1
2
3
5
8
12
20
33
52
83
133
213
340
543
867
1384
2208
3346
3522
3570
3571
3572
3573
3574
5443
5619
6757
7581
8098
8422
8625
8752
8832
8882
8913
8932
8945
8953
8957
8960
8962
8963
8964
8965
▲
▼
| Link | Quote | Stars | Tags | Author |
| 582b281 | Maybe if I separate the coincidences out, push them further apart, you might believe them more. One the other hand, I don't care whether you believe them, because they're true. And in any case, I still can't decide whether they are coincidences or not, these things: Perhaps getting something you want is never a coincidence. If you want a cheese sandwich and you get a cheese sandwich, that can't be a coincidence, can it? And by the same toke.. | power-over-your-life coincidences sandwich | Nick Hornby | |
| 6d80a30 | Clive was rapidly coming to the conclusion that being engaged to somebody meant that he spent an awful lot of time not doing things he wanted to do. | Nick Hornby | ||
| 4b725b4 | some things were better, some were worse, and the only way one can ever learn to understand one's own youth is by accepting both halves of the proposition. | Nick Hornby | ||
| 9327ab2 | It's music rage, which is like road rage, only more righteous. When you get road rage, a tiny part of you knows you're being a jerk, but when you get music rage, you're carrying out the will of God, and God wants these people dead. | Nick Hornby | ||
| 8bb1c9e | I recently discovered that a friend who was re-reading Bleak House had done no other Dickens apart from Barnaby Ridge. That's just weird. I shamed and nagged him into picking up Great Expectations instead. But when I tried to recall anything about it other than its excellence, I failed. Maybe there was something about a peculiar stepfather? Or was that This Boy's Life? And I realized that, as this is true of just about every book I consumed.. | Nick Hornby | ||
| 23cb883 | Is it possible to want to divorce a man simply because he doesn't want to be rude about Ginger Spice? I rather fear it might be. | Nick Hornby | ||
| b23854d | Sometimes it seems as though the only way a man can judge his own niceness, his own decency, is by looking at his relationships with women, or rather, with prospective or current sexual partners. It's easy enough to be nice to your mates. You can buy them a drink, make them a tape, ring them up to see if they're OK ... there are any number of quick and painless methods of turning yourself into a Good Bloke. When it comes to girlfriends, tho.. | Nick Hornby | ||
| 1b47cf4 | that night taught me one of life's most useful lessons, one of the only pieces of advice I have to offer to younger generations: YOU'RE ALLOWED TO WALK OUT! | Nick Hornby | ||
| b030033 | I've never been happy in the way that I've been happy in this room, and in the studios," said Sophie. "I've never laughed so much, or learned so much, and everything I know about my job is because of the people here. Even you, Clive. And I'm worried that I'll spend the rest of my working life looking for an experience like this one, where everything clicks and everyone pushes you to do the best you can, better than anything you think you're.. | Nick Hornby | ||
| 22e04c0 | So, as she walked down the stairs into the club, she was looking forward to a seething, teeming, wriggling, wiggling throng of dancers, many of whom she'd recognize: she wanted to see former pupils, local shopkeepers, museum regulars, all of whom would look at her as if to say, "Here we are! What kept you?" -- | Nick Hornby | ||
| ac8f4ae | What came first the music or the misery?People worry about kids playing with guns,or watching violent videos,that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about the kids listening to thousands, literally thousands of songs about heartbreak,rejection,pain,misery and loss.Did i listen to pop music because i was miserable?Or was i miserable because i listened to pop music? | Nick Hornby | ||
| 568b791 | It's often the way that people who take their work seriously laugh at stupid jokes; it's as if they are under-humored and, as a consequence, suffer from premature laugh-ejaculation. | Nick Hornby | ||
| f278d40 | Everything has a meaning, if only we could read it, | Philip Pullman | ||
| efba1fc | Eve was tempted not by wealth or love but by knowledge. | temptation fall knowledge | Philip Pullman | |
| f8acc50 | Do you think I need anything else?" "You could do with some sense," came the reply. "Some faculty to enable you to recognize wisdom and incline you to respect and obey it." | Philip Pullman | ||
| fdea8c5 | I wish I could answer your question. All I can say is that all of us, humans, witches, bears, are engaged in a war already, although not all of us know it. Whether you find danger on Svalbard or whether you fly off unharmed, you are a recruit, under arms, a soldier." "Well, that seems kinda precipitate. Seems to me a man should have a choice whether to take up arms or not." "We have no more choice in that than in whether or not to be born.. | Philip Pullman | ||
| 4046c4d | The mind has plenty of ways of preventing you from writing, and paralysing self-consciousness is a good one. The only thing to do is ignore it, and remember what Vincent van Gogh said in one of his letters about the painter's fear of the blank canvas - the canvas, he said, is far more afraid of the painter. | writing writing-advice writing-process | Philip Pullman | |
| de5c0d2 | Shame on you! Think what this child has done! You might not have more courage, but you should be ashamed to show less. | Philip Pullman | ||
| 52946f2 | She was learning that if she pretended to be weak and frightened, and dabbed at her eyes with a lacy handkerchief, she could turn aside all manner of pressing questions. | sally-lockhart | Philip Pullman | |
| eade045 | Lyra wanted to talk to the bear, and if he had been human, she would already be on familiar terms with him; but he was so strange and wild and cold that she was shy, almost for the first time in her life. So as he loped along, his great legs swinging tirelessly, she sat with the movement and said nothing. Perhaps he preferred that anyway, she thought; she must seem a little prattling cub, only just past babyhood, in the eyes of an armored b.. | Philip Pullman | ||
