British Author Quotes

The weightless mosquito touches
her tiny shadow on the stone,
and with how like, how infinite
a lightness, man and shadow meet.
They fuse. A shadow is a man
when the mosquito death approaches.

When a clandestine couple kisses, it is much more likely that sex will immediately follow. This is because there is much more risk. Once you have kissed secretly, it is very difficult not to have sex. It would be impolite not to have sex. You have to show that you are serious about each other.

This is what books only aimed to do and never could. Give you the glint of someone else's sunrise, what living is really like, you get old and it hurts to bend your elbow; your friends start to die, you can't get fresh fruit in the shops.

I am not disposed to form a very favorable idea of Chemistry, nor do I expect to derive much entertainment from it. I prefer the sciences which exhibit nature on a grand scale, to those that are confined to the minutiae of petty details.

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

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

Gwendoline Riley

Rooms are a fixed size, which can't be altered without pulling down walls and building new ones. They should be unchanging in shape and proportions. But sometimes they do change depending on who's in them.

And I wasn't a journalist any more than I was a trained nurse.

Nice? It's the ONLY thing, said the Water Rat solemnly, as he leant forward for his stroke. Believe me, my young friend, there is NOTHING - absolutely nothing - half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats. Simply messing... he went on dreamily: messing about... in... boats; messing..

Kenneth Grahame

He had made one mistake in an otherwise flawless performance: he hadn't told me his name. Have you ever exchanged three words with an American without being told his name?

Kyril Bonfiglioli

Then do you mean that I have got to go on catching these damned two-and-a-half pounders at this corner forever and ever? The keeper nodded. Hell! said Mr. Castwell. Yes, said his keeper.

The only argument against vivisection that will be seen to have lasting power - that we do not improve human society by means that debase human character.

Jon Wynne-Tyson

Elves, pixies, gnomes- the Moomins, Chorlton and the Wheelies, SpongeBob SquarePants- they all tried to invade you at some point.

Jacqueline Rayner

All I ask is the chance to prove that money can't make me happy.

Perhaps, on the whole, embarrassment and perplexity are a kind of natural accompaniment to life and movement; and it is better to be driven out of your senses with thinking which of two things you ought to do than to do nothing whatever, and be utterly uninteresting to all the world.

Margaret Oliphant

Be careful how you talk about God. He's the only God we have. If you let him go he won't come back. He won't even look back over his shoulder. And then what will you do?

They went to the north, they went to the south, And into the west went they, Till they found a civil, civil engineer, And unto him did say: "Now tell to us, thou civil engineer, If this be fit to drink." And they showed him a cup of the town water, Which was as black as ink.

Robert Fuller Murray

At some time in the future scientists, physicians, mediums and healers will have to work together to perfect the science of the whole.

Knowing you are one with all, you find yourself in love with all.

Peter Gandy (author)

Wouldst thou view the Lion's den? Search afar from haunts of men — Where the reed-encircled rill, Oozes from the rocky hill, By its verdure far descried 'Mid the desert brown and wide.

When we are conscious of the least comparative merit in ourselves, we should take as much care to conceal the value we set upon it, as if it were a real defect; to be elated or vain upon it is showing your money before people in want.

He that feareth is a slave, were he never so rich, were he never so powerful. But he that is without fear is king of all the world.

Eric Rücker Eddison

Belonging is a contested state. Home is a place riddled with vexing questions.

The fool that eats till he is sick must fast till he is well.

George Walter Thornbury

Feminism means believing that everybody should be treated equally regardless of their sex. Which happens to include the right to wear whatever you want, for your own reasons, without being forced or pressured into wearing what's considered societally required because of your sex.