed its eyes, but gently absorbed the piece, and sighed again. Some minutes later he felt a touch upon his knee: the sloth had silently climbed down and it was standing there, its beady eyes looking up into his face, bright with expectation. More cake, more grog: growing confidence and esteem. After this, as soon as the drum had beat the retreat, the sloth would meet him, hurrying toward the door on its uneven legs: it was given its own bowl, and it would grip it with its claws, lowering its round face into it and pursing its lips to drink (its tongue was too short to lap). Sometimes it went to sleep in this position, bowed over the emptiness. 'In this bucket,' said Stephen, walking into the cabin, 'in this small half-bucket, now, I have the population of Dublin, London, and Paris combined: these animalculae-- what is the matter with the sloth?' It was curled on Jack's knee, breathing heavily: its bowl and Jack's glass stood empty on the table. Stephen picked it up, peered into its affable bleary face, shook it, and hung it upon its rope. It seized hold with one fore and one hind foot, letting the others dangle limp, and went to sleep. Stephen looked sharply round, saw the decanter, smelt to the sloth, and cried, 'Jack, you have debauched my sloth.
Patrick O'Brian
There is no need to do any housework at all. After the first four years the dirt doesn't get any worse.
Quentin Crisp
It's hard to maintain a reputation for being grim and mysterious when you're accompanied by a brightly clad young thing, skipping merrily along at your side, holding your hand, and smiling sweetly on one and all.
Simon R. Green