Vicars always look as if they needed to be dusted daily.
Melrose Plant in: Martha Grimes - The Man with a Load of Mischief (Richard Jury No. 01), P. 315

You're a real devil with the women, Jury. It's no wonder they all come screaming out of the bushes and tear at your clothes every time you happen to walk by.
Richard Jury in: Martha Grimes - The Man with a Load of Mischief (Richard Jury No. 01), P. 312

I hate these helpless types, mostly because I don't think they really are, they're just too lazy to develop a backbone, so they lean on other people's backs.
Dolly Schell in: Martha Grimes - Rainbow's End (Richard Jury No. 13), P. 255

It was as he'd suspected. Simeon Pitt was good company, not only to others but to himself, which was more important.
Melrose Plant in: Martha Grimes - The Stargazey (Richard Jury No. 15), P. 207

Before we blame we got to see if we can excuse.
Perry Duclat in: Thomas Adcock - Thrown-away Child (Neil 'Hock' Hockaday No. 5), P. 267

Going to church don't make you Christian no more than going to a garage make you a car.
Violet Flagg in: Thomas Adcock - Thrown-away Child (Neil 'Hock' Hockaday No. 5), P. 243

Things you plan in Life usually turn out to be meaningless, things you accumulate without knowing it become your real treasure.
Ruby Flagg in: Thomas Adcock - Thrown-away Child (Neil 'Hock' Hockaday No. 5), P. 60

Do we ever stop being thirteen or fourteen ? Or six or seven, for that matter ? I think we carry all of that around with us; we just have more practice in hiding it.
Richard Jury in: Martha Grimes - The grave Maurice (Richard Jury No. 18), P. 276

We don't have heroes today. We have celebrities, on television.
Neil Hockaday in: Thomas Adcock - Dark Maze (Neil 'Hock' Hockaday No. 2), P. 118

You can never be too old for something you really liked.
Gemma in: Martha Grimes - The blue Last (Richard Jury No.17 ), P. 48

Humans need fantasy to be human.
DEATH in: Terry Pratchett - Hogfather, P. 422

They were grown men or at least had lived for several decades, which in some societies is considered the same thing.
Terry Pratchett - Hogfather, P. 341

It's not better to give than to receive, in my opinion, it's just less embarrassing.
The Chair Of Indefinite Studies in: Terry Pratchett - Hogfather, P. 294

(...)being quite unaware that only those with their feet on rock can build castles in the air.
Granny Weatherwax in: Terry Pratchett - Carpe Jugulum, P. 11

Old age doesn't stop you wanting it. It just stops you doing it properly.
Harry in: Stephen Booth - Black Dog, P. 348

If occasionally he said things that shocked people, it was only because he believed it was right that you should say what you thought and because he didn't really care what people thought of him.
Helen in: Stephen Booth - Black Dog, P. 137

If you want to know what a man's like, take a good look how he treats his inferiors, not his equals.
Sirius in : Joanne K. Rowling - Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, P. 456

I sat quietly and didn't speak. Over the years I have found that a pretty good way to avoid being a dope.
Sunny Randall in: Robert B. Parker - Perish Twice, P. 27

'I heard somebody define heaven once,' she said, looking at Pearl, 'as a place where, when you get there, all the dogs you ever loved run to greet you.'
Susan Silverman in: Robert B. Parker - Potshot, P. 182

Getting an education was a bit like a communicable sexual disease. It made you unsuitable for a lot of jobs and then you had the urge to pass it on.
Susan Sto Helit in: Terry Pratchett - Hogfather, P. 40

Violence is the resort of the violent.
Lu Tze in: Terry Pratchett - Thief of Time, P. 132

History needs shepherds, not butchers.
Lu Tze in: Terry Pratchett - Thief of Time, P. 132

Sometimes I really think people ought to have to pass a proper exam before they're allowed to be parents. Not just the practical, I mean.
Susan Sto Helit in: Terry Pratchett - Thief of Time, P. 91

