Alec > Alec's Quotes

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  • #1
    Bernard Cornwell
    “He wanted to improve the world, while I did not believe and never have believed that we can improve the world, just merely survive as it slides into chaos.”
    Bernard Cornwell, The Burning Land

  • #2
    Daphne du Maurier
    “Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.”
    Daphne Du Maurier, Rebecca

  • #3
    Daphne du Maurier
    “Happiness is not a possession to be prized, it is a quality of thought, a state of mind.”
    Daphne Du Maurier, Rebecca

  • #4
    Patrick O'Brian
    “I should send my bees ashore for you, upon my sacred honour.”
    Patrick O'Brian, Post Captain

  • #5
    Patrick O'Brian
    “Life is a long disease with only one termination and its last years are appalling: weak, racked by the stone, rheumatismal pains, senses going, friends, family, occupation gone, a man must pray for imbecility or a heart of stone. All under sentence of death, often ignominious, frequently agonizing: and then the unspeakable levity with which the faint chance of happiness is thrown away for some jealousy, tiff, sullenness, private vanity, mistaken sense of honour, that deadly, weak and silly notion.”
    Patrick O'Brian, Post Captain

  • #6
    Dennis Lehane
    “Those who did remember probably shrugged off the chill of her memory, turned their heads down to the sports page or up toward the approaching bus. The world is a terrible place, they thought. Bad things happen every day. My bus is late.”
    Dennis Lehane, Gone, Baby, Gone

  • #7
    George Orwell
    “The choice for mankind lies between freedom and happiness and for the great bulk of mankind, happiness is better.”
    George Orwell, 1984

  • #8
    Bernard Cornwell
    “But fate, as Merlin always taught us, is inexorable. Life is a jest of the Gods, Merlin liked to claim, and there is no justice. You must learn to laugh, he once told me, or else you'll just weep yourself to death.”
    Bernard Cornwell, The Winter King

  • #9
    Patrick O'Brian
    “Jack, you've debauched my sloth.”
    Patrick O'Brian, H.M.S. Surprise

  • #10
    David Gemmell
    “You do not convince me. You rationalize your actions and because the result is favorable you become right.”
    David Gemmell, Lord of the Silver Bow

  • #11
    David Gemmell
    “We make choices everyday, some of them good, some of them bad. And if we are strong enough - we live with the consequences. To be truthful I am not entirely sure what people mean when they talk of happiness. There are moments of joy and laughter, the comfort of friendship, but enduring happiness? If it exists I have not discovered it.”
    David Gemmell, Lord of the Silver Bow

  • #12
    David Gemmell
    “Our lives are spent sailing in the mist, hoping for a burst of sunlight that can make sense of who we are.”
    David Gemmell, Lord of the Silver Bow

  • #13
    David Gemmell
    “In every one of us is the total of all we have ever been, the sullen child, the arrogant youth, the suckling babe. Every fear endured in childhood is lodged somewhere in here.' He tapped his temple. 'And every act of heroism or cowardice, generosity or meanness of spirit.”
    David Gemmell, Lord of the Silver Bow

  • #14
    David Gemmell
    “Why now? Why not? Live or die, a man and a woman need love. There is a need in the race. We need to share. To belong. Perhaps you will die before the year is out. But remember this: to have may be taken from you, to have had never. Far better to have tasted love before dying, than to die alone.”
    David Gemmell, Legend

  • #15
    David Gemmell
    “What will you do now?'

    I think I will become a monk and devote my entire life to prayer and good works.'

    No,' said Rek. 'I mean, what will you do today?'

    Ah! Today I'll get drunk and go whoring,' said Bowman.”
    David Gemmell, Legend
    tags: humor

  • #16
    Conn Iggulden
    “Genghis nodded drunkenly. "Writing," he replied, scornfully. "It traps words."
    "It makes them real, lord. It makes them last.”
    Conn Iggulden, Genghis: Lords of the Bow

  • #17
    J.K. Rowling
    “Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?”
    J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

  • #18
    Conn Iggulden
    “The eyes showed the soul and they were always hardest to mask.”
    Conn Iggulden, Bones of the Hills

  • #19
    Conn Iggulden
    “If he had learned anything in manhood, it was that it didn’t matter what other people thought of him—even the ones he respected. In the end, he would patch together a life, with its sorry errors and its triumphs, just as they had.”
    Conn Iggulden, Khan: Empire of Silver

  • #20
    Conn Iggulden
    “The wisdom of age is bitter when those you have failed have gone.”
    Conn Iggulden, Khan: Empire of Silver

  • #21
    “I am only afraid of dying; not of being dead.”
    Wallace Breem, Eagle in the Snow

  • #22
    Conn Iggulden
    “The right words are always there, if a man's sharp enough to see them.”
    Conn Iggulden, Trinity

  • #23
    Conn Iggulden
    “Sometimes, whether a man lived or died was down to luck. He did not know if that realization made him value his own life more or less. If death could come because you chose the wrong door leading out into the sun, perhaps there was no sense to any of it - just the fifth horseman. He shrugged, putting such thoughts aside.”
    Conn Iggulden, Bloodline

  • #24
    Conn Iggulden
    “It is a passing strange, George said. In the summer, I complained about the heat. I remember it was unbearable, but the memory no longer seems truly real. With the white ground and frost in the air, I convince myself I would give anything to sweat once more - and if I did, I do not doubt I would yearn to return to this cold. Man is a fickle creature, Richard.”
    Conn Iggulden

  • #25
    Bernard Cornwell
    “People like mystery. They want nothing explained, because when things are explained then there is no hope left. I have seen folk dying and known there is nothing to be done, and I am asked to go because the priest will soon arrive with his dish covered by a cloth, and everyone prays for a miracle. It never happens. And the person dies and I get blamed, not God or the priest, but I!”
    Bernard Cornwell, Vagabond

  • #26
    Sun Tzu
    “Appear weak when you are strong, and strong when you are weak.”
    Sun Tzu, The Art of War

  • #27
    George R.R. Martin
    “Most have been forgotten. Most deserve to be forgotten. The heroes will always be remembered. The best. The best and the worst. And a few who were a bit of both.”
    George R.R. Martin, A Feast for Crows

  • #28
    George R.R. Martin
    “History is a wheel, for the nature of man is fundamentally unchanging. What has happened before will perforce happen again.”
    George R.R. Martin, A Feast for Crows

  • #29
    Umberto Eco
    “Books are not made to be believed, but to be subjected to inquiry. When we consider a book, we mustn't ask ourselves what it says but what it means...”
    Umberto Eco, The Name of the Rose

  • #30
    Umberto Eco
    “Yesterday's rose endures in its name, we hold empty names.”
    Umberto Eco, The Name of the Rose



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