Novelists From England

"“It's natural for a man to defend what’s dear to him: his own life, his home, his family. But in order to make him fight on behalf of his rulers, the rich and powerful who are too cunning to fight their own battles—in short to defend not himself but people whom he’s never met and moreover would not care to be in the same room with him—you have to condition him into loving violence not for the benefits it bestows on him but for its own sake. Result: the society has to defend itself from its defenders, because what’s admirable in wartime is termed psychopathic in peace. It’s easier to wreck a man than to repair him. Ask any psychotherapist. And take a look at the crime figures among veterans.”"

"The hungry sheep look up, and are not fed, But swoln with wind, and the rank mist they draw, Rot inwardly, and foul contagion spread."

"He had once, for example, put down a spokesman for the pesticide industry with a remark that people still quoted at parties: “And I presume on the eighth day God called you and said, ‘I changed my mind about insects!’ “"

"“Yes? . . . Oh, I’m very sorry to hear that. Please convey him our best wishes for a speedy recovery. But the president did ask me to pass this message informally as soon as possible; I may say he feels very strongly about the matter. Of course, not knowing if the rumor is well founded, we didn’t want to handle it on an official level . . . Yes, I would be obliged if you could make sure the ambassador is told at the earliest opportunity. Tell him, please, that any attempt to nominate Austin Train for the Nobel Peace Prize would be regarded as a grave and—I quote the president’s actual word—calculated affront to the United States.”"

"When the politicians claim that the public isn’t interested any longer in environmental conservation, they’re half right. People are actually afraid to be interested, because they suspect—I think rightly—that we’ll find if we dig deep enough that we’ve gone so far beyond the limits of what the planet will tolerate that only a major catastrophe which cuts back both our population and our ability to interfere with the natural biocycle would offer a chance of survival."

"Not that a car would have been much faster anyway, what with the police posts at state lines, the searches, the restricted zones not merely in cities—one expected that during August—but right out in the country, in agricultural areas. Because of hijackers after food trucks, of course."

"At the big Georgia paper mill the saboteur was obviously a chemist. Some kind of catalyst was substituted for a drum of regular sizing solution and vast billowing waves of corrosive fumes ruined the plant. Anonymous calls to a local TV station claimed it had been done to preserve trees. The same day, in northern California, signs were posted on a stand of redwoods that the governor had authorized for lumbering: about two hundred of the last six hundred in the state. The signs said: FOR EVERY TREE YOU KILL ONE OF YOU WILL DIE TOO. The promise was carried out with Schmiesser machine-pistols. The actual score was eighteen people for seventeen trees. Close enough."

"He was wondering what society would have been like if we’d socialised cannabis instead of dangerous drugs like alcohol and religion."

"I marvel’d how Man, by his GOD-sent wit, Thus tam’d the salamander Element And loos’d the Metal in the mountain pent To make us Saws, and Shears, and useful Plows, Swords for our hands, and Helmets for our brows, The surgeon’s Scalpel, vehicle of Health, And all our humble Tools for gaining wealth . . . ”De Arte Munificente,” Seventeenth century"

"What hurt him most of all, made him feel like a sick child aware of terrible wrongness and yet incapable of explaining it to anyone who might help, was that in spite of the evidence around them, in spite of what their eyes and ears reported—and sometimes their flesh, from bruises, stab wounds, racking coughs, weeping sores—these people believed their way of life was the best in the world, and were prepared to export it at the point of a gun."

"Fifteen minutes out of Mexico City for Tokyo a passenger aboard a 747 screamed that he was being eaten by red-hot ants, and managed to open the emergency door at 23,000 feet. He had been to the washroom and drunk from the faucet there before takeoff. It was, after all, labeled DRINKING WATER."

"This year we take our vacation somewhere else. Where is there where Americans aren’t likely to be stoned by a howling mob? Spain, Greece? No, got to be out of range of the stench from the Med. Looks like we might as well stay home."