| 215110b | Eventually, child, you will come to the land of the dead with no effort, no risk, a safe, calm journey, in the company of your own death, your special, devoted friend, who's been beside you every moment of your life, who knows you better than yourself. | Philip Pullman | ||
| 085d17a | There he dwelt, a prisoner acting like a king. | Philip Pullman | ||
| 4cf9452 | Asriel was a tall man with powerful shoulders, a fierce dark face, and eyes that seemed to flash and glitter with savage laughter. It was a face to be dominated by, or to fight: never a face to patronize or pity. All his movements were large and perfectly balanced, like those of a wild animal, and when he appeared in a room like this, he seemed a wild animal held in a cage too small for it. | Philip Pullman | ||
| dce5bad | Doesn't it scare you having your death close by all the time?" said Lyra. "Why ever would it? If he's there, you can keep an eye on him. I'd be a lot more nervous not knowing where he was." | Philip Pullman | ||
| 3b908f8 | There's plenty of folk as'd like to have a lion as a daemon and they end up with a poodle. And till they learn to be satisfied with what they are, they're going to be fretful about it. Waste of feeling, that is. | Philip Pullman | ||
| 40a4ce3 | Mignon' said the King, 'soon you are going to be a great king'. But he also told Anjou, in a memorable phrase 'Try to remain at peace with your neighbors: I have loved war too much... | Antonia Fraser | ||
| 26ccc24 | Was Charles I too stubborn to listen to reason? Could Civil War have been averted if the king had been more willing to negotiate? His great enemy Cromwell always maintained that the king had been swayed at the last moment by his queen, the beautiful Henrietta Maria. We can believe Cromwell's claim that the queen told her husband to be firm. But the wicked, spiteful, altogether irresistable quote often attributed to her by Puritan writers of.. | impotence | Antonia Fraser | |
| b8101ad | Though Charles II both craved and enjoyed female companionship till the end of his life, there is no question that by the cold, rainy autumn of 1682 his physical appetites had diminshed considerably. The Duchess of Portsmouth was, after all, more than twenty years his junior; and there comes a time in nearly every such relationship when the male partner is simply unable to fully accommodate the female partner. Or as Samuel Pepys tartly note.. | male-and-female | Antonia Fraser | |
| efefd8a | They inhabited a lost world of splendour and brutality, a world dominated by religious change, in which there were few saints. | history women-s-history non-fiction royalty | Alison Weir | |
| 1bc556e | The formal education of women was rarely considered important. Girls of good birth were taught domestic skills at home or in a convent, and rarely learned to read and write, for it was feared that if they did they would waste their talents writing love letters or reading romances that led to promiscuity. | women-s-rights | Alison Weir | |
| a2a9f1e | He was not afraid, in fact he was content to go: So much that had been pleasurable in his life was now beyond his capacity, and that he could not bear. | Alison Weir | ||
| 94629e3 | In the South of England northerners were regarded then as uncouth, brutish, undisciplined savages ... | nothingchanges north south opinion | Alison Weir | |
| 63f56da | He was a figurehead - an aging CEO of his own family who only showed up for the board meetings and wondered how so much got done without him. | Tad Williams | ||
| ce32337 | It was frighteningly close to what he believed of his father at the worst moments - that he really was the kind of man who would send a letter signed "Sincerely, Cpl. Peter Vilmos" to someone he'd seen naked." | Tad Williams | ||
| 8808689 | A part of me, of course, was reminding myself over and over and over again that I should never have tried to lie to the higher angels of the Ephorate. Hubris, the Greeks called that. "A dumbshit move," might be a more contemporary way of putting it." | Tad Williams | ||
| f16ed9f | He turned up the car radio and punched buttons until he found something loud and thumpingly exultant, some piece of jolly stupidity from AC/DC. | Tad Williams | ||
| 947dfd3 | So that's what--one "yes," one "not sure," and one "I had had a dream about a bug." | Tad Williams | ||
| 55b7f02 | Since your father has escaped my justice, it is you who must hear my words." "Words. You keep saying..." "Because that was the gift your father gave to me. And the curse that ruined me as well, changed my life to wretched misery. There are hours yet before the guard comes - nay, eons. An eternity, in fact. This is my time, Miranda. Now you will have your words back: before I kill you, you will hear my tale... and you will know what you ha.. | Tad Williams | ||
| 9c2c44a | Thank you for your news, Princess. It is none of it happy, but only a fool desires cheerful ignorance and I try not to be a fool. That is my heaviest burden. | Tad Williams | ||
| 7ffb1fc | Trust Anne to turn a disadvantage into an asset! | Jean Plaidy | ||
| 55ee727 | When More had said that a man who cannot restrain his passions is essentially cruel, he spoke the truth. | Jean Plaidy | ||
| 424f52e | Nature was more merciful than men, providing for those who suffered great pain such blessedness as fainting; but men were cruel and brought their victims out of faints that the pain might start again. (On being tortured/The Tower.) | Jean Plaidy | ||
| f49363b | People often vented their rage on those who were the victims of their neglect because they were in truth blaming themselves. | Jean Plaidy | ||
| e55baa7 | The Fairy Queen has sent you to do brave deeds in this world. That High City that you see is in another world. Before you climb the path to it and hang your shield on its wall, go down into the valley and fight the dragon that you were sent to fight. | work dragon-slaying dragon | Margaret Hodges |