Kip Palin > Kip's Quotes

“George’s utterance of the nest and the trap belonged to a bigger mystery she did not yet understand. One day I will, she promised herself. She would stake her life that those last words from her son would be solved by her. They were steppingstones into… whatever the wind and the stars and the valiant trees held for her.”
― Susan Rowland, Murder on Family Grounds

“Remove the comma, replace the comma, remove the comma, replace the comma...”
― R.D. Ronald

“The locals call me alligator man, not only because of my scar, but because I keep an alligator by the name of Emma on my boat. I caught her as a young ‘un back in Louisiana. She’s small and doesn’t take up much room. So far, I’ve had no complaints, although I have no illusions that at some point I will be forced to give her up. For now, what better watch dog could I have? No alarm system needed. I simply post my sign, ‘Beware of Alligator’ on the dock.”
― Behcet Kaya, Treacherous Estate

“He shoved her aside and forced his sword, to the hilt, straight through James’s torso.”
― Gabriel F.W. Koch, Steel Blood

“… It was an astonishing situation, a tragedy unique in history. What terror had driven these peace-loving people to seek refuge in such a wilderness? Even grass had become scarce along the track. Scanty patches of grass had been eaten clean and transport animals, already showing signs of exhaustion were far from their journey’s end. … the constant flicker of lightning and the distant growl of thunder wasominous. In the small hours the storm burst upon us. Hastily rolling up bedding we took refuge wherever we could, in or under the
lorries standing round. There together with many Indians we sat huddled and waited for the dawn. Dr Russell”
― Elizabeth Tebby Germaine, EXTRAORDINARY TRUE STORIES OF SURVIVAL IN BURMA WW2: tens of thousands fled to India from the Japanese Invasion in 1942

“How can a young person learn whether he chose the correct way? He thinks he has a special idea, and then he discovers that he is completely inappropriate for it.”
― Irving Stone, Lust for Life

“All passion is childish. It's banal and naive. It's nothing we learn; it's instinctive, and so it overwhelms us. Overturns us. It bears us away in a flood. All other emotions belong to earth, but passion inhabits the universe.
That is the reason why passion is worth something, not for what it gives us but for what it demands we risk. Our dignity. The puzzlement of others and their condescending, shaking heads”
― Fredrik Backman, Britt-Marie Was Here

“May I kiss you then? On this miserable paper? I might as well open the window and kiss the night air.”
― Franz Kafka

“You can't really teach a kid anything: you can only show him the way and motivate him to learn it himself.”
― Dave Cullen, Columbine

“Some people go, some people stay. I'm staying.”
― S.E. Hinton, Tex

“At about the end of the eighteen minutes and twenty miles, I said: “But suppose I don't find anything before election day?”

The Boss said, “To hell with election day. I can deliver Masters prepaid, special handling. But if it takes ten years, you find it.”

We clocked off five miles more, and I said, “But suppose there isn't anything to find.”

And the Boss said, “There is always something.”

And I said, "“Maybe not on the Judge.”

And he said, “Man is conceived in sin and born in corruption and he passeth from the stink of the didie to the stench of the shroud. There is always something.”

Two miles more, and he said, “And make it stick.”

And that was all a good while ago. And Masters is dead now, as dead as a mackerel, but the Boss was right and he went to the Senate. And Callahan is not dead but he has wished he were, no doubt, for he used up his luck a long time back and being dead was not part of it. And Adam Stanton is dead now, too, who used to go fishing with me and who lay on the sand in the hot sunshine with me and with Anne Stanton. And Judge Irwin is dead, who leaned toward me among the stems of the tall gray marsh grass, in the gray damp wintry dawn, and said, “You ought to have led that duck more, Jack. You got to lead a duck, son.” And the Boss is dead, who said to me, “And make it stick.”

Little Jackie made it stick, all right.”
― Robert Penn Warren, All the King's Men

“For your information, Dolores, Rudi gave me full leave to do what I think is best for our children.”
― Dorlies von Kaphengst Meissner Rasmussen, Escaping the Russian Onslaught: A Family’s Story of Fleeing the Russian Army after Hitler’s Nazi Regime

“The discovery of curium was part of the Manhattan Project, so it stayed secret until World War II ended. It was supposed to be announced at an American Chemical Society meeting, but was accidentally revealed early on a kids’ radio show. The name was chosen to honor Marie and Pierre Curie for their work in radioactivity.”
― Sybrina Durant, Magical Elements of the Periodic Table Presented By The Actinide Knights

“While an elderly man in his mid-eighties looks curiously at a porno site, his grandson asks him from afar, “‘What are you reading, grandpa?’” “‘It’s history, my boy.’” “The grandson comes nearer and exclaims, “‘But this is a porno site, grandpa, naked chicks, sex . . . a lot of sex!’” “‘Well, it’s sex for you, my son, but for me it’s history,’ the old man says with a sigh.” All of people in the cabin burst into laughter. “A stale joke, but a cool one,” added William More, the man who just told the joke. The navigator skillfully guided the flying disc among the dense orange-yellow blanket of clouds in the upper atmosphere that they had just entered. Some of the clouds were touched with a brownish hue at the edges. The rest of the pilots gazed curiously and intently outwards while taking their seats. The flying saucer descended slowly, the navigator’s actions exhibiting confidence. He glanced over at the readings on the monitors below the transparent console: Atmosphere: Dense, 370 miles thick, 98.4% nitrogen, 1.4% methane Temperature on the surface: ‒179°C / ‒290°F Density: 1.88 g/cm³ Gravity: 86% of Earth’s Diameter of the cosmic body: 3200 miles / 5150 km.”
― Todor Bombov, Homo Cosmicus 2: Titan: A Science Fiction Novel

