Short Story Writers From England

"You’re not supposed to be always on the doorstep clamouring for instructions. Use your discretion and your initiative, they say, that’s why you’re the grade you are. And then, when it all goes wrong, it’s all your fault. What on Earth possessed you to do all that without checking back first? How could you have been so stupid?"

"It’s a basic tenet of military science. No stronghold can be taken if a mule laden with gold bars can leave it unobserved."

"I was deeply troubled. Not in itself unusual; but I had a distinct feeling that I’d missed something. That’s not a normal or comfortable feeling for me. I don’t miss things. Like I said, I live and have my being in the detail. Also, if I had that feeling, it was because I was meant to. It was as though he’d put up a big painted sign saying UP TO SOMETHING and was sitting directly beneath it."

"There is no word for artist in the Mysian language; instead there’s a long-winded periphrasis that translates as man-who-deceives-others-into-giving-food-by-spoiling-bits-of-wood."

"The more he asserted it, the less they believed him, which is human nature for you."

"Query: if I’d had less brains and more money, would I have been happier? Answer: if a circle had four straight sides, wouldn’t it be a square?"

"That’s bureaucracy for you. Never follow a straight line when a spiral will get you there eventually."

"“The doctrine of sides,” he went on, “states that there is no right or wrong, only different perspectives. From where I stand, such and such a thing looks like a tree; from where you stand, it looks like a rock. For tree and rock, read sin and virtue.”"

"Our lot may be all-seeing and all-knowing, but that’s a long way removed from all-understanding."

"“I write stuff,” he said. I don’t necessarily believe it myself.”"

"Nothing helps a lie succeed more than a generous helping of the truth."

"“But the unforeseen consequences—” “What consequences?” “I don’t know, I can’t foresee them.”"

"Jeez, for a superior intelligence, you must be just plain dumb,' he said."

"Here we go, surfing the Net again, something done by humans and very gullible fish."

"Talking to yourself is a sign of madness. Talking to yourself, dead, is class.'"

"If you hadn't noticed, I'm the pub loony around here. This is my turf, and if there's any gibbering to be done, I'm the one who does it. If you want to gibber, find another bar."

"Vote!' [Saint] George rolled his eyes. 'This is an assassination, not a debating society.' - c. 7"

"Like, there's these new fundamentalist religious fanatics, some name like Meek Militant Action. Their aim's to inherit the Earth, provided nobody objects.' - c. 12"

"You want the short version. Okay, then: shit happens. Does that answer all your question? Thought not. Now, if you shut your face and let me tell this my way, we might actually get somewhere. Thank you."

"Good guys is just a fancy way of saying Us. Bad guys is only ever Them.' -"

"'Luck, like a Russian car, generally only works if you push it.'"

"Besides, [Saint] George pointed out, dragons burn towns and demand princesses as ransom. The dragons, referring to the Siege of Jerusalem, the Sack of Constantinople and a thousand years of dynastic marriages, said, Look who's talking."

"'Tact comes as naturally to full-bore handguns as, say, ice-skating to African elephants, but there comes a time when an exceptional individual is prepared to stand up and break the mould.'"

"[...] the dragon got three cartsful of angry letters from the Pope (which he dismissed as a load of bulls) [...]"

"Here and there a doorway or low arch concealed the occasional mugger, rapist or lawyer."

"'...and we have already seen how insurance is like a pyramid - (Huge, incomprehensible, hideously expensive, completely unnecessary and specifically designed only to be of benefit to you once you're dead?)'"

"You poor suckers [mammals]: you've got all this horrible stuff to get through somehow so obviously there's got to be an incentive, or at least some kind of fix for you to get addicted to. That's love: possibly the sneakiest trick ever played on any variety of life form by a notoriously conniving Universe. You do all these dismal, soul-destroying things because you get attached to each other."

"'He didn't smile - he was from Yorkshire, after all - but in some inner chamber of his heart he was satisfied.'"

"That's it?' Boamund said. 'Basically, yes,' the hermit replied. 'I've left out Helmut von Moltke and the Peace of Nikolsburg, and maybe I skated over the Benelux customs union a bit, but I think you've got the essentials there. Anything you're not sure about, you can look up in the book.' - c. 1"

"Between the town of Giles, to the north of the Tomkinson Range, and Forrest in the Nullarbor Plain, lies the Great Victorian Desert. It is hot, arid, desolate and merciless; and whatever the Creator had in mind when He made it that way, it most certainly wasn't human beings. It's a really awful place to be if you've got toothache."

"Boamund scratches his head. Imagine a knight by Alma-Tadema who's somehow managed to fall off the picture and is wondering how to get back in without breaking the glass."

"Ronnie Bosch sat in his studio, stared long and hard at his drawing board, and groaned."

