Margaret > Margaret's Quotes

“I have never been able to resist a book about books.”
― Anne Fadiman, Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader

“My daughter is seven, and some of the other second-grade parents complain that their children don't read for pleasure. When I visit their homes, the children's rooms are crammed with expensive books, but the parent's rooms are empty. Those children do not see their parents reading, as I did every day of my childhood. By contrast, when I walk into an apartment with books on the shelves, books on the bedside tables, books on the floor, and books on the toilet tank, then I know what I would see if I opened the door that says 'PRIVATE--GROWNUPS KEEP OUT': a child sprawled on the bed, reading.”
― Anne Fadiman, Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader

“Geoffrey: Why, you chivalric fool—as if the way one fell down mattered.

Richard: When the fall is all there is, it matters.”
― James Goldman, The Lion in Winter

“He came down from the North to Paris with a mind like Aristotle's and a form like mortal sin. We shattered the Commandments on the spot.”
― James Goldman, The Lion in Winter

“It was growing late, and though one might stand on the brink of a deep chasm of disaster, one was still obliged to dress for dinner.”
― Georgette Heyer, April Lady

“There is nothing worse than an enemy with imagination.”
― Sharon Kay Penman

“Do you find it easy to get drunk on words?"

"So easy that, to tell you the truth, I am seldom perfectly sober.”
― Dorothy L. Sayers, Gaudy Night

“I gather that he nearly knocked you down, damaged your property, and generally made a nuisance of himself, and that you instantly concluded he must be some relation to me.”
― Dorothy L. Sayers, Gaudy Night

“A human being must have occupation if he or she is not to become a nuisance to the world. ”
― Dorothy L. Sayers

“I imagine you come across a number of people who are disconcerted by the difference between what you do feel and what they fancy you ought to feel. It is fatal to pay the smallest attention to them.”
― Dorothy L. Sayers, Gaudy Night

“In fact, there is perhaps only one human being in a thousand who is passionately interested in his job for the job's sake. The difference is that if that one person in a thousand is a man, we say, simply, that he is passionately keen on his job; if she is a woman, we say she is a freak.”
― Dorothy L. Sayers, Are Women Human? Penetrating, Sensible and Witty Essays on the Role of Women in Society

“Still, it doesn't do to murder people, no matter how offensive they may be.”
― Dorothy L. Sayers, The Five Red Herrings

“What we ask is to be human individuals, however peculiar and unexpected. It is no good saying: "You are a little girl and therefore you ought to like dolls"; if the answer is, "But I don't," there is no more to be said.”
― Dorothy L. Sayers, Are Women Human? Penetrating, Sensible and Witty Essays on the Role of Women in Society

“If anybody ever marries you, it will be for the pleasure of hearing you talk piffle.”
― Dorothy L. Sayers, Strong Poison

“Heaven deliver us, what's a poet? Something that can't go to bed without making a song about it.”
― Dorothy L. Sayers, Busman's Honeymoon

“When you travel, remember that a foreign country is not designed to make you comfortable. It is designed to make its own people comfortable.”
― Clifton Fadiman

“When you re-read a classic you do not see in the book more than you did before. You see more in you than there was before.”
― Clifton Fadiman, Any Number Can Play

“I've never thought of you like that,' said Christopher. 'How could I? If you were any other woman, I could tell you I loved you, easily enough, but not you-- because you've always seemed to me like a part of myself, and it would be like saying I loved my own eyes or my own mind. But have you ever thought of what it would be to have to live without your mind or your eyes, Kate? To be mad? Or blind?”
― Elizabeth Marie Pope, The Perilous Gard

“In the land of Ingary where such things as seven-league boots and cloaks of invisibility really exist, it is quite a misfortune to be born the eldest of the three. Everyone knows you are the one who will fail first, and worst, if the three of you set out to seek your fortunes.”
― Diana Wynne Jones, Howl’s Moving Castle

“He could tell her he loved her. He ached to shout it out loud for the gods and everyone to hear. Little good it would do. Better to trust in the moon's promises than in the word of the Thief of Eddis. He was famous in three countries for his lies.”
― Megan Whalen Turner, The Queen of Attolia

“If I am the pawn of the gods, it is because they know me so well, not because they make my mind up for me.”
― Megan Whalen Turner, The Queen of Attolia

“And the Earth had no name. The gods know themselves and have no need of names. It is man who names all things, even gods.”
― Megan Whalen Turner, The Thief

“Sounis had been thinking of Ambiades. "He would have been a better man under different circumstances."
Gen looked at him. "True enough," he said. "But does a good man let his circumstances determine his character?”
― Megan Whalen Turner, A Conspiracy of Kings

“The patient accretion of knowledge, the focusing of all one's energies on some problem in history or science, the dogged pursuit of excellence of whatever kind -- these are right and proper ideals for life.”
― Michael Dirda

“I like living. I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly, acutely miserable, racked with sorrow; but through it all I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing.”
― Agatha Christie

“Everything must be taken into account. If the fact will not fit the theory---let the theory go.”
― Agatha Christie, The Mysterious Affair at Styles

“He was very much a man of moods, possibly owing to what is styled the artistic temperament. I have never seen, myself, why the possession of artistic ability should be supposed to excuse a man from a decent exercise of self-control.”
― Agatha Christie

“A man when he is making up to anybody can be cordial and gallant and full of little attentions and altogether charming. But when a man is really in love he can't help looking like a sheep.”
― Agatha Christie, The Mystery of the Blue Train

“To count - really and truly to count - a woman must have goodness or brains.”
― Agatha Christie, Evil Under the Sun

“The trouble with real life is that you don't know whether you're the hero or just some nice chap who gets bumped off in chapter five to show what a rotter the villain is without anyone minding too much.”
― Sarah Caudwell, The Sirens Sang of Murder