Tony McMahon > Tony's Quotes

“Nevertheless, the book gave Jack a feeling he had never had before, that the past was like a story, in which one thing led to another, and the world was not a boundless mystery, but a finite thing that could be comprehended. ”
― Ken Follett, The Pillars of the Earth

“To someone standing in the nave, looking down the length of the church toward the east, the round window would seem like a huge sun exploding into innumerable shards of gorgeous color.”
― Ken Follett, The Pillars of the Earth

“It was an odd relationship, but then she was an extraordinary woman: a prioress who doubted much of what the church taught; an acclaimed healer who rejected medicine as practised by physicians; and a nun who made enthusiastic love to her man whenever she could get away with it. If I wanted a normal relationship, Merthin told himself, I should have picked a normal girl.”
― Ken Follett, World Without End

“Do not be afraid; our fate
Cannot be taken from us; it is a gift.”
― Dante Alighieri, Inferno

“The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in times of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality.”
― Dante Alighieri

“The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.”
― William Shakespeare, As You Like It

“I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had an underlying truth.”
― Umberto Eco, Foucault’s Pendulum

“All poets write bad poetry. Bad poets publish them, good poets burn them.”
― Umberto Eco

“Entering a novel is like going on a climb in the mountains: you have to learn the rhythm of respiration, acquire the pace; otherwise you stop right away.”
― Umberto Eco, Postscript to the Name of the Rose

“Ful wys is he that kan himselve knowe.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer, The Riverside Chaucer

“As my future crumbled before my eyes, I grasped for the rope. My entire life's struggle was ending here, in plain view of my enemies. How was it possible? Had had I let things come to this?”
― Tony McMahon, No Place to Hide: How I Put the Black in the Union Jack