But it is possible, after a while, to develop certain dangerous habits of thought. One is that, while all important enterprises need careful organization, it is the organization that needs organizing, rather than the enterprise. And another is that tranquility is always a good thing.
Terry Pratchett - Thief of Time, P. 45f

Do you mean that the public is a different thing from the people you just see walking about the place ? The public thinks big, sensible, measured thoughts while people run around doing silly things ?
Lord Vetinari in: Terry Pratchett - The Truth, P. 429

I have certainly noticed that groups of clever and intelligent people are capable of really stupid ideas.
Lord Vetinari in: Terry Pratchett - The Truth, P. 429

I'd noticed in the last few years that getting it said just right didn't do much for anybody but the sayer.
Sunny Randall in: Robert B. Parker - Family Honor, P. 264

[...] it's probably better to base your reaction on knowledge than on ignorance.
Sunny Randall in: Robert B. Parker - Family Honor, P. 261

'I bought her,' I said, 'But I don't own her. I feed her, I give her water. I take her to the vet. I let her out and in. I take her for walks. The truth of it is she'd die if I didn't take care of her. And because she's completely dependent on me, I am determined that within the confines of what I just said, and allowing for her safety and mine, she can live as she wishes and do as she pleases.'
Sunny Randall in: Robert B. Parker - Family Honor, P. 165

'So what ? I hate doing push-ups.'
'If you can do them, then you can decide if you want to do them. If you can't do them, the decision isn't yours.'
[...]
'Who cares about push-ups ?' she said.
'It's more sort of an attitude,' I said. 'The more things you can do, the more choices you have. The more choices you have, the less life kicks you around.'
Robert B. Parker - Family Honor, P. 164

And sin, young man, is when you treat people as things. Including yourself. That's what sin is.
Granny Weatherwax in: Terry Pratchett - Carpe Jugulum, P. 314

You don't always have to do what the rest of the world wants you to do.
Vlad in: Terry Pratchett - Carpe Jugulum, P. 283

[Hate} is the opposite pole to love and just as attractive.
Terry Pratchett - Carpe Jugulum, P. 283

All the girl had done was give a thing a name, and once you gave a thing a name, you gave it a life....
Granny Weatherwax in: Terry Pratchett - Carpe Jugulum, P. 278

'My granny used to say if you're too sharp you'll cut yourself,' said Agnes.
They sat in grey silence for a while, and then Nanny Ogg said: 'My own granny has an old country sayin' she always trotted out at times like this...'
'Which was... ?'
'"Bugger off, you little devil, or I'll chop off your nose and give it to the cat." Of course, that's not so very helpful at a time like this, I'll admit.'
Terry Pratchett - Carpe Jugulum, P. 134

When you've been around for a while, miss, you'll see that some people's body and head don't always work together.
Nanny Ogg in: Terry Pratchett - Carpe Jugulum, P. 131

Because that was the point, wasn't it ? You had to choose. You might be right, you might be wrong, but you had to choose, knowing that the rightness or wrongness might never be clear or even that you were deciding between two sorts of wrong, that there was no right anywhere. And always, always, you did it by yourself.
Terry Pratchett - Carpe Jugulum, P. 73

They thought you could see life through books but you couldn't, the reason being that the words got in the way.
Terry Pratchett - Carpe Jugulum, P. 32

When people say things are a lot more complicated than that, that means they're getting worried that they won't like the truth.
Granny Weatherwax in: Terry Pratchett - Carpe Jugulum, P. 314

We can't relive a single moment, can we ? we can't unsay things, and we can't undo things. We can only sweep up the pieces of the mess we make of our miserable lives.
Elizabeth George - A Traitor to Memory, P. 671

Too many people going too many places, Ted thought morosely. Too many people without the slightest idea of why they're rushing headlong through their lives.
Elizabeth George - A Traitor to Memory, P. 29

I have been able to order my life along unconventional patterns and no longer refrain from doing what I want to do simply because it is odd, unusual, distinctive or unconventional.
Perry Mason in: Erle Stanley Gardner: , P.

