Amelia > Amelia's Quotes

“The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid.”
― Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey

“I found a dead body in the cucumber patch,' I told them.

'How very like you,' Ophelia said, and went on preening her eyebrows.”
― Alan Bradley, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie

“As I stood outside in Cow Lane, it occurred to me that Heaven must be a place where the library is open twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.

No ... eight days a week.”
― Alan Bradley, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie

“You are unreliable, Flavia,' he said. 'Utterly unreliable.'
Of course I was! It was one of the things I loved most about myself.”
― Alan Bradley, The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag

“I brought to mind the image of the stranger lying there in the first light of dawn: the slight growth of whiskers on his chin, strands of his red hair shifting gently on the faint stirrings of the morning breeze, the pallor, the extended legs, the quivering fingers, that last, sucking breath. And that word, blown into my face ... "Vale."

The thrill of it all!

Yes," I said, "it was devastating.”
― Alan Bradley, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie

“A peculiar feeling passed over me--or, rather, through me, as if I were an umbrella remembering what it felt like to pop open in the rain.”
― Alan Bradley, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie

“Seen from the air, the male mind must look rather like the canals of Europe, with ideas being towed along well-worn towpaths by heavy-footed dray horses. There is never any doubt that they will, despite wind and weather, reach their destinations by following a simple series of connected lines.
But the female mind, even in my limited experience, seems more of a vast and teeming swamp, but a swamp that knows in an instant whenever a stranger--even miles away--has so much as dipped a single toe into her waters. People who talk about this phenomenon, most of whom know nothing whatsoever about it, call it "woman's intuition.”
― Alan Bradley, The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag

“To be most effective, flattery is always best applied with a trowel.”
― Alan Bradley, The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag

“There was no way out; not, at least, in this direction. I was like a hamster that had climbed to the top of the ladder in its cage and found there was nowhere to go but down. But surely hamsters knew in their hamster hearts that escape was futile; it was only we humans who were incapable of accepting our own helplessness.”
― Alan Bradley, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie

“I'm at that age where I watch such things with two minds, one that cackles at these capers and another that never gets much beyond a rather jaded and self-conscious smile, like the Mona Lisa.”
― Alan Bradley, The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag

“I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of any thing than of a book! -- When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library.”
― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“The more I know of the world, the more I am convinced that I shall never see a man whom I can really love. I require so much!”
― Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility

“Ah! There is nothing like staying at home, for real comfort.”
― Jane Austen

“Silly things do cease to be silly if they are done by sensible people in an impudent way.”
― Jane Austen, Emma

“Better be without sense than misapply it as you do. ”
― Jane Austen, Emma

“Were I to fall in love, indeed, it would be a different thing; but I have never been in love ; it is not my way, or my nature; and I do not think I ever shall.”
― Jane Austen, Emma

“I can't sit still and see another man slaving and working. I want to get up and superintend, and walk round with my hands in my pockets, and tell him what to do. It is my energetic nature. I can't help it.”
― Jerome K. Jerome, Three Men in a Boat

“It is impossible to enjoy idling thoroughly unless one has plenty of work to do. There is no fun in doing nothing when you have nothing to do. Wasting time is merely an occupation then, and a most exhausting one. Idleness, like kisses, to be sweet must be stolen.”
― Jerome K. Jerome

“They [dogs] never talk about themselves but listen to you while you talk about yourself, and keep up an appearance of being interested in the conversation. ”
― Jerome K. Jerome

“It is always the best policy to tell the truth, unless of course you are an exceptionally good liar.”
― Jerome K. Jerome

“But who wants to be foretold the weather? It is bad enough when it comes, without our having the misery of knowing about it beforehand.”
― Jerome K. Jerome, Three Men in a Boat

“I don't know why it should be, I am sure; but the sight of another man asleep in bed when I am up, maddens me.”
― Jerome K. Jerome, Three Men in a Boat

“What readers ask nowadays in a book is that it should improve, instruct and elevate. This book wouldn't elevate a cow. I cannot conscientiously recommend it for any useful purposes whatever. All I can suggest is that when you get tired of reading "the best hundred books," you may take this for half an hour. It will be a change.”
― Jerome K. Jerome, Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow

“The short answer to that is 'no.' The long answer is 'fuck no.”
― Stephen Fry

“If I had a large amount of money I should certainly found a hospital for those whose grip upon the world is so tenuous that they can be severely offended by words and phrases and yet remain all unoffended by the injustice, violence and oppression that howls daily about our ears.”
― Stephen Fry, Paperweight

“Books are no more threatened by Kindle than stairs by elevators.”
― Stephen Fry

“How very kind of her, ' I said. 'I must remember to send her a card.'

I'd send her a card alright. It would be the Ace of Spades, and I'd mail it anonymously from somewhere other than Bishop's Lacey.”
― Alan Bradley, A Red Herring Without Mustard

“Life is a thing to be lived, not spent; to be faced, not ordered. Life is not a game of chess, the victory to the most knowing; it is a game of cards, one's hand by skill to be made the best of.”
― Jerome K. Jerome, Second Thoughts of an Idle Fellow

“Let us play the game of life as sportsmen, pocketing our winnings with a smile, leaving our losings with a shrug.”
― Jerome K. Jerome, On the Art of Making Up One's Mind

“Anyone who knew the word slattern was worth cultivating as a friend.”
― Alan Bradley, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie