Tom Holt Quotes

46 Sourced Quotes

'The best definition of an immortal is someone who hasn't died yet.'

Tom Holt
Ronnie Bosch sat in his studio, stared long and hard at his drawing board, and groaned.
It was, they told him, all part of a concept which was definitely going to be The Future as far as Hell Holdings was concerned.
For reasons he couldn't quite grasp, but which he couldn't help but feel mildly flattering, they were going to call it EuroBosch. - c. 2

Tom Holt
'Tact comes as naturally to full-bore handguns as, say, ice-skating to African elephants, but there comes a time when an exceptional individual is prepared to stand up and break the mould.'

Tom Holt
'Vote!' [Saint] George rolled his eyes. 'This is an assassination, not a debating society.' - c. 7

Tom Holt
In the beginning was the Word. Nobody knows what it actually was, although it would be nice to think that it was 'Sorry.' - c. 2

Tom Holt
'If you hadn't noticed, I'm the pub loony around here. This is my turf, and if there's any gibbering to be done, I'm the one who does it. If you want to gibber, find another bar.'

Tom Holt
Besides, [Saint] George pointed out, dragons burn towns and demand princesses as ransom.
The dragons, referring to the Siege of Jerusalem, the Sack of Constantinople and a thousand years of dynastic marriages, said, Look who's talking. - c. 4

Tom Holt
'Like, there's these new fundamentalist religious fanatics, some name like Meek Militant Action. Their aim's to inherit the Earth, provided nobody objects.' - c. 12

Tom Holt
'I spy,' said the first mate, 'with my little eye, something beginning with W.'
Nobody took any notice. Even Jan Christian Duysberg had guessed that one back in the 1740's, and he had been thirty-four years old before he realised he was left-handed. - c.2

Tom Holt
[...] the dragon got three cartsful of angry letters from the Pope (which he dismissed as a load of bulls) [...] - c. 4

Tom Holt
Not only had he lost the only girl he'd ever loved, he'd lost her in duplicate, like some heartbroken but highly efficient civil servant.

Tom Holt
Here and there a doorway or low arch concealed the occasional mugger, rapist or lawyer. - c. 7

Tom Holt
'... and we have already seen how insurance is like a pyramid -
(Huge, incomprehensible, hideously expensive, completely unnecessary and specifically designed only to be of benefit to you once you're dead?)'

Tom Holt
'At any given time, ninety-nine-point-nine-five per cent of the human race are a confounded nuisance'

Tom Holt
'Be my guest,' Vanderdecker said. 'You can watch a master liar at work, if you don't mind being an accomplice.'
'Doesn't worry me,' Jane replied, 'I'm an accountant.' - c. 8

Tom Holt
The knight raises both eyebrows, like someone by Burne-Jones who's just trodden on something sharp. 'I am Prince Boamund, eldest son of King -'
'Boamund?'
'That's right,' says the knight, 'Boamund, eldest son of -'
'How do you spell that?'
Boamund looks worried. Where he comes from you can take advanced falconry, or you can take spelling; not both. Guess which one he opted for. - c. 1

Tom Holt
'Luck, like a Russian car, generally only works if you push it.'

Tom Holt
'Thank you for calling the Powers of Darkness. Your call may be recorded for security and training purposes. For general moral and ethical enquiries, press 1 on your keypad. To make a reservation, press 2. For details of our special discount packages for lawyers, politicians, and Microsoft executives, press 3.'

Tom Holt
'Good guys is just a fancy way of saying Us. Bad guys is only ever Them.' - c. 12

Tom Holt
In spite of really intense competition for the job, I'm still my own worst enemy.

Tom Holt
Descartes' immortal conclusion cogito ergo sum was recently subjected to destruction testing by a group of graduate researchers at Princeton led by Professors Montjuic and Lauterbrunnen, and now reads, in the Shorter Harvard Orthodoxy:
(a) I think, therefore I am; or
(b) Perhaps I thought, therefore I was; but
(c) These days, I tend to leave that side of things to my wife.

Tom Holt
There is that within a man that drives him ever onwards, just as the power of the seasons drives the roots of flowers into the hard earth; and so he decided, against his better judgment, to open his eyes and find out what was going to happen to him next.

Tom Holt
There's all sorts of things I was always meaning to get around to - learning to play the flute, calculating the square root of nought, going mad - but I just didn't have the time.

Tom Holt
'You poor suckers [mammals]: you've got all this horrible stuff to get through somehow so obviously there's got to be an incentive, or at least some kind of fix for you to get addicted to. That's love: possibly the sneakiest trick ever played on any variety of life form by a notoriously conniving Universe. You do all these dismal, soul-destroying things because you get attached to each other.' -the spokesclone, pg. 322

Tom Holt
'How many spectral warriors does it take to change a light-bulb?
One, and a stepladder. At a pinch, of course, he could stand on a chair.'

Tom Holt
'He didn't smile - he was from Yorkshire, after all - but in some inner chamber of his heart he was satisfied.'

Tom Holt
Just when you've squared up to the solemn realization that life is a bitch, it turns round and does something nice, just to confuse you.

Tom Holt
'Jason squared his shoulders, drew the Sword of - I couldn't give a toss what it's supposed to be called, he said to himself, I shall call it Freckles - and took one step forward.'

Tom Holt
'I'm an archaeologist,' said Hildy. 'I dig up the past.'
The King raised an eyebrow. 'You mean you refresh old quarrels and keep alive old grievances? Surely not.'
'No, no,' said Hildy, 'I dig up ancient things buried in the earth. Things that belonged to people who lived hundreds of years ago.' As she said this, she began to feel uncomfortable. She had forgotton about the brooch.
'Do you really?' said the King. 'We used to call that grave-robbing.'

Tom Holt
Human beings can get used to virtually anything, given plenty of time and no choice in the matter whatsoever.

Tom Holt