British Author Quotes

And at thirty-eight a brilliant exponent of arms and a knight of the great fighting and religious Order of St John, the Chevalier de Villegagnon had absolutely no use for common sense himself, but respected it in the laity.

Dorothy Dunnett

The solar system is like a roulette gone mad, and the earth is the ball. It's been rolling for millions of years; what's going to happen if it stops? What hole will the ball plump into? Thirty-six - A pocketful of money for everybody - or zero? And the eternal banker sweeps up the stakes?

Muhammad's is one of those rare lives that is more dramatic in reality than in legend. In fact the less one invokes the miraculous, the more extraordinary his life becomes. What emerges is something grander precisely because it is human, to the extent that his actual life reveals itself worthy of the word 'legendary'.

Lesley Hazleton

With an effort Ewing turned his gaze away from the far end of the bar. Slowly he spread out his hands on the table and examined them. Then he looked up at Wayne. His left eyelid had begun to quiver slightly like a leaf in a gentle breeze as he put the question, but the expression of his face remained unchanged. "Who's the new customer?" Ewing asked indolently.

The past is for learning from and letting go. You can't revisit it. It vanishes.

You may have problems to solve but for every problem there is always a solution. It's a positive-and-negative thing: you can't have a problem without there being a solution. There always is. Your job is to find it…

We are like icebergs in the ocean: one-eighth part consciousness and the rest submerged beneath the surface of articulate apprehension.

William Gerhardie

If only life were one long crisis, everyone would be perfect.

Angela Thirkell

Things get passed around so easily on the Internet. Fact becomes fiction and fiction becomes fact.

Isn't it sad that we only get upset about nasty things happening to people and places if television decides we should?

For us creatures of a day the mountains stand fast.

Douglas Freshfield

It's true about the running water. You can hear anything you want to in it.

Gwendoline Riley

Doctors don't know a thing. These diseases that people [who travel there] get in India, they're not physical, they're purely psychic. We only get them because we try to resist India — because we shut ourselves up in our little Western egos and don't want to give ourselves.

Ruth Prawer Jhabvala

We have seen a growing mismatch between the command of media communication shown by the most talented politicians, and the halting, uneven progress which they can deliver through the machinery of government.

The spiritual element, the really important part of religion, has no concern with Time and Space, temporary mundane laws, or conduct.

Richard Le Gallienne

Again the violet of our early days Drinks beauteous azure from the golden sun, And kindles into fragrance at his blaze.

Ebenezer Elliott

Nobody hopped into a wardrobe to find Narnia; they hopped in, thinking it was just a wardrobe. They didn't climb up the Faraway Tree, knowing it was a Faraway Tree; they thought it was just a really big tree. Harry Potter thought he was a normal boy; Mary Poppins was supposed to be a regular nanny. It's the first and only rule. Magic comes when you're not looking for it

Nothing comes back. The eye sees for a moment, the ear hears, but look, now it is gone.

What is seen must always be the outcome of much that is unseen.

Last night I had rinsed out my sari strip and briefs in the sea. I walked down naked to where they hung in the branches of the silvery leafed tree beside the creek. Underneath the lazy sensuality of a luxurious stretch from toes to nose I felt the strong unequivocal demand of my blood. I hugged myself for a moment watching the grey light yield to dawn through half-closed eyes.

To live with God is to live always in the present, with him who is the eternal Now.

John Robinson (bishop of Woolwich)

You emerge from tragedy equipped against lies. After the musical, you're anybody's fool

It takes more than a short holiday to get a real love of Nature; such a love as makes trees like human companions, and green the colour we look for everywhere we go.

I liked having some time to myself. Our family was such a close one, you could get smothered. Of course, we didn't always agree with one another. Sometimes I quarreled with my brother and sisters, but I couldn't remember hating anyone for more than five minutes.

For as the old saying is,
When house and land are gone and spent
Then learning is most excellent.