All Quotes

"How fragile was that elegant, complicated bridge of order and reason which the law had constructed down the centuries over the abyss of social and psychological chaos."

"What condemned a man [in a police investigation] was the inability to keep his mouth shut."

"Over the tea Enid said: "You know who controls this estate, don't you?" "Yes, the children." "The kids, the bloody kids. Complain to the police or the council and you get a brick through your window. Tell 'em off and like as not you get an earful of foul language and burning rags through the letter-box next day. And if they catch the little bastards and take them to youth court, what happens? Bloody nothing. They come home laughing. They're in gangs now by the time they're eight." Of course they are, thought Kate. How else can they survive?"

"I was glad to give up teaching, at least in London, glad to be rid of noise and violence and staff-room politics, and the constant fight to keep order."

"He had disciplined his mind not to speculate; speculation in advance of the facts was always futile and could be dangerous."

"She couldn't remember when her interest in him, in his mysteriousness, his silences, his power, had grown into fascination, but she knew the precise moment when fascination had sharpened into desire."

"You need to decide what you're interested in."

"If that was what she wanted to believe, why not let her?"

"She came to know a different London and she saw it through different eyes. The city was all things to all men. It reflected and deepened mood; it did not create it. Here the miserable were more miserable, the lonely more bereft, while the prosperous and happy saw reflected in its river and glittering life the confirmation of their deserved success. In her week of seeking, unsuccessfully, for a flat in which she could bear, even temporarily, to live, Philippa felt increasingly depressed and rejected."

"I don't see why escapist literature should not also be a work of art."

"The intention of any novelist must surely be to make that straight avenue to the human heart."

"Every novelist write what he or she needs to write, a subconscious compulsion to express and explain his unique view of reality."

"Marriage is both the most public and the most secret of institutions, its miseries as irritatingly insistent as a hacking cough, its private malaise less easily diagnosed. And nothing is so destructive as unhappiness to social life. No one wants to sit in embarrassed silence while his host and hostess demonstrate their mutual incompatibility and dislike."

"the lesbian community is under siege, we always try to present to the heterosexual community the idealized version, but I do not think that's a good way to do it, even though I can understand where it's coming from. ("Valerie Miner talked about the kinds of self-censorship she finds in her work when she starts thinking she should present only positive images of lesbians or working-class people.") Yes. In that poem and also in the poem "Night Voice" I do that. There's this whole controversy now over media images of lesbians and gays and bisexuals. It's brought out in movies like Basic Instinct and Silence of the Lambs where they are presented as killers. It comes up in the novels of P. D. James, where she has these criminals who are lesbians or gay men. And I hate that. But, at the same time, I want the dirty laundry to be out there, whether it's on the Mexican culture or the lesbian culture or the bisexual. And I'm not sure how you do that."

"Having sex is like playing bridge, If you don't have a good partner, you better have a good hand."

"Laugh and the world laughs with you. Cry and the world laughs at you."

"No one ever died from a broken heart. But a heart sliced from their chest while they looked on screaming? Not gonna lie. That's killed a couple people."

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"All men eat but fu man chu"

"This is my katana, this is my gun. One for killing, the other's for... OK, the other's also for killing."

"The good news: You're not paranoid. The bad news: Everyone is actually trying to kill you."

"I spent the first half of my career being accused of being gay when I hadn't had anything like a gay relationship. So I spent my years growing up being told what my sexuality was really— which was kind of confusing."

"I have to be honest here, I'm not really interested in selling records to people who are homophobic. I don't need the approval of people who don't approve of me."

"Are you gay? No? Then fuck off! This is my culture!"

"This time I think that my lover Understands me If we have faith in each other Then we can be Strong, baby I will be your father figure Put your tiny hand in mine I will be your preacher teacher Anything you have in mind I will be your father figure I have had enough of crime I will be the one who loves you … Til the end of time."

"I've had enough of danger And people on the streets I'm looking out for angels Just trying to find some peace Now I think it's time That you let me know So if you love me Say you love me But if you don't just let me go..."

"I guess somewhere along the way He must have let us all out to play Turned his back, and all God's children Crept out the back door"

"Did you cling to the things they sold you? Did you cover your eyes when they told you That he can't come back, 'cause he has no children To come back for"

"Seeing the water birds on the lake increase in number day by day, I thought to myself how nice it would be if it snowed before we got back to the Palace—the garden would look so beautiful; and then, two days later, while I was away on a short visit, lo and behold, it did snow. As I watched the rather drab scene at home, I felt both depressed and confused. For some years now I had existed from day to day in listless fashion, taking note of the flowers, the birds in song, the way the skies change from season to season, the moon, the frost and snow, doing little more than registering the passage of time. How would it all turn out? The thought of my continuing loneliness was unbearable, and yet I had managed to exchange sympathetic letters with those of like mind—some contacted via fairly tenuous connections—who would discuss my trifling tales and other matters with me; but I was merely amusing myself with fictions, finding solace for my idleness in foolish words. Aware of my own insignificance, I had at least managed for the time being to avoid anything that might have been considered shameful or unbecoming; yet here I was, tasting the bitterness of life to the very full."