It is hard to wander around in the real world and not to utter "asshole" occasionally.
Dicey Scroggins Jackson in: Sara Paretsky - Women on the Case, P. 27

Besides, lifting weights never built up muscles between a person's ears, if you see what I mean.
Nancy Pickard in: Sara Paretsky - Women on the Case, P. 27

It's not the size of the dog in the fight that counts but the size of the fight in the dog.
V. I. Warshawski in: Sara Parestky -Windy City Blues, P. 298

Thinking is hard work, which is why you don't see a lot of people doing it.
Kinsey Millhone in: Sue Grafton - I is for Innocent, P. 306

Togetherness is an Illusion. We're all on our own.
Kinsey Millhone in: Sue Grafton - I is for Innocent, P. 284

The hard part about love is the hole it leaves when it's gone.
Kinsey Millhone in: Sue Grafton - H is for Homicide, P. 21

Whenever Jehova's witnesses appear at my door, I always ask for their adresses first thing, assuring them that I'll be around later in the week to plague them with my views.
Kinsey Millhone in: Sue Grafton - F is for Fugitive, P. 99

Solutions to nearly every big problem we face can be found in nature.
Tim Smit - www.edenproject.com

Television is more interesting than people. If it were not, we should have people standing in the corners of our rooms.
Alan Coren - The Times

Knowledge is power.
Rather, knowledge is happiness, because to have knowledge - broad, deep knowledge - is to know true ends from false, and lofty things from low. To know the thoughts and deeds that have marked man's progress is to feel the great heart-throbs of humanity through the centuries; and if one does not feel in these pulsations a heavenward striving, one must indeed be deaf to the harmonies of life.
Helen Keller - The Story of my Life, P. 55

Most people would sooner die than think; in fact, they do so.
Bertrand Russell
Thanks Sonja

And he's all the happier for leaving life alone. He's too busy living it to think about it.
My mistake was in ever opening the books.
Jack London - The Sea Wolf

Because if everytime something scary comes up you decide to run, you all gonna be running for the rest of your lifes.
Sister Act 2

[...] and it's better to be what I am than to be failing at what I am not.
Robert B. Parker - Looking for Rachel Wallace, P. 183

Turn off the TV just for a while
Let us whisper to each other instead.
New Model Army - 225

Then there's the fact that the sexual experience itself is about the most positive, powerful and moving experience we can have, short of the religious ecstasy which most of us will never know. [...]
And earthquakes may be exciting, but they're a little unsettling too. And another source of discomfort is that sex is exciting and fulfilling only to the extent that we can lose control and give ourselves over to the experience. We have to 'let go'.
Robyn Skinner/John Cleese Families and How to survive them, P. 237

It seemed to her humans might not be as fit for life as rosebushes. Humans must endure unpruned, keeping the wounded and dead parts of themselves with them like the cans tied to a bumper, clattering and banging, forever getting snagged and tangled in obstructions.
Claudia Casper - The Reconstruction, P. 75

There's absolutely no limit to what the human spirit can endure when it sincerely believes it's enjoying itself.
Tom Holt - Faust among equals, P. 219

But I think we both missed a great opportunity here.
Andie McDowell in 4 Weddings and a Funeral

I thought that love would last forever, I was wrong.
W. H. Auden

Everybody is very much alike, really. But fortunately, perhaps, they don't realise it.
Agatha Christie - The thirteen Problems, P. 82

The young people think the old people are fools - but the old people know the young people are fools.
Agatha Christie - The Murder at the Vicarage, P. 225

It is our choices, Harry, that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.
Joanne K. Rowling - Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, P. 245

A common mistake that people make when trying to design something completely foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.
Douglas Adams - Mostly Harmless

To see a world in a grain of sand
And heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour
William Blake
Thanks Gerhard

When Dorothy Parker was asked to quickly use the word "Horticulture" in a sentence, she replied: "You can lead a horticulture, but you can't make her think !
Dorothy Parker
Thanks Gerhard

