Jodi Taylor > Quotes

“Everyone needs rules. After all, how can you break what doesn’t exist? Rules give anarchy something to aim at”
― Jodi Taylor, What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

“It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.”
― Jodi Taylor, Just One Damned Thing After Another

“Thinking carefully is something that happens to other people”
― Jodi Taylor, Just One Damned Thing After Another

“Silence holds no fears for me. I never feel the urge to fill it as so many other people do.”
― Jodi Taylor, Just One Damned Thing After Another

“He was calm and soothing and had a reasonable explanation for everything. No woman should have to put up with that.”
― Jodi Taylor, Just One Damned Thing After Another

“The screaming redoubled. You put dinosaurs and people together, you always get screaming.”
― Jodi Taylor, Just One Damned Thing After Another

“Exchange between Leon and Max:
"I just want you to tell me you love me sometimes."
"Yes, you see I can't do that." He turned his head away. "I love you all the time.”
― Jodi Taylor, Just One Damned Thing After Another

“If this was one of those books, there would now be three pages of head-banging sex. The reality was that he pulled me close, whispered, ‘Mfhbnnntx,’ and I pulled his arm over me like a cover and muttered, ‘Trout,’ and that was pretty much it.”
― Jodi Taylor, Just One Damned Thing After Another

“Helen, in a white coat and stethoscope, effortlessly achieving the sort of discipline for which lesser women would require black leather and a hunting crop, indicated we should form a line. Being St Mary’s, we formed several clumps and a rhomboid.”
― Jodi Taylor, A Second Chance

“Dr Maxwell. Why are you wearing a red snake in my office?’ ‘Sorry, sir. Whose office should I be wearing it in?”
― Jodi Taylor, A Symphony of Echoes

“Despite the Cooper/Hofstadter papers on the subject,”
― Jodi Taylor, The Chronicles of St Mary's Boxset Vol 1

“I suspect the Universe is making damned sure we don’t get the chance to contaminate other planets with our stupidity. It’s keeping us on this one where the only thing we can damage is each other.”
― Jodi Taylor, A Trail Through Time

“She said nothing in a manner that conveyed volumes. I said nothing in a manner that I hoped conveyed my complete innocence. She said nothing in a manner that conveyed her disbelief in my complete innocence. I said nothing in a manner that conveyed my hurt at this lack of trust in me. She said nothing in a manner that effortlessly conveyed the message that Dr Bairstow wished to see me at his earliest convenience and to collect Dr Peterson while I was at it.”
― Jodi Taylor, What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

“If in doubt, make some tea.”
― Jodi Taylor, Just One Damned Thing After Another

“I tried – and failed – to imagine Dr Bairstow chuckling. Sometimes when he was pleased, he did display the satisfaction of an elderly vulture unexpectedly encountering a dead donkey. But chuckling …”
― Jodi Taylor, A Second Chance

“No, he’s made a very good point,’ said Bashford provocatively. ‘Women are just vessels, you know.’ ‘That’s very true,’ said Sykes, smiling angelically at him. ‘I myself am a seventeen-thousand-ton Dreadnought class battleship with enough firepower to destroy a medium-sized city.”
― Jodi Taylor, An Argumentation of Historians

“The Society for the Protection of Historical Buildings was the official body whose task it was to oversee repairs and maintenance to our beloved but battered listed building. We had them on speed-dial. They had us on their black list.”
― Jodi Taylor, Just One Damned Thing After Another

“This was my favourite moment – everything stretching out in front of us, gleaming with promise and excitement and we hadn’t yet had a chance to screw it up.”
― Jodi Taylor, A Second Chance

“What chest?’ I said, because everyone knows if you ignore persistent, throbbing pain then it goes away. Like toothache. And small children. And overdrafts.”
― Jodi Taylor, A Trail Through Time

“Are you sexually active?’ ‘No. I usually just lie back and think of the Spartans.”
― Jodi Taylor, A Second Chance

“There’s something very satisfying about outwitting religious fanaticism.”
― Jodi Taylor, No Time Like the Past

“He had fallen for Cal like a sperm-whale failing to clear the Grand Canyon on a bicycle.”
― Jodi Taylor, Just One Damned Thing After Another

“The doctor will be with you soon. He said you had beautiful lacerations, and it was a pleasure to patch you up. He was quite enthusiastic.’ She grinned. ‘He doesn’t get out much.”
― Jodi Taylor, A Symphony of Echoes

“I personally think humans have got about as far as we can go. We're wrecking the planet. We're never short of good reasons to massacre each other. Wrong god. Wrong race. Wrong color. Wrong sex. I'm actually quite surprised a thoroughly pissed-off History hasn't waved a flaming sword and we're all back in caves in the snow, chewing on half-cooked mammoth. And even that's more than we deserve.
No wonder we still can't get to Mars. I suspect the Universe is making damned sure we don't get the chance to contaminate other planets with our stupidity. It's keeping us on this one where the only thing we can damage is each other.”
― Jodi Taylor, A Trail Through Time

“There should be medals struck for men who produce tea at exactly the moment it's needed.”
― Jodi Taylor, A Trail Through Time

“Mr Markham, the box marked “Sex” is not an invitation. Please amend the details and apologise to Mrs Partridge.”
― Jodi Taylor, Just One Damned Thing After Another

“In this century, as in any other, men wore the comfortable, practical stuff, and the women wandered round expiring underneath over-decorated tea-cosies and with inadequate footwear.”
― Jodi Taylor, A Symphony of Echoes

“Whether Henry was a royal trendsetter or it was practical under their helmets, I didn’t know. I certainly couldn’t think of any other reason for having the most hideous hairstyle in a History that includes Donald Trump.”
― Jodi Taylor, A Second Chance

“Lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part.”
― Jodi Taylor, A Trail Through Time

“An hour later, we’d indulged in the traditional St Mary’s ritual for dealing with any sort of crisis, which is to imbibe vast reservoirs of tea. People laugh, but it works. By the time the kettle has boiled, the tea made, the amount of sugar added has been silently criticised, the tea blown on and finally drunk … all this takes time, and if you’re a member of St Mary’s with the attention-span of a privet hedge, then you’ve forgotten what you were arguing about in the first place.”
― Jodi Taylor, A Trail Through Time