Quotes by British Authors - Page 92

It's a journalist's job to be a witness to history. We're not there to worry about ourselves. We're there to try and get as near as we can, in an imperfect world, to the truth and get the truth out.
Robert Fisk
He turned and gave the Dark Elf a nasty look. “They can do that,” he said, “mess with your head, using arcane mind control techniques. Well-known fact.”The Dark Elf sniggered. “I wish,” he said. “Sadly, no. You’re thinking of journalism, which is slightly different.
Tom Holt
The local liberal press, much molested by the censorship, had its courageous and skilful writers such as VM Doroshevich, the master of that semi-literary and semi-journalistic essay at which Bronstein himself was one day to excel.
Isaac Deutscher
Ah well, to the journalist every country is rich.
Evelyn Waugh
At a banquet given in his honour Sir Jocelyn Hitchcock once modestly attributed his success in life to the habit of "getting up earlier than the other fellow." But this was partly metaphorical, partly false and in case wholly relative for journalists are as a rule late risers.
Evelyn Waugh
As a rule there is one thing you can always count on in our job — popularity. There are plenty of disadvantages I grant you, but you are liked and respected. Ring people up any hour of the day or night, butt into their houses uninvited make them answer a string of damn fool questions when they want to do something else — they like it. Always a smile and the best of everything for the gentlemen of the Press.
Evelyn Waugh
In North Korea, journalism, the job of telling the stories power and money do not want told, of giving a voice to the voiceless, does not exist.
John Sweeney
It's always worrying to see a journalist take a sudden interest in what you're saying, especially when you half suspect it was a load of pigeon guano.
Terry Pratchett
I'm not involved, not involved," I repeated. It has been an article of my creed. The human condition being what it was, let them fight, let them love, let them murder, I would not be involved. My fellow journalists called themselves correspondents; I preferred the title of reporter. I wrote what I saw. I took no action – even an opinion is a kind of action.
Graham Greene
How well it had suited me, that absolute license to march up to evildoers and demand who, what, where, when and why?
Chris Cleave
Verbosity was an established Victorian trait.
Matthew Engel
In a story on the U.S.-brokered security pact between the government of Sudan and southern rebel groups, the New York Times referred to the war in Sudan as "a pet cause of many American religious conservatives." It is hard to imagine the Times describing the plight of Soviet Jewry as a "pet cause" of American Jews, or opposition to apartheid as a "pet cause" of African-Americans.
Paul Marshall
In the heat of the 2000 election, then Governor George W. Bush of Texas made an off-the-cuff statement that we ought to take the log out of our own eye before calling attention to the speck in the eye of our neighbor. The New York Times reported the remark as a minor gaffe -- what it termed "an interesting variation on the saying about the pot and the kettle."The reporter -- actually a fine and balanced journalist -- did not recognize the biblical reference. Neither did his editors. And this, of course, was not an obscure biblical reference. Not only is it found in the red letters of the New Testament, it is taken from the Sermon on the Mount.
Paul Marshall
The Times is a paper which is seldom found in any hands but those of the highly educated.
Arthur Conan Doyle
The press has the power to stimulate people to clean up the environment prevent nuclear proliferation force crooked politicians out of office reduce poverty provide quality health care for all people and even to save the lives of millions of people as it did in Ethiopia in 1984. But instead we are using it to promote sex violence and sensationalism and to line the pockets of already wealthy media moguls.’ Dr Carl Jensen founder of Project Censored
Ian Hargreaves
He cannot deny a certain relief in being able to sift through academic tomes, fulfilling his journalistic duty without having to barge past security guards at the Arab League or grab man-on-the-street from women at the market. This library work is easily his favorite part of reporting so far.
Tom Rachman
As touchy as cabaret performers and as stubborn as factory machinists....
Tom Rachman
Basically, financial reporting is this sinking hole at the centre of journalism. You start by swimming around it until finally, reluctantly, you can't fight the pull anymore and you get sucked down the drain into the biz pages.
Tom Rachman
The greatest influence over content was necessity--they had holes to fill on every page and jammed in any vaguely newsworthy string of words, provided it didn't include expletives, which they were apparently saving for their own use around the office.
Tom Rachman
Journalism largely consists in saying "Lord Jones is dead" to people who never knew Lord Jones was alive.
G.K. Chesterton
Journalism is literature in a hurry.
Matthew Arnold
I became a journalist because I did not want to rely on newspapers for information.
Christopher Hitchens
I had become too accustomed to the pseudo-Left new style, whereby if your opponent thought he had identified your lowest possible motive, he was quite certain that he had isolated the only real one. This vulgar method, which is now the norm and the standard in much non-Left journalism as well, is designed to have the effect of making any noisy moron into a master analyst.
Christopher Hitchens
...looking back, has this journalism experience been a nightmare for you?''Not entirely.''Did you enjoy any of it?''I liked going to the library,' he says. 'I think I prefer books to people -- primary sources scare me.
Tom Rachman
They had holes to fill on every page and jammed in any vaguely newsworthy string of words provided it didn't include expletives, which they were apparently saving for their own use around the office.
Tom Rachman
What you read in the newspapers, hear on the radio and see on television, is hardly even the truth as seen by experts; it is the wishful thinking of journalists, seen through filters of prejudice and ignorance.
Hans Jürgen Eysenck
The ethics of plagiarism have turned into the narcissism of small differences: because journalism cannot own up to its heavily derivative nature, it must enforce originality on the level of the sentence.