There is always a brave new world [...] but only, you know, for very special people. The lucky ones. The ones who carry the making of that world within themselves.
Agatha Christie - Hallowe'en Party, P. 86

I wish there was a knob on the TV to turn up the intelligence.
There's a knob called "brightness", but it doesn't work.
Gallagher
Thanks Gerhard

I know there's a proverb which says, 'To err is human', but a human error is nothing to what a computer can do if it tries.
Agatha Christie - Hallwe'en Party, P. 38

 The happiness of one man and one woman is the greatest thing in all the world.
Agatha Christie - The mysterious Affair at Styles, P. 195

 The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience but where he stands in times of challenge and controversy.
Martin Luther King

 Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than mere ignorance and conscientous stupidity.
Martin Luther King

 He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it.
Martin Luther King

 I have a dream that one day little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.
Martin Luther King

 Men suck.
But they do it so well.
Andie MacDowell

 There's too much rushing about nowadays. If people sat tight and thought about a thing before they tackled it, there'd be less mess-ups than there are.
Agatha Christie - Cards on the Table, P. 112

 Making somebody happy is a question of give and take.
ABBA

 Never saw the light until you turned it on.
Alison Moyet

 No man is an island
John Donne

 Religion is a paramount contributor to human misery. It is not merely the opium of the masses, it is the cyanide.
Tom Robbins - Skinny Legs and all, P. 167

 In my opinion, those differences can be good. What a dull world this would be were we all alike. What an evolutionary dead end ! To be brothers, to live in peace, we do not have to be overly similar. We do not have to admire or even like one another's peculiarities. We need only respect those peculiarities - and be grateful for them. Our similarities provide us with common ground, but our differences allow us to be fascinated by one another. Differences give human encounters their snap and their fizz and their brew.
Tom Robbins - Skinny Legs and all, P. 145

 Of course, as long as there were willing followers, there would be exploitive leades. And there would be willing followers until humanity reached that philosophic plateau where it recognized that its great mission in life had nothing to do with any struggle between classes, races, nations, or ideologies, but was, rather, a personal quest to enlarge the soul, liberate the spirit, and light up the brain. On that quest, politics was simply a roadblock of stentorian baboons.
Tom Robbins - Skinny Legs and all, P. 406

 The level of structure that people seek always is in direct ratio to the amount of chaos they have inside.
Tom Robbins - Skinny Legs and all, P. 355

 Everybody is performing. We only think it's real.
Tom Robbins - Half asleep in Frog Pajama, P. 279

 ...the Eskimos had fifty-two names for snow because it was important to them; there ought to be as many for love.
Margaret Atwood in: Tom Robbins - Even Cowgirls get the Blues, P. 51

 People have their strong points and their weak points, The true philosopher sees them as they are, and is never disappointed, because he doesn't expect too much. The cynic is one who starts out with a false pattern and becomes disppointed because people don't conform to that pattern.
Erle Stanley Gardner - The Case of the Shoplifter's Shoe, P. 3

 Sometimes you're on top and things are easy. Sometimes you're on the bottom. There's no need to let it worry you.
Erle Stanley Gardner - The Case of the postponed Murder, P. 98

 With all this work, I don't know where to start. So I don't.
h@ki

 Be yourself. No one can ever tell you you're doing it wrong.
James Leo Kerliy

 I shall pass through this world but once. If therefore, there be any kindness I can show, or any good thing I can do, let me do it now... For I shall not pass this way again.
Etienne De Grellet

 When you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to reform.
Mark Twain

 For everything you have missed you have gained something else.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

 Things don't change, you change your way of looking, that's all.
Carlos Castaneda

 Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.
Mark Twain

 Political power comes from the barrel of a gun.
Mao Zedong

 Everyone has to have something they can keep to themselves.
Terry Pratchett

 If you think everything's going right, something's going wrong that you haven't heard about yet.
Terry Pratchett

