Quotes by British Authors - Page 697

Okay, well I think the programme is like being screamed at for an hour by a drunk with a strobe-light, but like I said--
David Nicholls
Tell the Queen that there's been a robin red-breast hanging about Kotir grounds. It flies down low and vanishes near the floor. Cludd thinks it might be something to do with those woodlanders. Now, I'm to say nothing to Fortunata or Ashleg...'I must tell the Queen that a robin has seen Cludd hanging about. No, that's not right. I must tellt he robin taht Cludd has been hanging the Queen.
Brian Jacques
Vous eprouves trop d'emotion, Hastings, It affects your hands and your wits. Is that a way to fold a coat? And regard what you have done to my pyjamas. If the hairwash breaks what will befall them?''Good heavens, Poirot,' I cried, 'this is a matter of life and death. What does it matter what happens to our clothes?''You have no sense of proportion Hastings. We cannot catch a train earlier than the time that it leaves, and to ruin one's clothes will not be the least helpful in preventing a murder.
Agatha Christie
Just to keep the bad dreams at bay, she took a swig out of a bottle that smelled of apples and happy brain-death.
Terry Pratchett
The brain can be a dangerous thing. Even more so if you haven't got one.
Dave Courtney
Oh, Micheal darling!""Don't call me darling, I'm a driving instructor!
Hilary McKay
On the board was a list of words and phrases which her mother considered not suitable for use in college T-shirt design. She had been asked about them so often that in the end she had started a blacklist of banned words to which everyone could refer. Every time someone thought of a new one, she unflinchingly wrote it down...Rose read through the list, and turned back to her letter.These are the words I learned to spell in Mummy's art class today, she wrote, and sighed a little as she began the tedious job of copying from the board.
Hilary McKay
They arrived home again to a most peculiar sight. The small garden at the front of the Banana House had been transformed. A tidal wave of cushions, beanbags, quilts, hearth rugs, and sleeping bags appeared to have swept up the lawn and broken at the wall. From Indigo's window a multicolored rope of knotted bedsheets came snaking out and ended among the cushions. As Micheal and Caddy watched, a mattress emerged and fell to the ground, followed by a rain of pillows."Indigo!" shouted Caddy, jumping out of the car.Indigo's and Rose's heads appeared in the window above."It's all right, Caddy!" Indigo called cheerfully. "We've been doing it all the time you've been gone.""We keep finding more stuff to land on!" added Rose. "Look!
Hilary McKay
Why would I go looking for someone I know wants to kill me?
J.K. Rowling
I can see clearly now, my brain is gone.Lucy
Cathy Hopkins
He's such a dear, Mr. Garnet. A beautiful, pure, bred Persian. He has taken prizes.""He's always taking something - generally food.
P.G. Wodehouse
We already have the Wooden Pillar, the Steel Pillar and the Plastic Pillar. In a moment we will have the Golden Bail....'No, you won't.'We will,' stated the robot simply.No, you won't. It makes my ship work.'In a moment,' repeated the robot patiently, 'we will have the Golden Bail....'You will not,' said Zaphod.And then we must go,' said the robot, in all seriousness, 'to a party.'Oh,' said Zaphod, startled, 'can I come?'No,' said the robot, 'we are going to shoot you.'Oh, yeah?' said Zaphod, waggling his gun.Yes,' said the robot, and they shot him.Zaphod was so surprised that they had to shoot him again before he fell down. (85-86)
Douglas Adams
I wish I had only offered youa sovereign instead of ten pounds. Give me back nine pounds, Jane; I’ve a use for it.''And so have I, sir,' I returned, putting my hands and my purse behind me. 'I could not spare the money on any account.''Little niggard!' said he, 'refusing me a pecuniary request! Give me five pounds, Jane.''Not five shillings, sir; nor five pence.''Just let me look at the cash.''No, sir; you are not to be trusted.
Charlotte Brontë
That boy may have been born on third base but he sure as shit ain’t scored a triple.
Sarah Hall
You're not going to tell me they built fifty-foot-high killer golems, are you?""Only a man would think of that.It's our job," said Moist. "If you don't think of fifty-foot-high killer golems first, someone else will.
Terry Pratchett
The elevator shaft was a kind of heat sink. Hot food was cold by the time it arrived. Cold food got colder. No one knew what would happen to ice cream, but it would probably involve some rewriting of the laws of thermodynamics.
Terry Pratchett
What on earth would I do if four bears came into my camp? Why, I would die of course. Literally shit myself lifeless.
