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Quotes by British Authors
"There is a vast difference between how things seem from the outside and how they feel on the inside."
"The husband - by primitive instinct partly, certainly by ancient tradition - regards himself as the active partner in matters of love and his own pleasure as legitimately the prime motive for activity."
"He looks around at his guests. All are prepared. A Latin grace; English would be his choice, but he will suit his company. Who cross themselves ostentatiously, in papist style. Who look at him, expectant. He shouts for the waiters. The doors burst open. Sweating men heave the platters to the table. It seems the meat is fresh, in fact not slaughtered yet. It is just a minor breach of etiquette. The company must sit and salivate. The Boleyns are laid at his hand to be carved."
"The markets don't like instability and they don't like uncertainty."
"I am an artist and have no right buggering about with verbs and split infinitives, which is what being a writer says to me."
"Knowing that we were doing good work and the stories were good. They were original and charming. They weren't particularly violent or sexy or any of that. They were just unique and that had a good feel to it."
"Moral authority has been laid to rest, world opinion is no more than a game show and the difference between good and evil is about as relevant as changing channels."
"A bit of lusting after someone does wonders for the skin."
"The sun, the moon and the stars would have disappeared long ago... had they happened to be within the reach of predatory human hands."
"He combines the manners of a Marquis with the morals of a Methodist."
"That one can love another of the same gender, that is what the homophobe really cannot stand."
"The first glass is for myself, the second for my friends, the third for good humor, and the forth for my enemies."
"Now an infinite happiness cannot be purchased by any price less than that which is infinite in value; and infinity of merit can only result from a nature that is infinitely divine or perfect."
"I can't go and shoot people in the back of the head because It's a kids' movie, which is actually quite a good test because you haven't got the overt threat of a knife in the face."
"If we are ever in doubt about what to do, it is a good rule to ask ourselves what we shall wish on the morrow that we had done."
"I have very interesting hobbies like archeology and photography."
"I don't have a single complete show or movie or anything else that I could look at and say, "Nailed that one." But endless dissatisfaction is, I suppose, what gets us out of bed in the morning."
"But my method of the pillar, as it throws the horse yet more upon the haunches, is still more effectual to this purpose, and besides always gives him the ply to the side he goes of."
"It's very important my parent's don't think I'm starting to fall in love with people, because then they might notice that I'm growing up, and I'm kind of trying to keep it a secret. I think it will cause an incident."
"The Romans used every housing form known today and they have a remarkably modern look."
"Managers in all too many American companies do not achieve the desired results because nobody makes them do it."
"A woman's heart and a woman's dreams are malleable and can change at any moment. It is the essence of being a woman."
"Eternity is said not to be an extension of time but an absence of time, and sometimes it seemed to me that her abandonment touched that strange mathematical point of endlessness, a point with no width, occupying no space."
"When I was young and we got caught pinching apples, we got a smack from the local policeman. Today if that happened he would be sued. There is a tendency to punish the victim, not the criminal. If someone broke into my house or my mum's house, I worry that the burglar has more rights than me."
"It's not easy to diagnose because depending where the endometrial deposits are, the symptoms can be quite different. It's an unrecognized problem among teenage girls, and it's something that every young woman who has painful menstruation should be aware of ... it's a condition that is curable if it's caught early. If not, if it's allowed to run on, it can cause infertility, and it can really mess up your life.[Author Hilary Mantel on being asked about being a writer with endometriosis, Nov 2012 NPR interview]"
"There cannot live a more unhappy creature than an ill-natured old man, who is neither capable of receiving pleasures, nor sensible of conferring them on others."
"I regret that I wasn't the kind of person who could enjoy celebrity. It embarrassed me too much."
"When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."
"Some of the best times in my life happened under the influence of drugs... I'd still be doing it if I could make good judgement calls. I'd still be doing it if I didn't blow up to the size of an aircraft hangar, because it was a great time."
"We must lay before him what is in us not what ought to be in us."
"Remembering is painful, it's difficult, but it can be inspiring and it can give wisdom."
"They want to derail peace because they want to plunge Northern Ireland back into armed conflict."
"Every layer of complexity creates greater distance from life's simple truths."
"Nations without a past are contradictions in terms. What makes a nation is the past, what justifies one nation against others is the past, and historians are the people who produce it."
"I don't have half the nerves there that I have anywhere else."
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