Andrew > Andrew's Quotes

“Men wanted certainties, not more causes for doubt, and since the discoveries of science perplexed them with strange theories about the earth on which they walked and the bodies they inhabited, they turned with all the more zeal to the firm assurances of religion. Never”
― C. V. Wedgewood, The Thirty Years War

“Arthur was not one of those interesting characters whose subtle motives can be dissected. He was only a simple and affectionate man, because Merlyn had believed that love and simplicity were worth having.”
― T.H. White, The Once and Future King

“Good men and bad men alike are capable of weakness. The difference is simply that a bad man will be proud all his life of one good deed - while an honest man is hardly aware of his good acts, but remembers a single sin for years on end.”
― Vasily Grossman, Life and Fate

“My father says persistence is a polite way of being annoying.”
― Anthony Marra, A Constellation of Vital Phenomena

“It is more shameful to distrust our friends than to be deceived by them.”
― Confucius

“If you're waiting until you feel talented enough to make it, you'll never make it.”
― Criss Jami, Healology

“I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Walden: Or, Life in the Woods

“What you're supposed to do when you don't like a thing is change it. If you can't change it, change the way you think about it. Don't complain.”
― Maya Angelou, Wouldn't Take Nothing for My Journey Now

“I think of myself as a bad writer with big ideas, but I'd rather be that than a big writer with bad ideas.”
― Michael Moorcock, Elric: The Stealer of Souls

“Forget mistakes. Forget failure. Forget everything except what you're going to do now and do it. Today is your lucky day”
― Will Durant

“Fat’ is usually the first insult a girl throws at another girl when she wants to hurt her.

I mean, is ‘fat’ really the worst thing a human being can be? Is ‘fat’ worse than ‘vindictive’, ‘jealous’, ‘shallow’, ‘vain’, ‘boring’ or ‘cruel’? Not to me; but then, you might retort, what do I know about the pressure to be skinny? I’m not in the business of being judged on my looks, what with being a writer and earning my living by using my brain…

I went to the British Book Awards that evening. After the award ceremony I bumped into a woman I hadn’t seen for nearly three years. The first thing she said to me? ‘You’ve lost a lot of weight since the last time I saw you!’

‘Well,’ I said, slightly nonplussed, ‘the last time you saw me I’d just had a baby.’

What I felt like saying was, ‘I’ve produced my third child and my sixth novel since I last saw you. Aren’t either of those things more important, more interesting, than my size?’ But no – my waist looked smaller! Forget the kid and the book: finally, something to celebrate!

I’ve got two daughters who will have to make their way in this skinny-obsessed world, and it worries me, because I don’t want them to be empty-headed, self-obsessed, emaciated clones; I’d rather they were independent, interesting, idealistic, kind, opinionated, original, funny – a thousand things, before ‘thin’. And frankly, I’d rather they didn’t give a gust of stinking chihuahua flatulence whether the woman standing next to them has fleshier knees than they do. Let my girls be Hermiones, rather than Pansy Parkinsons.”
― J.K. Rowling

“Is it surprising that the people could see their fate and that of the world only as an endless succession of evils? Bad governance, exactions, the cupidity and violence of the great, wars and brigandage, scarcity, misery and pestilence—to this is contemporary history nearly reduced in the eyes of the people. The feeling of general insecurity which was caused by the chronic form wars were apt to take, by the constant menace of the dangerous classes, by the mistrust of justice, was further aggravated by the obsession of the coming end of the world, and by the fear of hell, of sorcerers and of devils. The background of all life in the world seems black. Satan covers a gloomy earth with his somber wings.”
― Johan Huizinga, The Waning of the Middle Ages

“A small daily task, if it be really daily, will beat the labours of a spasmodic Hercules.”
― Anthony Trollope