Kim > Kim's Quotes

“If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Then quit. No use being a damn fool about it.”
― W.C. Fields

“Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set fire to him and he's warm for the rest of his life.”
― Terry Pratchett, Jingo

“When his life was ruined, his family killed, his farm destroyed, Job knelt down on the ground and yelled up to the heavens, "Why god? Why me?" and the thundering voice of God answered, There's just something about you that pisses me off.”
― Stephen King, Storm of the Century

“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.”
― Oscar Wilde

“′Classic′ - a book which people praise and don't read.”
― Mark Twain

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
― Edmund Burke

“You will always be fond of me. I represent to you all the sins you never had the courage to commit.”
― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

“Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city.”
― George Burns

“I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me.”
― Hunter S. Thompson

“To subdue one's self to one's own ends might be dangerous, but to subdue one's self to other people's ends was dust and ashes. Yet there were those, still more unhappy, who envied even the ashy saltness of those dead sea apples.”
― Dorothy L. Sayers, Gaudy Night

“Life just wants to be; but it doesn't want to be much.”
― Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything

“Bother the right man!” cried Miss Findlater, crossly. “I do hate that kind of talk. It makes one feel dreadful—like a prize cow or something. Surely, we have got beyond that point of view in these days.”
― Dorothy L. Sayers, Unnatural Death

“Questions would be asked. Answers would be ignored.”
― Ben Aaronovitch, Midnight Riot

“Choose a lie that others wish to believe” was written beneath it. “They will cling to it, even if it is proven false before their face. If anyone tries to show them the Truth, they will turn on them and fight them tooth and nail.”
― Frances Hardinge, The Lie Tree

“She glances at Sigrud. He stares straight ahead—maybe. It is always difficult to tell what Sigrud is paying attention to. He sits so still, and seems so blithely indifferent to all around him, that you almost treat him like a statue. Either way, he seems neither impressed nor interested in the city: it is simply another event, neither threatening violence nor requiring it, and thus not worth attention.”
― Robert Jackson Bennett, City of Stairs

“Science doesn’t have all the answers, you know.” “It’s got all the best questions, though,” I said.”
― Ben Aaronovitch, Moon Over Soho

“As a rule, you see, I'm not lugged into Family Rows. On the occasions when Aunt is calling Aunt like mastodons bellowing across premieval swamps and Uncle James's letter about Cousin Mabel's peculiar behaviour is being shot round the family circle ('Please read this carefully and send it on Jane') the clan has a tendency to ignore me. It's one of the advantages I get from being a bachelor - and, according to my nearest and dearest, practically a half-witted bachelor at that.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, The Inimitable Jeeves

“Sir Roderick Glossop, Honoria’s father, is always called a nerve specialist, because it sounds better, but everybody knows that he’s a sort of janitor to the looney-bin. I mean to say, when your uncle the Duke begins to feel the strain a bit and you find him in the blue drawing room sticking straws in his hair, old Glossop is the first person you send for. ... Practically every posh family in the country has called him in at one time or another, and I suppose that, being in that position—I mean, constantly having to sit on people’s heads while their nearest and dearest phone to the asylum to send round the waggon—does tend to make a chappie take what you call a warped view of humanity.”
― P.G. Wodehouse, The Inimitable Jeeves

“Where is your sense of patriotism?"

I keep it hid away safe, along with my sense of trust, Mr. Clent. I don't use 'em much in case they get scratched.”
― Frances Hardinge, Fly by Night

“Truth is dangerous. It topples palaces and kills kings. It stirs gentle men to rage and bids them take up arms. It wakes old grievances and opens forgotten wounds. It is the mother of the sleepless night and the hag-ridden day. And yet there is one thing that is more dangerous than Truth. Those who would silence Truth’s voice are more destructive by far.

It is most perilous to be a speaker of Truth. Sometimes one must choose to be silent, or be silenced. But if a truth cannot be spoken, it must at least be known. Even if you dare not speak truth to others, never lie to yourself.”
― Frances Hardinge, Fly by Night

“I am content to be hated, and bloody, and outnumbered. For in this sickened world, it is better to believe in something too fiercely than to believe in nothing."

Words, words, wonderful words. But lies too.

"No, it isn’t!" shouted Mosca the Housefly, Quillam Mye’s daughter. "Not if what you’re believin’ isn’t blinkin’ well True! You shouldn’t just go believin’ things for no reason, pertickly if you got a sword in your hand! Sacred just means something you’re not meant to think about properly, an’ you should never stop thinking! Show me something I can kick, and hit with rocks, and set fire to, and leave out in the rain, and think about, and if it’s still standing after all that then maybe, just maybe, I’ll start to believe in it, but not till then. An’ if all we’re left with is muck and wickedness and no gods, then we’d better face it and get used to it because it’s better than a lie.”
― Frances Hardinge, Fly by Night