Emerita Liverpool > Emerita's Quotes

“In response to be asked about Boris Johnson becoming UK Prime Minister...

"I'm delighted. As the UK continues to plunge ever faster into a future akin to a dystopian novel I'll never run out of material to write more books. Although now that reality is more bizarre than fiction maybe plot-lines will need to be more ambitious. Perhaps a book where Boris Johnson is really an accidental sentient snafu of Trump's scrotum lint. Kind of a sequel to the Bush-Blair story. I see musical rights being drawn up as we speak.”
― R.D. Ronald

“So let me get this straight. You left this ‘fabulous job’ as you put it, so you could be a dog-sitter in Fort Langley?”
― Alyssa Hall, And Then I Heard the Quiet

“US General Mathew Ridgeway was speaking about “Operation Vulture”. He said, “When the day comes for me to meet my maker and account for my actions, the thing that I would be most proud of is the fact that I fought against and perhaps totally prevented the carrying out of one of the most hare-brained tactical schemes that would have cost the lives of thousands upon thousands of men!”

(A Gracious Enemy & After the War Volume Two)”
― Michael G. Kramer

“Nine roses around the lion…God in heaven that’s the Tumbaar coat-of-arms.”
― Gabriel F.W. Koch, Steel Blood

“Serving” is assisting your fellow man, the how-to, practical way to thrust your life into the spiritual wall to make the
tunnel bigger. Will God suddenly appear? Does
washing stacks of pots and pans bring salvation?
Can pulling weeds reclaim your brain? Will mopping the floor make you equal to the richest of men?”
― Tom Hillman, Digging for God

“Maybe we can politely ignore each other forever? I think that's the mature thing to do.”
― Sara Pascoe, Weirdo: 'Intense, also BRILLIANT, funny and forensically astute.' Marian Keyes

“If a man was around when Aunt Kathy came by, she would berate him and throw him out. I even saw her toss guys out at gunpoint. She’d threaten them and say, “I will shoot you until I can’t see you!” I remember thinking, “How is that possible? That’s a lot of damn shooting!” ”
― Harold Phifer, Surviving Chaos: How I Found Peace at A Beach Bar

“He had a wrinkled, pointy face like a rubber glove puppet with the fingers drawn together.”
― Murray Bailey, The Prisoner of Acre

“Joey was lying by the stream one afternoon after a hard day. He had been in trouble at school because he had left his homework at home. He had done the work, but his teacher didn’t believe him that he had completed it. Joey was still a bit upset with his teacher.
 
Suddenly, he heard a very soft voice say, “Hello.”
 
Joey sat up and looked around, but he couldn’t see anyone. So, he laid back down by the stream only to hear the voice again.
 
The voice sounded bubbly and a little like running water. Joey didn’t know where it was coming from.”
― Ellen J. Lewinberg, Joey and His Friend Water

“But for now, I would be the happiest of men if I could just swallow the overflow of saliva that endlessly floods my mouth. Even before first light, I am already practicing sliding my tongue toward the rear of my palate in order to provoke a swallowing reaction. What is more, I have dedicated to my larynx the little packets of incense hanging on the wall, amulets brought back from Japan by pious globe-trotting friends. Just one of the stones in the thanksgiving monument erected by my circle of friends during their wanderings. In every corner of the world, the most diverse deities have been solicited in my name. I try to organize all this spiritual energy. If they tell me that candles have been burned for my sake in a Breton chapel, or that a mantra has been chanted in a Nepalese temple, I at once give each of the spirits invoked a precise task. A woman I know enlisted a Cameroon holy man to procure me the goodwill of Africa's gods: I have assigned him my right eye. For my hearing problems I rely on the relationship between my devout mother-in-law and the monks of a Bordeaux brotherhood. They regularly dedicate their prayers to me, and I occasionally steal into their abbey to hear their chants fly heavenward. So far the results have been unremarkable. But when seven brothers of the same order had their throats cut by Islamic fanatics, my ears hurt for several days. Yet all these lofty protections are merely clay ramparts, walls of sand, Maginot lines, compared to the small prayer my daughter, Céleste, sends up to her Lord every evening before she closes her eyes. Since we fall asleep at roughly the same hour, I set out for the kingdom of slumber with this wonderful talisman, which shields me from all harm.”
― Jean-Dominique Bauby, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly: A Memoir of Life in Death

“To be a man is, precisely, to be responsible. It is to feel shame at the sight of what seems to be unmerited misery. It is to take pride in a victory won by one's comrades. It is to feel, when setting one's stone, that one is contributing to the building of the world.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Wind, Sand and Stars

“The invigorating scent of the sea was nectar to her wearied body, the immensity of the lonely cliffs was silent and dreamlike. Her brain only remained conscious of its ceaseless, its intolerable torture of uncertainty.”
― Emmuska Orczy, The Scarlet Pimpernel

“I can't bare you when you're not amusing.”
― Evelyn Waugh, Vile Bodies

“I often marveled that the interior peace of the woman was reflected so faithfully in her surroundings. Even the selection and arrangements of her possessions gave an aura of uncluttered calm. In addition, there was a directness in her approach to all of life--including housekeeping--that never failed to fascinate me.
Miss Alice was a person to whom color, symmetry of line and contrast of texture were important.”
― Catherine Marshall, Christy