"The wind was bad today. Hugh’s filtermask was used up, all clogged, and he didn’t have the seventy-five cents for another from a roadside dispenser, and anyway the quality of those things was lousy, didn’t even last the hour claimed for them. Lousy . . . Absently he scratched his crotch. He’d more or less got used to lice by now, of course; there just didn’t seem to be any way of avoiding them. For every evil under the sun there is a remedy or there’s none. If there is one try and find it, if there isn’t never mind it. There must be a hell of a lot of evils in the world nowadays that there aren’t any remedies for. Anyway: what sun? He hadn’t seen the sun in fucking weeks."

". . . that the Army is using defoliants in Honduras to create fire-free zones. This charge has been strongly denied by the Pentagon. Asked to comment just prior to leaving for Hawaii, where he will convalesce for the next two or three weeks, Prexy said, quote, Well, if you can’t see them you can’t shoot them. End quote. Support has been growing for a bill which Senator Richard Howell will introduce at the earliest opportunity, forbidding the issue of a passport to any male between sixteen and sixty not in possession of a valid discharge certificate or medical exemption. Welcoming the proposal, a Pentagon spokesman today admitted that of the last class called for the draft more than one in three failed to report. Your steaks are going to cost you more. This warning was today issued by the Department of Agriculture. The price of animal fodder has quote taken off like a rocket unquote, following the mysterious . . ."

"It's not because my mind is made up that I don't want you to confuse me with any more facts. It's because my mind isn't made up. I already have more facts than I can cope with."

"First we had the legs race. Then we had the arms race. Now we're going to have the brain race. And, if we're lucky, the final stage will be the human race."

"Very well, the starting point would be that claim of Professor Quarrey’s, which had been in the news at the beginning of the year, that the country’s greatest export was noxious gas. And who would like to stir up the fuss again? Obviously, the Canadians, cramped into a narrow band to the north of their more powerful neighbors, growing daily angrier about the dirt that drifted to them on the wind, spoiling crops, causing chest diseases and soiling laundry hung out to dry. So she’d called the magazine Hemisphere in Toronto, and the editor had immediately offered ten thousand dollars for three articles. Very conscious that all calls out of the country were apt to be monitored, she’d put the proposition to him in highly general terms: the risk of the Baltic going the same way as the Mediterranean, the danger of further dust-bowl like the Mekong Desert, the effects of bringing about climactic change. That was back in the news—the Russians had revised their plan to reverse the Yenisei and Ob. Moreover, there was the Danube problem, worse than the Rhine had ever been, and Welsh nationalists were sabotaging pipelines meant to carry “their” water into England, and the border war in West Pakistan had been dragging on so long most people seemed to have forgotten that it concerned a river. And so on. Almost as soon as she started digging, though, she thought she might never be able to stop. It was out of the question to cover the entire planet. Her pledged total of twelve thousand words would be exhausted by North American material alone."

"Of course, lately he has been very upset about the state of the world. But isn’t everybody who bothers to pay attention?"

"Away he flew, for why? his wings were dry; But left the arrow sticking in my breast, That sore I grieved I welcomed such a guest."

"Set a beggar on horseback, and they say he will never light."

"His shaft procur'd a sharp, yet sugar'd smart."

"Love in my bosom like a bee Doth suck his sweet: Now with his wings he plays with me, Now with his feet. Within mine eyes he makes his nest, His bed amidst my tender breast; My kisses are his daily feast, And yet he robs me of my rest: Ah! wanton, will ye?"

"Cupid abroad was lated in the night, His wings were wet with ranging in the rain."

"To dry his plumes: I heard the boy complain; I op'd the door, and granted his desire, I rose myself, and made the wag a fire."

"I had as lief have their room as their company."

"So soon kills not the basilisk with sight, The viper's tooth is not so venomous, The adder's tongue not half so dangerous, As they that bear the shadow of delight, Who chain blind youths in trammels of their hair, Till waste brings woe, and sorrow hastes despair."