“Guests began drifting toward the edge of the lawn.
Jane heard the shift around her as someone whispered,
“Graham’s here.”
― D.L. Maddox, Secrets

“On the 16th of Febuary 1312, when Isabella was aged sixteen years, the couple were at their hunting lodge when Edward suddenly took Isabella into his arms and began to kiss her and pay her a lot of attention, slowly and tenderly.”
― Michael G. Kramer, Isabella Warrior Queen

“You shall address me as ‘My Dearest’,’ he repeated in a mocking voice, trying to copy her tone. ‘You will forget all about this conversation when you leave this room.’ It was interesting that tone; it had a sort of hypnotising ring to it.”
― Max Nowaz, The Three Witches and the Master

“The Green Judges, most of them decidedly miffed, grumbled out one by one, though I got a wink and a thumbsup from Washington.”
― Gary Clemenceau, Banker's Holiday: A Novel of Fiscal Irregularity

“Bertram scratched his ear. ‘I was made aware of a bit of a ruckus.The bedrooms used in that house were on the second and third floors. I had just cleared two gentlemen from a room on the third floor at Donovan’s request, he then asked me to tidy up the room ahead of the next guests’ arrival. I was doing that when I heard some shouts from a bedroom below.”
― Mark Ellis, Death of an Officer

“Then we will not speak
nor write a single word
for on that surging tide
silence will prevail.
 ”
― Don Hynes, Something Will Change Me: Poems of Soul and Spirit

“Flipping through, the first thing she came across was a restaurant menu featuring animals and rodents in a reference to the starvation of residents during the Siege of Paris of 1870-71 − horse soup, dog cutlets, ragout of cat, roast ostrich, fricassee of rats and mice? The French and their obsession with food presentation.”
― Theasa Tuohy, Mademoiselle le Sleuth

“We need to call Glenn the Glimmer Wizard.”
― Robert Agnello, The Glimmers Save Christmas

“I think what I really mean is that [she] won't be WANTING things to happen. She will want things to say just as they are. She will never have the fun of hoping something wonderful and exciting may be just round the corner.”
― Dodie Smith I Capture the Castle

“And thus it passed on from Candlemass until after Easter, that the month of May was come, when every lusty heart beginneth to blossom, and to bring forth fruit; for like as herbs and trees bring forth fruit and flourish in May, in like wise every lusty heart that is in any manner a lover, springeth and flourisheth in lusty deeds. For it giveth unto all lovers courage, that lusty month of May, in something to constrain him to some manner of thing more in that month than in any other month, for divers causes. For then all herbs and trees renew a man and woman, and likewise lovers call again to their mind old gentleness and old service, and many kind deeds that were forgotten by negligence. For like as winter rasure doth alway arase and deface green summer, so fareth it by unstable love in man and woman. For in many persons there is no stability; for we may see all day, for a little blast of winter's rasure, anon we shall deface and lay apart true love for little or nought, that cost much thing; this is no wisdom nor stability, but it is feebleness of nature and great disworship, whosomever useth this. Therefore, like as May month flowereth and flourisheth in many gardens, so in like wise let every man of worship flourish his heart in this world, first unto God, and next unto the joy of them that he promised his faith unto; for there was never worshipful man or worshipful woman, but they loved one better than another; and worship in arms may never be foiled, but first reserve the honour to God, and secondly the quarrel must come of thy lady: and such love I call virtuous love.

But nowadays men can not love seven night but they must have all their desires: that love may not endure by reason; for where they be soon accorded and hasty heat, soon it cooleth. Right so fareth love nowadays, soon hot soon cold: this is no stability. But the old love was not so; men and women could love together seven years, and no licours lusts were between them, and then was love, truth, and faithfulness: and lo, in like wise was used love in King Arthur's days. Wherefore I liken love nowadays unto summer and winter; for like as the one is hot and the other cold, so fareth love nowadays; therefore all ye that be lovers call unto your remembrance the month of May, like as did Queen Guenever, for whom I make here a little mention, that while she lived she was a true lover, and therefore she had a good end.”
― Thomas Malory, Le Morte d'Arthur: King Arthur and the Legends of the Round Table

“Sourmelina's secret (as Aunt Zo put it): 'Lina was one of those women they named the island after.”
― Jeffrey Eugenides, Middlesex

“not unlike a bomb blast, two years after that, where was he, northern France, if you called Cambrai France (some people didn’t, they called it “Kamerijk”
― Jane Smiley, Some Luck

“Durability is one of the chief elements of strength. Nothing is either loved or feared but that which is likely to endure.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America

“I told you she was doing all four of 'em.”
― Kyle Keyes, Under the Bus