"Jason squared his shoulders, drew the Sword of - I couldn't give a toss what it's supposed to be called, he said to himself, I shall call it Freckles - and took one step forward."

"'How many spectral warriors does it take to change a light-bulb? One, and a stepladder. At a pinch, of course, he could stand on a chair.'"

"The knight raises both eyebrows, like someone by Burne-Jones who's just trodden on something sharp. 'I am Prince Boamund, eldest son of King -' 'Boamund?' 'That's right,' says the knight, 'Boamund, eldest son of -' 'How do you spell that?' Boamund looks worried. Where he comes from you can take advanced falconry, or you can take spelling; not both. Guess which one he opted for. - c. 1"

"It was, they told him, all part of a concept which was definitely going to be The Future as far as Hell Holdings was concerned. For reasons he couldn't quite grasp, but which he couldn't help but feel mildly flattering, they were going to call it EuroBosch."

"What was going to happen now? In the end, every community and grouping of human beings (except, of course, the Rolling Stones) drifts apart and goes its separate ways."

"“Where shall we go first?” “Rekjavík.” “Why Rekjavík.” “Because we have all the time in the world,” Jane answered, “and I want to save the good bits till later.”"

"In the beginning was the Word. Nobody knows what it actually was, although it would be nice to think that it was 'Sorry."

"Treasure maps; Czarist bonds; a case of stuffed dodos; Scarlett O'Hara's birth certificate; two flattened and deformed silver bullet heads in an old matchbox; Baedeker's guide to Atlantis (seventeenth edition, 1902); the autograph score of Schubert's Unfinished Symphony, with Das Ende written neatly at the foot of the last page; three boxes of moon rocks; a dumpy, heavy statuette of a bird covered in dull black paint, which reminded him of something but he couldn't remember what; a Norwich Union life policy in the name of Vlad Dracul; a cigar box full of oddly shaped teeth, with CAUTION: DO NOT DROP painted on the lid in hysterical capitals; five or six doll's-house-sized books with titles like Lilliput On $2 A Day; a small slab of green crystal that glowed when he opened the envelope; a thick bundle of love letters bound in blue ribbon, all signed Margaret Roberts; a left-luggage token from North Central railway terminus, Ruritania; Bartholomew's Road Atlas of Oz (one page, with a yellow line smack down the middle); a brown paper bag of solid gold jelly babies; several contracts for the sale and purchase of souls; a fat brown envelope inscribed To Be Opened On My Death: E. A. Presley, unopened; Oxford and Cambridge Board O-level papers in Elvish language and literature, 1969-85; a very old drum in a worm-eaten sea-chest marked F. Drake, Plymouth, in with a load of minute-books and annual accounts of the Winchester Round Table; half a dozen incredibly ugly portraits of major Hollywood film stars; Unicorn-Calling, For Pleasure & Profit by J. R. Hartley; a huge collection of betting slips, on races to be held in the year 2019; all water, as far as Paul was concerned, off a duck's {back]""

"'Genies rarely have nightmares, for the same reason that elephants don't usually worry about being trampled underfoot. With the possible exception of bottles, there's nothing in the cosmos large enough or malicious enough to frighten them, or stupid enough to try.'"

"The best definition of an immortal is someone who hasn't died yet."

"I didn't find out she was actually the Queen of the Fey until some time later. Bit of a shock, but I think we could've made a go of it, if she hadn't been so dead set on wiping out the human race."

"Thank you for calling the Powers of Darkness. Your call may be recorded for security and training purposes. For general moral and ethical enquiries, press 1 on your keypad. To make a reservation, press 2. For details of our special discount packages for lawyers, politicians, and Microsoft executives, press 3."

"“So you've never had any urge to rule the world, or anything like that?” “What, me?” Vanderdecker said. “No, I can't say I have. It would be nice to change some things, naturally.” Jane leaned forward and looked serious. “Such as?” Vanderdecker considered. “I don't know,” he said, “now you come to mention it. I can't actually think of anything that even remotely matters. You get such a wonderful sense of perspective at my age.”"

"An over-excited accountant, like the University of Hull, is a contradiction in terms."

"Love? Love was a concept with which he was no longer comfortable. At his age, it did not do to take anything too seriously, and the depressing thing about love was the seriousness which had to go with it, just as these days you couldn't seem to get jumbo sausage and chips in a pub without a salad being thrown in as well."

"Jane was a child of the media age, and there lurked in the back of her mind the instinctive belief that if a thing wasn't on the news, it couldn't really have happened after all."

"Well, it's a bit late now, isn't it? Besides, I never could be doing with lawyers. Did you ever meet a lawyer whose life you would willingly have saved in the event of fire? Not me."

"I see what you mean about making a will, actually, although I still maintain that forty quid spent on deciding what's going to happen after you're dead is a waste of good beer money."