"Obscurèd life sets down a type of bliss: A mind content both crown and kingdom is."

"Deceiving world, that with alluring toys Hast made my life the subject of thy scorn, And scornest now to lend thy fading joys, T'outlength my life, whom friends have left forlorn; How well are they that die ere they be born, And never see thy sleights, which few men shun Till unawares they helpless are undone!"

"He that will not when he may, When he desires shall surely purchase nay."

"There is an upstart crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his tiger's heart wrapped in a player's hide supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blank verse as the best of you: and being an absolute Johannes Factotum, is in his own conceit the only Shake-scene in a country."

"Sweet are the thoughts that savour of content; The quiet mind is richer than a crown; Sweet are the nights in careless slumber spent; The poor estate scorns fortune's angry frown: Such sweet content, such minds, such sleep, such bliss, Beggars enjoy, when princes oft do miss."

"Tread on a worm and it will turn."

"Hangs in th' uncertain balance of proud time."

"The more the fox is curst, the better he fares."

"A penny for your thought!"

"Time is...Time was...Time is past."

"Her maiden mount, the dwelling-house of Pleasure; Not like, for why no like surpasseth wonder: O, blest is he may bring such beauties under, Or search by suit the secrets of that treasure!"

"When gods had fram'd the sweet of women's face, And lock'd men's looks within their golden hair, That Phœbus blush'd to see their matchless grace, And heavenly gods on earth did make repair; To 'quip fair Venus' overweening pride, Love's happy thoughts to jealousy were tied. Then grew a wrinkle on fair Venus' brow; The amber sweet of love is turn'd to gall; Gloomy was heaven; bright Phœbus did avow He could be coy, and would not love at all, Swearing, no greater mischief could be wrought Than love united to a jealous thought."

"The swain did woo; she was nice, Following fashion, nay'd him twice."

"Ah! what is love? It is a pretty thing, As sweet unto a shepherd as a king; And sweeter too, For kings have cares that wait upon a crown, And cares can make the sweetest love to frown; Ah then, ah then, If country loves such sweet desires do gain, What lady would not love a shepherd swain?"

"Her cheeks like ripen'd lilies steep'd in wine, Or fair pomegranate-kernels wash'd in milk, Or snow-white threads in nets of crimson silk, Or gorgeous clouds upon the sun's decline."

"Her lips are roses over-wash'd with dew, Or like the purple of Narcissus' flower; No frost their fair, no wind doth waste their power, But by her breath her beauties do renew."

"Her locks are plighted like the fleece of wool That Jason with his Grecian mates achiev'd; As pure as gold, yet not from gold deriv'd; As full of sweets as sweet of sweets is full."

"Her paps are like fair apples in the prime, As round as orient pearls, as soft as down; They never vail their fair through winter's frown, But from their sweets Love sucks his summertime."

"How oft have I descending Titan seen His burning locks couch in the sea-queen's lap, And beauteous Thetis his red body wrap In watery robes, as he her lord had been!"

"For kings have often fears when they do sup, Where shepherds dread no poison in their cup."

"Not Jove or Nature, should they both agree To make a woman of the firmament, Of his mix'd purity could not invent A sky-born form so beautiful as she."

"Her body Beauty's best-esteemèd bower, Delicious, comely, dainty, without stain."

"Weep not, my wanton, smile upon my knee; When thou art old there’s grief enough for thee. Mother's wag, pretty boy. Father's sorrow, father's joy; When thy father first did see Such a boy by him and me, He was glad, I was woe; Fortune changed made him so, When he left his pretty boy, Last his sorrow, first his joy."

"The wanton smil'd, father wept, Mother cried, baby lept; More he crow'd, more we cried, Nature could not sorrow hide: He must go, he must kiss Child and mother, baby bless, For he left his pretty boy, Father's sorrow, father's joy."