Bill Bryson
So, Americans, then. Self-appointed vigilante defenders of the world, kind of like Superman, if Superman was retarded and only fought crime when he felt like it.
Yahtzee Croshaw
As is perhaps obvious, Morris Zapp had no great esteem for his fellow-labourers in the vineyards of literature. They seemed to him vague, fickle, irresponsible creatures, who wallowed in relativism like hippopotami in mud, with their nostrils barely protruding into the air of common-sense. They happily tolerated the existence of opinions contrary to their own — they even, for God’s sake, sometimes changed their minds. Their pathetic attempts at profundity were qualified out of existence and largely interrogative in mode. They liked to begin a paper with some formula like, ‘I want to raise some questions about so-and-so’, and seemed to think they had done their intellectual duty by merely raising them. This manoeuvre drove Morris Zapp insane. Any damn fool, he maintained, could think of questions; it was answers that separated the men from the boys.
David Lodge
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
I often arrive at quite sensible ideas and judgements, on the spur of the moment. It is when I stop to think that I become foolish.
Jerome K. Jerome
I frequently observe that one pretty face would be followed by five and thirty frights.
Jane Austen
She wore so much thick white makeup in order to conceal her naturally rosy complexion that if she turned around suddenly her face would probably end up on the back of her head.
Terry Pratchett
What do you suppose is the use of a child without any meaning? Even a joke should have some meaning-- and a child's more imporant than a joke, I hope. You couldn't deny that, even if you tried with both hands.
Lewis Carroll
Divination is turning out to be much more trouble than I could have foreseen, never having studied the subject myself.
J.K. Rowling
I will not stand here to be insulted by you, hedgepig," Mangiz fumed."Then stand somewhere else and I'll insult you there, featherbag!!
Brian Jacques
It was safe to assume he'd not only read the play but then re-read it, cross-referenced the annotations, and probably joined an online chat group called Buds of the Bard or something equally nerdy
Simon Holt
Adventure! People talked about the idea as if it were something worthwhile, rather than a mess of bad food, no sleep and strange people inexplicably trying to stick pointed objects in bits of you.
Terry Pratchett
I think you inhaled too much lead from those scantron sheets
Simon Holt
David tells me that fairies never say 'We feel happy': what they say is, 'We feel dancey'.
J.M. Barrie
I can only drive slowly.""That's all right.""And I can only do left turns."Rose ran downstairs, grabbed a road atlas, and ran triumphantly back up again. "Wales is left! Look! It's left all the way!
Hilary McKay
Just at present you only see the tree by the light of the lamp. I wonder when you would ever see the lamp by the light of the tree.
G.K. Chesterton
Must a name mean something?" Alice asked doubtfully.Of course it must," Humpty Dumpty said with a short laugh; "my name means the shape I am - and a good handsome shape it is, too. With a name like yours, you might be any shape, almost.
Lewis Carroll
Being fed, and having a soft bed, and other people being in charge, seemed the most wonderful prospect in the world at that moment.
J.K. Rowling
I feel my brains, like a pear, to see if it's ripe; it will be exquisite by September.
Virginia Woolf
Fred and George exchanged looks."You don't mind if we don't kiss you, do you, Ron?" said Fred in a falsely anxious voice. "We could curtsy, if you like," said George. "Oh, shut up," said Ron, scowling at them.
J.K. Rowling
That, they never could lay their heads upon their pillows; that, they could never tolerate the idea of their wives laying their heads upon their pillows; that, they could never endure the notion of their children laying their heads on their pillows; in short , that there never more could be , for them or theirs , any laying of heads upon pillows at all , unless the prisioner's head was taken off.The Attorney General during the trial of Mr. Darnay
Charles Dickens
If per capita was a problem, decapita could be arranged
Terry Pratchett
Why does everyone have to pretend to be stupid and not know long words?
Martin Freeman
As we drove uptown, I spotted a Kmart on a corner,with its familiar red sign.I cleared my throat."Wait. Can we stop for a minute?""What for?""Just - I need a few things."He looked irritated, but pulled into a metered space. "We don't really have time to go shopping."I glared at him."yeah, excuse me for being so frivolous. You have your suitcase all packed already; I dont even have clean underwear.I'll be right back.
l.a weatherly
The doctor seemed especially troubled by the fact of the robbery having been unexpected, and attempted in the night-time; as if it were the established custom of gentlemen in the housebreaking way to transact business at noon, and to make an appointment, by the twopenny post, a day or two previous.
Charles Dickens
Cole, for Christ's sake, will you stop staring at me like I'm beefcake of the month?
