Ralph > Ralph's Quotes

“Dogs do not lie...but we do keep secrets.”
― Ralph E. Vaughan, A Flight of Raptors

“Somedays you're the pigeon, somedays you're the statue.”
― J. Andrew Taylor

“What’s past is past, nothing to do but smile through teeth that have been kicked in; only the future matters, the decisions you make from this moment on.”
― Ralph E. Vaughan, A Flight of Raptors

“Listening doesn't mean trying to understand. Anything, however trifling, may be of use one day. What matters is to know something that others don't know you know.”
― Umberto Eco, The Prague Cemetery

“So what are you going to do? Let your future be shaped by the injustices and cruelties of the past, or do you shape your own future? Do you walk down those mean streets without becoming mean yourself, or do you lie down and whimper? Victim of everyone, or the hero of your own story – those are your only choices.”
― Ralph E. Vaughan, A Flight of Raptors

“The true mark of English conversation is not being able to tell when you've been insulted. I think the more sophisticated society becomes, the more it hides behind the masks it manufactures.”
― Christopher Fowler, Bryant & May and the Memory of Blood

“Television wasn't getting rid of animals, but they were no longer cast as creatures that were omniscient and heroic. They were talking horses like Mr Ed or an absurdist pig like Arnold Ziffle...Just like the heroic animals in silent films became comedians in talkies, animals on television were becoming jesters, something Rin Tin Tin had never been.”
― Susan Orlean, Rin Tin Tin: The Life and the Legend

“The trouble with you, dear, is that you think an angel of the Lord as a creature with wings, whereas he is probably a scruffy little man with a bowler hat.”
― Josephine Tey, The Franchise Affair

“there is no collective guilt,...guilt is individual, like salvation.”
― Frederick Forsyth, The Odessa File

“The only thing worse than the British Empire being the constable of the Solar System is the British Empire not being the constable of the Solar System.”
― Ralph E. Vaughan, Amidst Dark Satanic Mills

“A man may have ‘his moment,’ and that moment endure for decades, or only for the few seconds it takes for a bullet to travel across a courtyard to the balcony upon which he stands as he exhorts his people to follow him.”
― Ralph E. Vaughan, Amidst Dark Satanic Mills