"We have been friends together In sunshine and in shade. Since first beneath the chestnut-tree In fancy we played But coldness dwells within thine heart A cloud is on thy brow. We have been friends together,— Shall a light word part us now?"

"It [The Secret Battle] is one of the most moving books I have ever read."

"Mr. Herbert's is one of the most interesting and moving English war books."

"I am listening for the voices Which I heard in days of old."

"This story of a valiant heart tested to destruction took rank when it was first published a few months after the Armistice, as one of the most moving of the novels produced by the war. It was at that time a little swept aside by the revulsion of the public mind from anything to do with the awful period just ended. But on rereading it nine years later it seems to hold its place, and indeed a permanent place, in war literature. It was one of those cries of pain wrung from the fighting troops by the prolonged and measureless torment through which they passed; and like the poems of Siegfried Sassoon should be read in each generation, so that men and women may rest under no illusion about what war means."

"The critical period in matrimony is breakfast-time."

"The Englishman never enjoys himself except for a noble purpose. He does not play cricket because it is a good game, but because it creates good citizens. He does not love motor-races for their own sake, but for the advantages they bring to the engineering firms of his country. And it is common knowledge that the devoted persons who conduct and regularly attend horse-races do not do so because they like it, but for the benefit of the breed of the English horse."

"Was the cow crossed?" "No, your worship, it was an open cow."

"A man who has made up his mind on a given subject twenty-five years ago and continues to hold his political opinions after he has been proved to be wrong is a man of principle; while he who from time to time adapts his opinions to the changing circumstances of life is an opportunist."

"It cannot be too clearly understood that this is not a free country, and it will be an evil day for the legal profession when it is."

"People must not do things for fun. We are not here for fun. There is no reference to fun in any Act of Parliament."

"Justice should be cheap but judges expensive."

"A highbrow is the kind of person who looks at a sausage and thinks of Picasso."

"There's alcohol in plant and tree. It must be Nature's plan That there should be in fair degree Some alcohol in Man."

"The portions of a woman which appeal to man's depravity Are constructed with considerable care."

"Citizens who take it upon themselves to do unusual actions which attract the attention of the police should be careful to bring these actions into one of the recognized categories of crimes and offences, for it is intolerable that the police should be put to the pains of inventing reasons for finding them undesirable."

"The race is run - the winner wears the laurels, But you and I not empty go away; For we have seen the least unkind of quarrels; The young men glowing in the friendly way. Let us be glad - but not because of winning, Let us go home, to family today. God make our Games a glorious beginning, And hand in hand, together guide us on our way."

"The whole Constitution has been erected upon the assumption that the King not only is capable of doing wrong but is more likely to do wrong than other men if he is given the chance."

"Nobody's wrong but England – and England's always wrong, Too late – or else too early – too soft – or else too strong. And when for once the wide world begins to praise her name Her own sons crowd and hurry to shout her back to shame."

"It is like the thirteenth stroke of a crazy clock, which not only is itself discredited but casts a shade of doubt over all previous assertions."

"Don't let's go to the dogs tonight, For mother will be there."

"As my poor father used to say In 1863, Once people start on all this Art Goodbye, moralitee! And what my father used to say Is good enough for me."

"Let's stop somebody from doing something! Everybody does too much."

"For I must write to The Times tonight, and save the world from sin."

"The Farmer will never be happy again; He carries his heart in his boots; For either the rain is destroying his grain Or the drought is destroying his roots."

"The laws were very comical; to bet was voted lax, But your betting was the only thing that nobody could tax."

"Bus driver, bus driver, the sirens have gone, The bombs may come down, but the buses go on; Bus driver, I know you won't think me a snobIf I whisper: "Bus driver, I don't want your job"."

"How proud upon your quarterdeck you stand, Conductor, Captain of the mighty bus! Like some Columbus you survey the Strand,A calm newcomer in a sea of fuss."

"The body is the outermost layer of the mind."

"Courage is the highest quality for a soldier, but technology is a fine substitute."

"I have always preferred maps to books. They don't answer you back."

"The most malicious god is the god of the counted chicken."

"Lunatics are writers whose works write them."

"Perhaps the best answer is that the writer that I am has been shaped by the stammering kid that I was, and that although my stammer didn’t make me write, it did, in part, inform and influence the writer I became. It’s true that stammerers can become more adept at sentence construction. Synonyms aren’t always neatly interchangeable. Sometimes choosing word B over word A requires you to construct a different sentence to house it—and quickly, too, before your listener smells the stammering rat."

