top of page
.png){kind=small}
Quotes by British Authors
"I'm glad you asked that question, because of any musical situation I've been in, the communication feels great here with Russell. He really pays close attention to what I'm doing because he cares."
"Life is nothing but a competition to be the criminal rather than the victim."
"I do not think that life has any joy to offer so complete, so soul-filling as that which comes upon the imaginative lad, whose spare time is limited, but who is able to snuggle down into a corner with his book, knowing that the next hour is all his own. And how vivid and fresh it all is!"
"The English light is so very subtle, so very soft and misty, that the architecture responded with great delicacy of detail."
"The very condition of having Friends is that we should want something else besides Friends. Where the truthful answer to the question "Do you see the same truth?" would be "I see nothing and I don't care about the truth; I only want a Friend," no Friendship can arise - though Affection of course may. There would be nothing for the Friendship to be about; and Friendship must be about something, even if it were only an enthusiasm for dominoes or white mice. Those who have nothing can share nothing; those who are going nowhere can have no fellow-travellers."
"Idris: Are all people like this?The Doctor: Like what?Idris: So much bigger on the inside."
"I don't go by the rule book... I lead from the heart, not the head."
"Last night I dreamt I ate a ten pound marshmallow. When I woke up the pillow was gone."
"Although there is a very large literature, still growing almost daily, on the Chinese calendar, its interest is, we suggest, much more archaeological and historical than scientific."
"Change. Adapt. Bend so as not to be broken. Let opportunity guide your actions."
"I certainly did feel inferior. Because of class. Because of strength. Because of height. I guess if I'd been able to hit somebody in the nose, I wouldn't have been a comic."
"My sense of responsibility to the audience is to screen things that they would never see in a local theater."
"Every man who observes vigilantly and resolves steadfastly grows unconsciously into genius."
"I run six-to-eight miles a day, plus weights and aerobics in the lunch hour. I also lie a lot, which keeps me thin."
"Don't get me wrong, some of the mis-informed articles I have read over the last few weeks have been incredibly frustrating, but for my part I fully appreciate the opportunity I have been given and want to grasp it firmly."
"Lenin was the first to discover that capitalism 'inevitably' caused war; and he discovered this only when the First World War was already being fought. Of course he was right. Since every great state was capitalist in 1914."
"The European talks of progress because by the aid of a few scientific discoveries he has established a society which has mistaken comfort for civilisation."
"She's the sort of woman who lives for others - you can tell the others by their hunted expression."
"I personally could never come to terms with my label of 'Criminally Insane'. Just because of my violent outbursts in prison, don't mean to say I'm mad. Obviously I had become a disruptive element within the penal system. Uncontrollable! Unpredictable! But that don't make insanity!"
"The day of small nations has long passed away. The day of Empires has come."
"It was possible, no doubt, to imagine a society in which wealth, in the sense of personal possessions and luxuries, should be evenly distributed, while power remained in the hands of a small privileged caste. But in practice such a society could not long remain stable. For if leisure and security were enjoyed by all alike, the great mass of human beings who are normally stupefied by poverty would become literate and would learn to think for themselves; and when once they had done this, they would sooner or later realise that the privileged minority had no function, and they would sweep it away. In the long run, a hierarchical society was only possible on a basis of poverty and ignorance."
"Mad, is he? Then I hope he will bite some of my other generals."
"The best way to inspire people to superior performance is to convince them by everything you do and by your everyday attitude that you are wholeheartedly supporting them."
"Composers dialogue - and obsessively, bitterly argue - with other composers, often over the span of several centuries."
"Surprises are foolish things. The pleasure is not enhanced, and the inconvenience is often considerable."
"We must picture hell as a state where everyone is perpetually concerned about his own dignity and advancement, where everyone has a grievance, and where everyone lives with the deadly serious passions of envy, self-importance, and resentment."
"How would you compare Polanski or Kubrick? I try not to do any comparisons."
"So he said 'I'm going to chop off the bottom of one of your trouser legs and put it in a library.' I thought 'That's a turn-up for the books.'"
"My trophy value exceeded my military usefulness."
"An involuntary return to the point of departure is, without doubt, the most disturbing of all journeys."
"Oh, do not read history, for that I know must be false."
bottom of page