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Quotes by English Authors
"You can see when an actor gets bored: Their eyes go dead. I promised myself I'd never let that happen. If it does, I'll go and live on a desert island for a year."
"I'm currently in an interesting correspondence with a nun about forgiveness."
"He had found the thing which the modern people call Impressionism, which is another name for that final scepticism which can find no floor to the universe."
"One wants never to give up this crystalline perspective. One wants to keep counterpositioning home with what one knows of alternative realities, as they exist in Tunis or Hyderabad. One wants never to forget that nothing here is normal, that the streets are different in Wisebaden, and Louyang, that this is just one of many possible worlds."
"It is idleness that creates impossibilities; and where people don't care to do anything, they shelter themselves under a permission that it cannot be done."
"Shakespeare reveals human nature brilliantly: he shines a light on our instinctive desire to dominate each other."
"...but this is the real objection to that torrent of modern talk about treating crime as disease, about making prison merely a hygienic environment like a hospital, of healing sin by slow scientific methods. The fallacy of the whole thing is that evil is a matter of active choice whereas disease is not."
"We must be free or die who speak the tongue That Shakespeare spake the faith and morals hold Which Milton held."
"It is a good principle in science not to believe any 'fact'---however well attested---until it fits into some accepted frame of reference. Occasionally, of course, an observation can shatter the frame and force the construction of a new one, but that is extremely rare. Galileos and Einsteins seldom appear more than once per century, which is just as well for the equanimity of mankind."
"Then if children make so much trouble, why do people have 'em?"
"The French, I think, in general, are strangely prolix in their natural history."
"To hear the lark begin his flight And singing startle the dull night. From his watchtower in the skies Til the dappled dawn doth rise."
"But how odd that in this heathen nation of empty pews, where churches' bare, ruined choirs are converted into luxury loft living, a Labour government - yes, a Labour government - is deliberately creating a huge expansion of faith schools."
"We love peace, but not peace at any price."
"The day of democracy is past," he said. "Past for ever. That day began with the bowmen of Crecy, it ended when marching infantry, when common men in masses ceased to win the battles of the world, when costly cannon, great ironclads, and strategic railways became the means of power. To-day is the day of wealth. Wealth now is power as it never was power before-it commands earth and sea and sky. All power is for those who can handle wealth...."
"If anything might hurt her, silence would; and I wanted to hurt her."
"The music comes first. When Geoff has made something the inspiration comes automatically. His music is very expressive. But still is is a very difficult process: I have to add something to his music, not push it away. It has to be equal, and I find that very difficult."
"Anyway, how can you sack anyone who still hasn't got a contract. I'll be there for the game and I'll stand behind the dugout giving instructions to the players from there. They will respond to me more than the next manager."
"My parents were laborers so we lived on South Park, which was a low-income region of Seattle. You had a choice - you either joined or formed a gang or you let others bully you."
"For one heat, all know, doth drive out another, One passion doth expel another still."
"You know that I could as soon forget you as my existence!"
"When one is writing a novel in the first person, one must be that person."
"So, in the end, above ground you must have the Haves, pursuing pleasure and comfort and beauty, and below ground the Have-nots, the Workers getting continually adapted to the conditions of their labour. Once they were there, they would no doubt have to pay rent, and not a little of it, for the ventilation of their caverns; and if they refused, they would starve or be suffocated for arrears. Such of them as were so constituted as to be miserable and rebellious would die; and, in the end, the balance being permanent, the survivors would become as well adapted to the conditions of underground life, and as happy in their way, as the Upper-world people were to theirs."
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