English Author Quotes

You are not in charge of the universe; you are in charge of yourself.

For parents to restrain the inclinations of their children in marriage is an usurped power.

Ah! what if some unshamed iconoclast
Crumbling old fetish raiments of the past,
Rises from dead cerements the Christ at last?
What if men take to following where He leads,
Weary of mumbling Athanasian creeds?

E'er time and place were, time and place were not, When Primitive Nothing something straight begot, Then all proceeded from the great united — What.

John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester

O God! O God! that it were possible To undo things done; to call back yesterday! That Time could turn up his swift sandy glass, To untell the days, and to redeem these hours.

Nor too much wealth nor wit come to thee,
So much of either may undo thee.

A journalist who has to borrow a typewriter is bad news.

Look on the grave where thou must sleep Thy last, and strongest foe; It is endurance not to weep, If that repose seem woe.

Bits of jokes, bits of statistics, bits of foolery.

The first slap-jack given me for dinner was a cake of flour, partially fried in a pan of fat bacon. I nibbled about the brown edges and threw it, unbaked, against a barn door, where it stuck for days.

Science is concerned with finding out and stating the facts: poetry's task is to give you the look, the smell, the taste, the "feel" of those facts.

Cecil Day Lewis

Light was first
Through the Lord's word Named day:
Beauteous, bright creation!

Fair summer droops, droop men and beasts therefore: So fair a summer look for never more. All good things vanish, less than in a day, Peace, plenty, pleasure, suddenly decay. Go not yet away, bright soul of the sad year; The earth is hell when thou leav'st to appear.

The poet is always concerned with achieving a balance between the inner and the outer world; it is his business to hold in a single thought reality and justice.

Michael Roberts

Love in my bosom like a bee
Doth suck his sweet;
Now with his wings he plays with me,
Now with his feet.

I see echoes with lots of books in all my books, some deliberate, some unconscious until later, and as long as that is respectful I think that's great - writing on the shoulders of other writers is a privilege.

China Miéville

Any fool can be fussy and rid himself of energy all over the place, but a man has to have something in him before he can settle down to do nothing.

J. B. Priestley

With leaden foot time creeps along
While Delia is away.

Architecture, can want no commendation, where there are Noble Men, or Noble minds...

Epitaph:

Went the day well? we died and never knew;
But well or ill, England, we died for you.

John Maxwell Edmonds

It takes strength to be proud of yourself and to accept yourself when you know that you have something out of the ordinary about you.

Abigail Tarttelin

Bright clasp of her whole hand around my finger My daughter as we walk together now. All my life I'll feel a ring invisibly Circle this bone with shining When she is grown.

Stephen Spender

A king may spille, a king may save; A king may make of lorde a knave; And of a knave a lorde also.

The total and universal want of manners, both in males and females, is... remarkable... that polish which removes the coarser and rougher parts of our nature is unknown and undreamed of.

Frances Trollope

O how beautiful is morning!
How the sunbeams strike the daisies
And the kingcups fill the meadow
Like a golden-shielded army
Marching to the uplands fair.