Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Borrowing is not much better than begging; just as lending with interest is not much better than stealing.
If a fish is the movement of water embodied, given shape, then cat is a diagram and pattern of subtle air.
I wanted to highlight that whole dreadful process in book publishing that 'nothing succeeds like success.'
Our society is dependent on some precarious mechanisms, and they are very dicey. They can easily collapse.
Little Tamar, forget the long ago. We are here and we are now, and that is all. We are making a new start.
I wish to God,” said Gideon with mild exasperation, “that you’d talk—just once—in prose like other people.
It was one of the occasions when Lymond asleep wrecked the peace of mind of more people than Lymond awake.
Too much free time is certainly a monkey's paw in disguise. Most people can't handle a structureless life.
Expansion, that is the idea the novelist must cling to, not completion, not rounding off, but opening out.
...the true spirit of gastronomic joylessness. Porridge fills the Englishman up, and prunes clear him out.
I'd always wanted to believe that my ancestors were better people than they probably were. - Princess Emma
The trouble with those people is that they think all the best things are made in the cities. It is not so.
One, two, three four five, All is well I am alive, Six,seven,eight nine ten, All is well, no whining then!
Alas! in nature, as in art, we gain only according to our capacity. You cannot put an ocean in a pint pot.
It's the Government's job to print the money, deliver the mail and declare war. Now give me my cigarettes.
Every man looks out for himself, and he has the happiest life who manages to hoodwink himself best of all.
What man wants is simply independent choice, whatever that independence may cost and wherever it may lead.
Grown-up people do not know that a child can give exceedingly good advice even in the most difficult case.
Nothing has ever been more insupportable for a man and a human society than freedom. –The Grand Inquisitor
What is essential, therefore, is not that you no longer believe, but that God continues to believe in you.
The rain would not have bothered Fernanda, after all, her whole life had been spent as if it were raining.
Four geological eras had to pass so that human beings would be able to outsing the birds and die for love.
The tale of the Divine Pity was never yet believed from lips that were not felt to be moved by human pity.
It always seemed to me a sort of clever stupidity only to have one sort of talent - like a carrier pigeon.
An ingenious web of probabilities is the surest screen a wise man can place between himself and the truth.
People who write finely must not expect to be left in repose; they will be molested with thanks, at least.
One has to belong to the intelligentsia to believe things like that: no ordinary man could be such a fool.
Bad writers are nearly always haunted by the notion that Latin or Greek words are grander than Saxon ones.
Only a fool humbles himself when the world is so full of men eager to do that job for him. (Theon Greyjoy)
There are some examples of medieval kings who were terrible human beings but were nevertheless good kings.
Well, you have the right to make a sacrifice of yourself, but I'll be damned if I'll let you sacrifice me!
It's the people who try to be clever who never are; the people who are clever never think of trying to be.
There were influences in my life that were more important than journalism, such as comic strips and radio.
There are some men in this world who are born to do our unpleasant jobs for us. Your father's one of them.
I know now what he was trying to do, but Atticus was only a man. It takes a woman to do that kind of work.
Before Jem looks at anyone else he looks at me, and I’ve tried to live so I can look squarely back at him.
At the time it seemed like a natural development of my interest in what was going on around me in society.
I've always felt happy in my own company. It's only when I get around other people that things get sticky.
Genius, all over the world, stands hand in hand, and one shock of recognition runs the whole circle round.
What is a child, monsieur, but the image of two beings, the fruit of two sentiments spontaneously blended?
When its gone, you'll know what a gift love was. you'll suffer like this. So go back and fight to keep it.
The human body is an amazing organism. It can go from dead tired to completely alert in a terrified blink.
Sometimes ah think that people become junkies just because they subconsciously crave a wee bit ay silence.
Just lock myself in a room, stop answering emails, stop answering the phone and I come out with something.
The subsequent success levels, all the other stuff [after Trainspotting], it comes at a much higher level.
Standard English is very imperialistic, controlled, and precise; it's not got a lot of funk or soul to it.
It is better to be drunk with loss and to beat the ground, than to let the deeper things gradually escape.
Timing was everything when it came to being a woman—the moment you entered the world could seal your fate.
Youth cannot know how age thinks and feels. But old men are guilty if they forget what it was to be young.
At fourteen, you really do start realising that the world is not a safe and protected place or not always.