"As long as you can Houdini your way out of the Sisyphean constraints then originality happens."

"Whoever dies with the most stuff wins."

"Right now I’m working on a book set in the thirty years on either side of 2010, but I shouldn’t give too many details or the next thing you know it’s on Wikipedia and if I change my mind and decide to recast King Lear in a pond of frogs and toads I’ll just give a hardworking Wikipedian an extra headache."

"Ghostwritten’s secret agenda is to offer up eight different answers to the question, "Why do things happen?" so it has the right to monkey about with time and history. number9dreams’s secret agenda is to offer eight different answers to the question, "In what space does the mind operate?""

"What do I miss? Second-hand bookshops where I can find things I had no idea I wanted. AbeBooks helps, but it doesn't have that smell."

"What is this thing, "imagination?" A muscle that can be "forced" or "stretched"? Or something immune to the ethos of ganbaru [grit it out, or strive for one's best]? Like the relativist's view of light, it is both wave and particle, depending on what you want it to be. The verb "to imagine" is both active and passive, as in "Steve imagined his future," and "Such a future was never imagined." So, I work on my novel by imagining the world of 18th-century Nagasaki and its people and their fears and desires, as an act of will, and a lot of will is involved, believe me. However, I could ganbaru until I'm blue in the face. If my imagination doesn't work "passively" or even "intransitively," at its own behest rather than mine, and come up with cliche-demolishing twists of phrase and turns of plot and happy accidents and unexpected reactions from characters, then the book will be sterile. Well-written with luck, and even intelligent, but sterile. (...) Imagination is what makes art fertile."

"Then — in that day — we shall not meet Wrong with new wrong, but right with right; Our faith shall make your faith complete When our battalions re-unite. Forward! — what use in idle words? — Forward, O warriors of the soul! There will be breaking up of swords When that new morning makes us whole."

"Memory, out of the mist, in a long slow ripple Breaks, blindly, against the shore."

"We, that like foemen meet the past Because we bring the future, know We only fight to achieve at last A great re-union with our foe; Re-union in the truths that stand When all our wars are rolled away; Re-union of the heart and hand And of the prayers wherewith we pray; Re-union in the common needs, The common strivings of mankind; Re-union of our warring creeds In the one God that dwells behind."

"And captains that we thought were dead, And dreamers that we thought were dumb, And voices that we thought were fled, Arise, and call us, and we come; And "search in thine own soul," they cry; "For there, too, lurks thine enemy." Search for the foe in thine own soul, The sloth, the intellectual pride; The trivial jest that veils the goal For which our fathers lived and died; The lawless dreams, the cynic Art, That rend thy nobler self apart."

"Not far, not far into the night, These level swords of light can pierce; Yet for her faith does England fight, Her faith in this our universe; Believing Truth and Justice draw From founts of everlasting law; Therefore a Power above the State, The unconquerable Power returns. The fire, the fire that made her great Once more upon her altar burns. Once more, redeemed and healed and whole, She moves to the Eternal Goal."

"A thousand creeds and battle-cries, A thousand warring social schemes, A thousand new moralities, And twenty thousand thousand dreams! Each on his own anarchic way, From the old order breaking free, — Our ruined world desires, you say, License, once more, not Liberty."

""At Paske began our morrice And, ere Pentecost, our May; Because, albeit your words be true, You know not what you say. You chatter in church like jackdaws, Words that would wake the dead, Were there one breath of life in you, One drop of blood," he said."

"He died and He went down to hell! You know not what you mean. Our rafters were of green fir. Also our beds were green. But out of the mouth of a fool, a fool, before the darkness fall, We tell you He is risen again, The Lord of Life is risen again, The boughs put forth their tender buds, and Love is Lord of all!"

"Your God still walks in Eden, between the ancient trees, Where Youth and Love go wading through pools of primroses. And this is the sign we bring you, before the darkness fall, That Spring is risen, is risen again, That Life is risen, is risen again, That Love is risen, is risen again, and Love is Lord of all."

"He bowed his head. He stood so still, They bowed their heads as well. And softly from the organ-loft The song began to swell. Come up with blood-red streamers, The reeds began the strain. The vox humana pealed on high, The Spring is risen again!"