Malcolm Gladwell
A wise man will make haste to forgive, because he knows the true value of time, and will not suffer it to pass away in unnecessary pain.
Samuel Johnson
Any act would be forgiven him, but the act itself would remain; what he would leave in the world would be the shame and hurt he forced upon others. This could not be.
David Kirk
Neither of us had anything to say, or rather we had everything to say, but after all those nights of not saying a word, we suddenly found we had not one dollar of time left between us.
David Mitchell
I’ve spoken to Sid,” she admits. “He says he’s never seen Charlie so bad. He won’t eat, he’s lost weight and he looks terrible. Sid says it’s the first time he’s ever been so bored by him that he’s considered smothering him.
Lily Morton
If you want to call it quits, just tell me. Man up and say it to my face. Don’t just skulk around.
J.M. Richards
The point of the list wasn't just to tick items off and forget about them, it was to learn something new.
Lindsey Kelk
I loved Emma.' The words, so flat and final, explode into the air. 'But she lied to me. I thought perhaps I could have the love without the lies. With you, I mean. Do you remember your application letter? How you talked about integrity and honesty and trust? That was what made me think it might work, that it might be better this time. But I've never loved you the way I loved her.
J.P. Delaney
This sentence consists of eleven words, twenty-three syllables and seventy-four letters.
Charles Pearson
Marriage is an honorable estate and should not be used simply as an excuse for legal intercourse.
Jasper Fforde
One of the great advantages ofhaving a library,your eminence,is that it is full of books.
Michael Hirst
Actors," he says, "should only be superficial on the surface.
Johnny Rich
She’s like a cross between an onion and donkey,” Farah said.“Why?” Jason and Connor asked simultaneously.“Cause she’s a piece of ass that will bring a tear to your eye.” Farah laughed.
Mark A. Cooper
Fancy 'avin' to say you work for the Murder Squad, eh, Miss? Don't exactly warm folk to you, does it?
Jacqueline Winspear
Ah, well...hell is full of burning boats, did you know that, Nadir? I daresay that's what makes it so bloody hot.
Susan Kay
Have any sheep been seen walking out of the Library with seagoing adventurers clinging to their wool?
Lindsey Davis
How unlucky that you should have a reasonable answer to give, and that I should be so reasonable as to admit it!
Jane Austen
And then the second thing you have to do is go and see your son. That is a duty of love, Andrew. It's as simple as that. A duty of love. Do you understand what I'm saying to you?
Alexander McCall Smith
Why Fight When You Can Negotiate?
Captain Jack Sparrow
He was as obsequious as a Japanese ivy plant. Wringing his hands as if he hoped to squeeze the milk of human kindness from his fingernails, ...
Philip Kerr
If the Good Lord had intended us to crawl, he'd have given us a hundred legs and an exosqueleton.
Tom Holt
... sentiments which Feliks had already come to recognise as being characteristic of The Times, which would have described the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse as strong rulers who could do nothing but good for the stability of the international situation.
Ken Follett
PU'RIST: one superstitiously nice in the use of words.
Samuel Johnson
Make sure it is God's trumpet you are blowing- if it is only yours it won't wake the dead, it will simply disturb the neighbours.
W. Ian Thomas
Well, well," said he, "do not make yourself unhappy. If you are a good girl for the next ten years, I will take you to a review at the end of them.
Jane Austen
You judge very properly, and it is happy for you that you possess the talent of flattering with delicacy. May I ask whether these pleasing attentions proceed from the impulse of the moment, or are the result of previous study?
Jane Austen
You will find her manners beyond anything I can describe; and your wit and vivacity, I think, must be acceptable to her, especially when tempered with the silence and respect which her rank will inevitably excite.
Jane Austen
Old Madame du Deffand and her friends talked for fifty years without stopping. And of it all, what remains? Perhaps three witty sayings. So that we are at liberty to suppose either that nothing was said, or that nothing witty was said, or that the fraction of three witty sayings lasted eighteen thousand two hundred and fifty nights, which does not leave a liberal allowance of wit for any one of them.
Virginia Woolf
She was widely read enough to appreciate my literary wit but not so widely read that she knew my sources. I like that in a woman.
David Mitchell
Wit, after all, is the unfailing symptom of intelligence.
Christopher Hitchens
The bristling eyebrows shot up in mock surprise. Mesmerized, the boy watched them disappear under the hanging thatch of white hair. There, almost coyly, they remained just out of sight for a moment, before suddenly descending with a terrible finality and weight.
Jonathan Stroud
How do you feel about going on a date with me? I'm abroad for another two weeks; you've got plenty of time to prepare yourself. It will be the best night of your life, of course.
Lucy Robinson
Well then that's our date confirmed. I am excited! Most girls want to know if I have long term plans to start a family; you want to know if I like 80s rap. I think I'm in love with you. Actually, I'm not you have a foul mouth and terrible taste in men by all accounts.
Lucy Robinson
I am back in London in a couple of days and looking forward to Sunday. Here is what we are doing. 1. Going to see my favourite mad transgender folk singer at the Roundhouse. 2. Then I am going to feed you tapas in a little place by Mornington Crescent. 3. Then we will go home in opposite directions and I will stare at my silent phone for weeks, wondering what happened. Or we will go for a dirty hump on Primrose Hill. Or maybe we will just have an awkward kiss/hug loaded with the promise of more next time.  
Lucy Robinson