"So all they see of me is a façade. There are times when I am forced to sit with them and on such occasions I simply ignore their petty criticisms, not because I am particularly shy but because I consider it pointless. As a result, they now look upon me as a dullard. "Well, we never expected this!" they all say. "No one liked her. They all said she was pretentious, awkward, difficult to approach, prickly, too fond of her tales, haughty, prone to versifying, disdainful, cantankerous and scornful; but when you meet her, she is strangely meek, a completely different person altogether!" How embarrassing! Do they really look upon me as such a dull thing, I wonder? But I am what I am. Her Majesty has also remarked more than once that she had thought I was not the kind of person with whom she could ever relax, but that I have now become closer to her than any of the others. I am so perverse and standoffish. If only I can avoid putting off those for whom I have a genuine regard."

"To be pleasant, gentle, calm and self-possessed: this is the basis of good taste and charm in a woman. No matter how amorous or passionate you may be, as long as you are straightforward and refrain from causing others embarrassment, no one will mind. But women who are too vain and act pretentiously, to the extent that they make others feel uncomfortable, will themselves become the object of attention; and once that happens, people will find fault with whatever they say or do: whether it be how they enter a room, how they sit down, how they stand up or how they take their leave. Those who end up contradicting themselves and those who disparage their companions are also carefully watched and listened to all the more. As long as you are free from such faults, people will surely refrain from listening to tittle-tattle and will want to show you sympathy, if only for the sake of politeness. I am of the opinion that when you intentionally cause hurt to another, or indeed if you do ill through mere thoughtless behavior, you fully deserve to be censured in public. Some people are so good-natured that they can still care for those who despise them, but I myself find it very difficult. Did the Buddha himself in all his compassion ever preach that one should simply ignore those who slander the Three Treasures? How in this sullied world of ours can those who are hard done by be expected to reciprocate in kind?"

"When my brother...was a young boy learning the Chinese classics, I was in the habit of listening with him and I became unusually proficient at understanding those passages that he found too difficult to grasp and memorize. Father, a most learned man, was always regretting the fact: "Just my luck!" he would say. "What a pity she was not born a man!" But then I gradually realized that people were saying "It's bad enough when a man flaunts his Chinese learning; she will come to no good," and since then I have avoided writing the simplest [Chinese] character. My handwriting is appalling."

"It is useless to talk with those who do not understand one and troublesome to talk with those who criticize from a feeling of superiority. Especially one-sided persons are troublesome. Few are accomplished in many arts and most cling narrowly to their own opinion."

"Sei Shōnagon is a smug and horrible person. She acts so smart and is always writing in true [Chinese] characters, but if you look closely, you can find lots of mistakes. People who try that hard to be different from everyone else always end up falling behind, with trouble waiting in their future; and people who are that affected act all mono no aware and attend all the interesting events even when they're lonely and bored, so that in the end the affectation stops being an act. How exactly are things going to end well for a person like that?"

"Unforgettably horrible is the naked body. It really does not have the slightest charm."

"Mono no aware."

"I have finally realized how rarely you will find a flawless woman, one who is simply perfect. No doubt there are many who seem quite promising, write a flowing hand, give you back a perfectly acceptable poem, and all in all do credit enough to the rank they have to uphold, but you know, if you insist on any particular quality, you seldom find one who will do. Each one is all too pleased with her own accomplishments, runs others down, and so on. While a girl is under the eye of her adoring parents and living a sheltered life bright with future promise, it seems men have only to hear of some little talent of hers to be attracted. As long as she is pretty and innocent, and young enough to have nothing else on her mind, she may well put her heart into learning a pastime that she has seen others enjoy, and in fact she may become quite good at it. And when those who know her disguise her weaknesses and advertise whatever passable qualities she may have so as to present them in the best light, how could anyone think ill of her, having no reason to suspect her of being other than she seems? But when you look further to see whether it is all true, I am sure you can only end up disappointed."

"No art or learning is to be pursued halfheartedly," His Highness replied, "...and any art worth learning will certainly reward more or less generously the effort made to study it."

"Real things in the darkness seem no realer than dreams."

"Ceaseless as the interminable voices of the bell-cricket, all night till dawn my tears flow."

"It is in general the unexplored that attracts us."

"Though the snow-drifts of Yoshino were heaped across his path, doubt not that whither his heart is set, his footsteps shall tread out their way."

"Does it not move you strangely, the love-bird's cry, tonight when, like the drifting snow, memory piles up on memory?"

"[The art of the novel] does not simply consist in the author's telling a story about the adventures of some other person. On the contrary, it happens because the storyteller's own experience of men and things, whether for good or ill—not only what he has passed through himself, but even events which he has only witnessed or been told of—has moved him to an emotion so passionate that he can no longer keep it shut up in his heart."

"Few great men could pass personnel."

"Anything whatsoever may become the subject of a novel, provided only that it happens in this mundane life and not in some fairyland beyond our human ken."

"I have never thought there was much to be said in favor of dragging on long after all one's friends were dead."

"One ought not to be unkind to a woman merely on account of her plainness, any more than one had a right to take liberties with her merely because she was handsome."

"You that in far-off countries of the sky can dwell secure, look back upon me here; for I am weary of this frail world's decay."

"Think not that I have come in quest of common flowers; but rather to bemoan the loss of one whose scent has vanished from the air."