Terry Deary > Quotes

“I'm not a historian, and I wouldn't want to be. I want to change the world. Attack the elite. Overturn the hierarchy. Look at my stories and you'll notice that the villains are always, always, those in power. The heroes are the little people. I hate the establishment. Always have, always will.”
― Terry Deary

“The only politician ever to have entered parliament with honourable intentions, was Guy Fawkes.”
― Terry Deary

“(The ‘Declaration of Independence’ begins: ‘All men are created equal’. What they really meant was ‘All men are created equal – unless they happen to be Indian, black or female’!)”
― Terry Deary, USA

“Don’t worry When you are a soldier you can be in one of two places: A dangerous place or a safe place. If you’re in a safe place … don’t worry. If you’re in a dangerous place you can be one of two things: One is wounded and the other is not. If you’re not wounded … don’t worry. If you are wounded it can be dangerous or slight: If it’s slight … don’t worry. If it’s dangerous then one of two things will happen: You’ll die or you’ll recover. If you recover … don’t worry. If you die … you can’t worry. In these circumstances a soldier never worries.   The Third Man The reason for this belief was that it was a dangerous thing to do in the trenches where an enemy sniper might be watching. First light will catch his eye, second light he’ll fix his sights on the light and third light … he’ll pull the trigger.”
― Terry Deary, The Frightful First World War

“After they had lost the war with Sparta the Athenians looked for someone to blame. They blamed the old teacher, Socrates. Being a rather groovy guy, he was always hanging around with young people, telling them not to believe in the old gods.”
― Terry Deary, Groovy Greeks

“Death, as well as fortune, is rather fond of the brave.”
― Terry Deary, Dangerous Days in the Roman Empire: Terrors and Torments, Diseases and Deaths

“The English went out and conquered a quarter of the Earth just to escape the rain. They always went for the hot places – Australia, Africa, India. But here’s the funny thing about the English … many of them like to take a bit of their Englishness with them wherever they go. All around the world these sad people build English pubs and serve ‘Full English Breakfasts’ in the morning and ‘Fish and Chips’ for lunch or dinner (or both). Some of them don’t seem to trust ‘foreign’ people, which is a bit odd. ALL the people in England were ‘foreign’ at one time.”
― Terry Deary, England

“inspector? Not all bad, then. The Vikings raided Britannia on holy days when they knew the towns would be full of pilgrims, women and children going to church. These unarmed people would be snatched and sold as slaves as far away as North Africa. For balance, I have to point out that the Saxons weren’t a lot better. The Church objected to Christians like themselves being sold as slaves; they didn’t object to other people being made slaves.”
― Terry Deary, A History of Britain in Ten Enemies

“Hippocrates was so great that today’s doctors still take the Oath of Hippocrates (though it has been modified during the 20th century)”
― Terry Deary, The Groovy Greeks

“Sometimes an event happens that is so great the world is never the same again after it. In the twentieth century one of the greatest of those events is World War I – fought against Germany from 1914 till 1918. Everyone is in it together. Upper classes and lower classes, women as well as men. This ‘mixing’ has never happened before and it will change the way the classes look at each other”
― Terry Deary, The Twentieth Century

“As the Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) said: ‘A cigarette is a pinch of tobacco rolled in paper with fire at one end and a fool at the other.’ In the history books of the world, the cigarette and its depredations have been ignored, yet it killed every British monarch who died in the twentieth century.”
― Terry Deary, A History of Britain in Ten Enemies

“The Roman Empire had departed Britain, leaving very little behind apart from the odd straight road and bits of walls that would give archaeologists a meagre living for a millennium and a half. They came back in an unexpected way, as the Catholic Church. This was the ultimate irony because the ancient Romans had tortured and killed Christians for sport.”
― Terry Deary, A History of Britain in Ten Enemies

“First the Duke of Cumberland’s Redcoats hunted down the clansmen who had escaped from Culloden. Prisoners were treated so badly that they died in their hundreds. The survivors were sent to the American plantations as slave labour.”
― Terry Deary, Scotland

“The oldest written poem was by the Greek, Homer. His poem, The Iliad, tells the story of the siege of Troy, a story of the heroes who fought to the death to get Helen back to her hubby, King Menelaus.”
― Terry Deary, Groovy Greeks

“Lincoln died from a bullet to the head while he sat next to his wife in the Ford Theatre. Kennedy died from a bullet to the head while he sat next to his wife in a Ford car.”
― Terry Deary, USA

“Greeks heard the poems read on stage while a group of dancers performed. Then a clever poet called Aeschylus came along and had a great idea. He put a second reader on stage. Now you had a ‘play’ –the first drama in the world.”
― Terry Deary, Groovy Greeks

“Why were kings cross? Maybe their trains were late! Some say warrior Queen Boudica was buried under platform 8.”
― Terry Deary, Loathsome London

“Some corpses were now chargrilled – or, as more PC people prefer to call it, cremated.”
― Terry Deary, A History of Britain in Ten Enemies

“Of all the history in the world the story of the First World War - also known as the Great War - is perhaps the most horrible. It's a story of what happens when machines go to war and human beings get in the way.”
― Terry Deary, The Frightful First World War

“CCC wanted everyone to believe that he had done what he set out to do – sailed west to find Japan in the east. He made his men swear an oath…”
― Terry Deary, USA

“Black Will, Shagbag.”
― Terry Deary, Terrible Tudors

“Yet the Romans did something the heart-ripping Aztecs and the Spanish burners didn’t do … they killed people for fun! The Romans made murder into a sport. They built wonderful buildings like the Colosseum, filled them with happy Romans and then massacred thousands of people and animals for entertainment.”
― Terry Deary, Ruthless Romans

“eaters”
― Terry Deary, Groovy Greeks

“But Djoser was king of South Egypt and North Egypt. To keep the people in both parts of the country happy he had to be buried in two different tombs. His body was entombed in the north, and his canopic jars had their own temple 100 metres to the south.”
― Terry Deary, Awful Egyptians

“Doctor Philip”
― Terry Deary, Groovy Greeks

“That’s life. Tried today, fried tomorrow.”
― Terry Deary

“then forcing his wife to eat the roasted flesh! Amazingly, two enemies, an English”
― Terry Deary, Measly Middle Ages

“There is proof that these early kings were taller and had much larger heads than the peasants of Egypt!”
― Terry Deary, Awesome Egyptians

“Life is a road... a wild and wearying road... and I've reached the end. Death is like an old friend, waiting at the end, to wrap me in his arms.”
― Terry Deary, The Fire Thief Fights Back

“They also thought there were spirits called ‘daimons’ around. Some were good and protected you; some were evil and could lead you into wickedness.”
― Terry Deary, The Groovy Greeks