Joel > Joel's Quotes

“Friendship ... is born at the moment when one man says to another "What! You too? I thought that no one but myself . . .”
― C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves

“Vengeance is an arrow that in falling oft pierces him who shot it”
― H. Rider Haggard, Cleopatra

“Pride is a good horse if thou ridest wisely”
― H. Rider Haggard, Eric Brighteyes

“Being democratic is not enough, a majority cannot turn what is wrong into right. In order to be considered truly free, countries must also have a deep love of liberty and an abiding respect for the rule of law.”
― Margaret Thatcher

“I think we have gone through a period when too many children and people have been given to understand 'I have a problem, it is the government's job to cope with it!' or 'I have a problem, I will go and get a grant to cope with it!'; 'I am homeless, the government must house me!' and so they are casting their problems on society and who is society?

"There is no such thing! There are individual men and women and there are families, and no government can do anything except through people and people look to themselves first.

"It is our duty to look after ourselves and then also to help look after our neighbour and life is a reciprocal business and people have got the entitlements too much in mind without the obligations.”
― Margaret Thatcher

“Some Socialists seem to believe that people should be numbers in a State computer. We believe they should be individuals. We are all unequal. No one, thank heavens, is like anyone else, however much the Socialists may pretend otherwise. We believe that everyone has the right to be unequal but to us every human being is equally important.”
― Margaret Thatcher

“And I will go on criticising Socialism, and opposing Socialism because it is bad for Britain (...) It’s the Labour Government that have brought us record peace-time taxation. They’ve got the usual Socialist disease – they’ve run out of other people’s money.”
― Margaret Thatcher

“An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered.”
― G.K. Chesterton

“There are books showing men how to succeed in everything; they are written by men who cannot even succeed in writing books.”
― G.K. Chesterton, All Things Considered

“She(Joan of Arc) put her dreams and her sentiment into her aims, where they ought to be; she put her practicality into her practice. In modern Imperial wars, the case is reversed. Our dreams, our aims are always, we insist, quite practical. It is our practice that is dreamy.”
― G.K. Chesterton, All Things Considered

“If there was a universal law regarding mankind, it was that they’d find a way to ferment anything, given time.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Firefight

“Elend: I kind of lost track of time…
Breeze: For two hours?
Elend: There were books involved.”
― Brandon Sanderson, The Well of Ascension

“Sometimes, son," my father said, prying my fingers free, "you have to help the heroes along.”
― Brandon Sanderson, Steelheart

“So many things are possible just as long as you don't know they're impossible.”
― Norton Juster, The Phantom Tollbooth

“Expect everything, I always say, and the unexpected never happens.”
― Norton Juster, The Phantom Tollbooth

“The only thing you can do easily is be wrong, and that's hardly worth the effort.”
― Norton Juster, The Phantom Tollbooth

“Whether or not you find your own way, you're bound to find some way. If you happen to find my way, please return it, as it was lost years ago. I imagine by now it's quite rusty.”
― Norton Juster, The Phantom Tollbooth

“Have you ever heard a blindfolded octopus unwrap a cellophane-covered bathtub?”
― Norton Juster, The Phantom Tollbooth

“And now," he continued, speaking to Milo, "where were you on the night of July 27?"

"What does that have to do with it?" asked Milo.

"It's my birthday, that's what," said the policeman as he entered "Forgot my birthday" in his little book. "Boys always forget other people's birthdays.”
― Norton Juster, The Phantom Tollbooth

“You will be the same person in five years as you are today except for the people you meet and the books you read.”
― Charlie Tremendous Jones

“There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them.”
― Joseph Brodsky

“Wicked people never have time for reading. It's one of the reasons for their wickedness.”
― Lemony Snicket

“If an optimist had his left arm chewed off by an alligator, he might say in a pleasant and hopeful voice, "Well this isn't too bad, I don't have a left arm anymore but at least nobody will ever ask me if I'm left-handed or right-handed," but most of us would say something more along the lines of, "Aaaaaa! My arm! My arm!”
― Lemony Snicket, Horseradish: Bitter Truths You Can't Avoid

“Shyness is a curious thing, because, like quicksand, it can strike people at any time, and also, like quicksand, it usually makes its victims look down.”
― Lemony Snicket, Horseradish: Bitter Truths You Can't Avoid

“We fight not for glory nor for wealth nor honours; but only and alone we fight for freedom, which no good man surrenders but with his life.”
― Bernard De Linton, Declaration of Arbroath: A Letter from the Nobility, Barons and Commons of Scotland, in the Year 1320

“But there are some things, child, that you should steal. That you must steal, if you have enough love and courage in your heart. You must snatch freedom from the hands of the tyrant. You must spirit away innocent lives before they are destroyed. You must hide secret and sacred places.”
― Lian Tanner, Museum of Thieves

“Don't try to push [fear] away,' he said. 'If you fight it, you make it stronger. You gotta great it politely, like an unwanted cousin. You can't make it leave you alone, but you can do what you have to do, in spite of it.”
― Lian Tanner, Museum of Thieves

“Strange, he thought, how seldom people tend to look up”
― John Flanagan, The Ruins of Gorlan

“How can you stay so calm?"
It helps if you're terrified.”
― John Flanagan, The Battle for Skandia

“The impossible could not have happened, therefore the impossible must be possible in spite of appearances.”
― Agatha Christie, Murder on the Orient Express