Simon Holt
It wasn't that Nanny Ogg sang badly. It was just that she could hit notes which, when amplified by a tin bath half full of water, ceased to be sound and became some sort of invasive presence.
Terry Pratchett
He sniggered.He didn't like to think of himself as the sort of person who giggled or sniggered, but he had to admit that he had been giggling and sniggering almost continuously for well over half an hour now.
Douglas Adams
Sir," returned Mrs. Sparsit, " I cannot say that i have heard him precisely snore, and therefore must not make that statement. But on winter evenings, when he has fallen asleep at his table, I have heard him, what I should prefer to describe as partially choke. I have heard him on such occasions produce sounds of a nature similar to what may be heard in dutch clocks. Not," said Mrs. Sparsit, with a lofty sense of giving strict evidence, " That I would convey any imputation on his moral character. Far from it.
Charles Dickens
Well, child? Aren't you going to try to turn me into some kind of unspeakable creature?I don't think I shall bother, madam, seeing as you are making such a good job of it yourself!
Terry Pratchett
Fenchurch had red mullet and said it was delicious.Arthur had a swordfish steak and said it made him angry. He grabbed a passing waitress by the arm and berated her.“Why’s this fish so bloody good?” he demanded, angrily.
Douglas Adams
Basil Stag Hare tut-tutted severely as he remarked to Ambrose Spike, 'Tch, tch. Dreadful table manners. Just look at those three wallahs, kicking up a hullaballoo like that! Eating's a serious business.
Brian Jacques
People who didn't need people needed people around to know that they were the kind of people who didn't need people.
Terry Pratchett
You know, you're rather amusingly wrong.
Terry Pratchett
It's spider season. Every year, right about now, thousands of the godless eight-legged bastards emerge from the bowels of hell (or the garden, whichever's nearest) with the sole intention of tormenting humankind.
Charlie Brooker
There was a piece of ornamental water immediately below the parapet, on the other side, into which Mr. James Harthouse had a very strong inclination to pitch Mr. Thomas Gradgrind Junior.
Charles Dickens
Listen, Harr,y can I have a go on it? Can I?""I don't think anyone should ride that broom just yet!" said Hermoine shrilly.Harry and Ron looked at her."What d'you think Harry's going to do with it - sweep the floor?" said Ron.
J.K. Rowling
You know, I don’t get why Fred and George only got three O.W.L.s each,” said Harry, watching as Fred, George, and Lee collected gold from the eager crowd. “They really know their stuff. . . .”“Oh, they only know flashy stuff that’s no real use to anyone,” said Hermione disparagingly.“No real use?” said Ron in a strained voice. “Hermione, they’ve got about twenty-six Galleons already. . . .
J.K. Rowling
Over the road there was a church: a modern gray building, which constantly played a recording of church bells. Strange it was. Why no proper bells? I never went in but I bet it was a robot church for androids, where the Bible was in binary and their Jesus had laser eyes and metal claws.
Russell Brand
There are many other little refinements too, Mr. Bohlen. You'll see them all when you study the plans carefully. For example, there's a trick that nearly every writer uses, of inserting at least one long, obscure word into each story. This makes the reader think that the man is very wise and clever. So I have the machine do the same thing. There'll be a whole stack of long words stored away just for this purpose."Where?"In the 'word-memory' section," he said, epexegetically.
Roald Dahl
Marcus couldn't believe it. Dead. A dead duck. OK, he'd been trying to hit it on the head with a piece of sandwich, but he tried to do all sorts of things, and none of them had ever happened before. He'd tried to get the highest score on the Stargazer machine in the kabab shop on Hornsey road - nothing. He'd tried to read Nicky's thoughts by staring at the back of his head every maths lesson for a week - nothing. It really annoyed him that the only thing he'd ever achieved through trying was something he hadn't really wanted to do that much in the first place. And anyway, since when did hitting a bird with a sandwich ever kill it? People spend half their lives throwing things at the ducks in Regent's Park. How come he managed to pick a duck that pathetic?
Nick Hornby
I was shown into a room. A red room. Red wallpaper, red curtains, red carpet. They said it was a sitting-room, but I don’t know why they’d decided to confine its purpose just to sitting. Obviously, sitting was one of the things you could do in a room this size; but you could also stage operas, hold cycling races, and have an absolutely cracking game of frisbee, all at the same time, without having to move any of the furniture.It could rain in a room this big.
Hugh Laurie
That's your solution? Have a cookie?
Michael Grant
No funny business. I’ll scream and dead or not it will hurt your ears
Penelope Fletcher