Tye Driskell > Tye's Quotes

“It's true: lives do drift apart for no obvious reason. We're all busy people,we can't spend our time simply trying to stay in touch. The test of a friendship is if it can weather these inevitable gaps.”
― William Boyd, Any Human Heart

“Maybe we should go by tube', he said.

A taxi'll come', she said. 'I'm in no hurry'.

She remembered something a woman in Paris had told her once. A woman in her forties, much married, elegant, a little world-weary. There is nothing easier in this world, this woman had claimed, than getting a man to kiss you. Oh really? Eva had said, so how do you do that? Just stand close to a man, the woman has said, very close, as close as you can without touching - he will kiss you in one minute or two. It's inevitable. For them it's like an instinct - they can't resist. Infaillible.

So Eva stood close to Romer in the doorway of the shop on Frith Street as he shooted and waved at the passing cars moving down the dark street, hoping one of them might be a taxi.

We're out of luck', he said, turning, to find Eva standing very close to him, her face lifted.

I'm in no hurry', she said.

He reached for her and kissed her.”
― William Boyd, Restless

“What's needed on Earth is love of the dark side of ourselves”
― Jeremy Griffith, FREEDOM: The End of the Human Condition

“Throughout history we humans have struggled to find meaning in the awesome contradiction of our human condition. Neither philosophy, nor psychology nor biology has, until now, been able to provide the truthful explanation.”
― Jeremy Griffith, FREEDOM: The End of the Human Condition

“It's only terrible to have nothing to wait for.”
― Erich Maria Remarque, Three Comrades

“But now, for the first time, I see you are a man like me. I thought of your hand-grenades, of your bayonet, of your rifle; now I see your wife and your face and our fellowship. Forgive me, comrade. We always see it too late. Why do they never tell us that you are poor devils like us, that your mothers are just as anxious as ours, and that we have the same fear of death, and the same dying and the same agony--Forgive me, comrade; how could you be my enemy?”
― Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front

“The increasingly thoughtful child can see the whole horribly upset world and would be understandably totally bewildered and deeply troubled by it”
― Jeremy Griffith, FREEDOM: The End of the Human Condition

“We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, remembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;
At the source of the longest river
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the apple-tree
Not known, because not looked for
But heard, half-heard, in the stillness
Between two waves of the sea.

—T.S. Eliot, from “Little Gidding,” Four Quartets (Gardners Books; Main edition, April 30, 2001) Originally published 1943.”
― T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets

“Striking a woman was something weak men did; men with little moral fibre and no self-control. It was a coward's response to a situation. And”
― Steven A. McKay, Rise of the Wolf

“Still, he could see by the way she carried herself that she'd truly come of age and was at peace with the world. That was all anyone could ask for in life.”
― Steven A. McKay, Rise of the Wolf

“went back”
― Steven A. McKay, The Wolf and the Raven

“We humans have cooperative, selfless and loving moral instincts, the voice or expression of which we call our conscience—which is the complete opposite of competitive, selfish and aggressive instincts. As Charles Darwin said, "The moral sense… affords the best and highest distinction between man and the lower animals.”
― Jeremy Griffith, FREEDOM: The End of the Human Condition

“The moral sense perhaps affords the best and highest distinction between man and the lower animals”
― Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man

“Table of Contents Title Page Copyright Dedication Longfellow Poem Map of the Roman World AD 534”
― William Havelock, The Pillars of Herakles: A Novel of Belisarius

“After my dominus named him as the heir to the imperial throne, he adopted a new name for himself—Justinian.”
― William Havelock, The Last Dying Light

“The Eternal City is in the debt of so many of these legends but owes none more than Flavius Belisarius—the king without a crown, the last of the true Romans, who marched obediently through a valley of certain death for the vanity and pride of his emperor.”
― William Havelock, The Last Dying Light

“Your brother beat him almost to death, Temujin. He held him and kicked him until he cried like a child. He is afraid of you, so he hates you. It would be wrong to hurt him again. It would be like beating a dog after it has loosed it's bladder. The spirit is already broken in him.”
― Conn Iggulden, Genghis: Birth of an Empire

“Courage cannot be left like bones in a bag. It must be brought out and shown the light again and again, growing stronger each time. If you think it will keep for the times you need it, you are wrong. It is like any other part of your strength. If you ignore it, the bag will be empty when you need it most.”
― Conn Iggulden, Genghis: Birth of an Empire

“When you’re older, you will realise the only thing that matters, the only thing, is that you had courage and honour. Lose those things and you won’t die any quicker, but you’ll be less than the dirt on our boots. You’ll still be dust, but you’ll have wasted your short time in the light.”
― Conn Iggulden, Conqueror

“Shakespeare brings us to know ourselves. Dante, with his dissection of all others, bids us to know one another.”
― Matthew Pearl, The Dante Club

“He was outwardly calm but inwardly bleeding to death.”
― Matthew Pearl, The Dante Club

“Remember that there are two things in this life that are never worth crying about: what can be cured and what cannot be cured.”
― Matthew Pearl