Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
My films are about embarrassment.
Cancer, like any other illness, is a bore.
At eighty things do not occur; they recur.
A book is a device to ignite the imagination.
I'm not "happy" but I'm not unhappy about it.
One reads for pleasure...it is not a public duty.
I always feel over-appreciated but underestimated.
So boring you fall asleep halfway through her name.
Life is generally something that happens elsewhere.
Memories are not shackles, Franklin, they are garlands.
Reading is untidy, discursive and perpetually inviting.
I can walk. It's just that I'm so rich I don't need to.
You don't put your life into your books, you find it there.
It was the kind of library he had only read about in books.
Clichés can be quite fun. That's how they got to be clichés.
Full-blooded romantic love I wouldn't be able to write about.
Why is it always the "intelligent" people who are socialists?
The days weren't long enough for the reading she wanted to do.
Life is like a box of sardines and we are all looking for the key.
Nature played a cruel trick on her by giving her a waxed mustache.
Standards are always out of date. That's what makes them standards.
I'm less genial than people think, but I'm too timid to seem nasty.
If you think squash is a competitive activity, try flower arranging.
Were we closer to the ground as children, or is the grass emptier now?
All knowledge is precious whether or not it serves the slightest human use.
I'm more socialist certainly than New Labour - I'm very old Labour, really.
Of course my standards are out of date! That's why they're called standards.
Life is rather like a tin of sardines - we're all of us looking for the key.
Books are not about passing the time. They're about other lives. Other worlds.
I'm all in favour of free expression provided it's kept rigidly under control.
I'm for the freedom of expression, given that it will be under strict control.
I lack what the English call character, by which they mean the power to refrain.
Your whole life is on the other side of the glass. And there is nobody watching.
I write plays about things that I can't resolve in my mind. I try to root things out.
Closing a public library is child abuse, really, because it hinders child development.
To play Trivial Pursuit with a life like mine could be said to be a form of homeopathy.
Cloisters, ancient libraries ... I was confusing learning with the smell of cold stone.
I turned down a knighthood. It would be like having to wear a suit every day of your life.
God doesn't do notes, either. Did Jesus Christ say, "Can I be excused the Crucifixion?" No!
Definition of a classic: a book everyone is assumed to have read and often thinks they have.
Schweitzer in the Congo did not derive more moral credit than Larkin did for living in Hull.
If I am doing nothing, I like to be doing nothing to some purpose. That is what leisure means.
Sometimes there is no next time, no time-outs, no second chances. Sometimes it’s now or never.
We started off trying to set up a small anarchist community, but people wouldn't obey the rules.
Polly: Education with socialists, it's like sex, all right as long as you don't have to pay for it.
I don't want to see libraries close; I want to find local solutions that will make them sustainable.
Children always assume the sexual lives of their parents come to a grinding halt at their conception.
Mark my words, when a society has to resort to the lavatory for its humour, the writing is on the wall.
Above literature?' said the Queen. 'Who is above literature? You might as well say one was above humanity.
That's a bit like asking a man crawling across the Sahara whether he would prefer Perrier or Malvern water.