 The thought that they may be wrong makes people very angry.
Terry Pratchett

 Life is much too important a thing to ever talk seriously about it.
Oscar Wilde

 You are very right in supposing how my money would be spent - some of it, at least my loose cash, would certainly be employed in improving my collection of music and books.
Jane Austen - Sense and Sensibility

 Money can only give happiness where there is nothing else to give it.
Jane Austen - Sense and Sensibility

 One half of the world cannot understand the pleasures of the other.
Jane Austen - Emma

 When I think of all the crap I learned in high school, it's a wonder I can think at all.
Paul Simon

 Anyway, if you stopped tellin' people it's all sorted out after they're dead, they might try sorting it all out while they're alive. If I was in charge, I'd try makin' people live a lot longer, like ole Methuselah. It'd be a lot more interestin' and they might start thinkin' about the sort of things they're doing to all the environment and ecology, because they'll still be around in a hundred years' time.
Terry Pratchett

 If he had only learnt a little less, how infinitely better he might have taught more !
Charles Dickens

 Ignorance is very important ! It is an absolutely essential step in the learning process !
Terry Pratchett

 Oh, the force of appearances !
Dostoevsky

 Words are not deeds.
Dostoevsky

 Besides, to know a man thoroughly, one must deal with him gradually and with circumspection, so as not to be influenced by prejudice, which it may be very difficult afterwards to correct or efface.
Dostoevsky

 Man is a coward, and can get accustomed to anything.
Dostoevsky

 Your hands are cold but your lips are warm.
Dire Straits

 When someone tells you it's your lucky day, something bad is about to happen.
Terry Pratchett

 One of the universal rules of happiness is:
always be wary of ony helpful item that weighs less than its operating manual.
Terry Pratchett

 When you seek advice from someone it's certainly not because you want them to give it. You just want them to be there while you talk to yourself.
Terry Pratchett

 Humans need fantasy to be human.
Terry Pratchett

 When people who can read and write start fighting on behalf of people who can't, you just end up with another kind of stupidity.
If you want to help them, build a library or something somewhere and leave the door open.
Terry Pratchett (Rincewind)

 It's better to light a candle than curse the darkness.
Terry Pratchett (Carrot Ironfounderson)

 Animals can't murder. Only us superior races can murder. That's one of the things that sets us apart from animals.
Terry Pratchett (Granny Weatherwax)

 Every 5 years someone was elected [...], provided he could prove that he was honest, intelligent, sensible and trustworthy.
Immediately after he was elected, of course, ist was obvious to everyone that he was a criminal madman and totally out of touch [...].
And then 5 years later they elected another one just like him, and really it was amazing how intelligent people kept on making the same mistakes.
Terry Pratchett

 Imagination is only intelligence having fun.
Terry Pratchett

 I believe you find life such a problem because you think there are the good people and the bad people [...]. You're wrong, of course. There are always and only, the bad people, but some of them are on opposite sides.
Terry Pratchett (Lord Vetinari)

 Because inside every old person is a young person wondering what happened.
Terry Pratchett

 A good Listener is hard to find, or at least hard to find twice.
Terry Pratchett

 If you only do it, when it's easy, is it worth doing ?
Robert B. Parker

 Life is neither static nor unchanging. With no individuality, there can be no change, no adaption and, in an inherently changing world, any species unable to adapt is also doomed.
Jean M. Auel

 I want you to be yourself, to say or do whatever you think you should, because that's what I love about you.
Jean M. Auel

 "Sex without love is an empty experience."
"Yes, but as empty experiences go, it's one of the better ones."
Diane Keaton and Woody Allen in "Annie Hall"

 I've seen excitement and I've seen boredom. And boredom was best.
Terry Pratchett (Rincewind)

 The world is a comedy to those who think, a tragedy to those who feel...
Horace Walpole

 Progress just means bad things happen faster.
Terry Pratchett

 Master the material, the words will follow.
Cato

 After I've spent a certain amount of time in the company of others, I need an intermission anyway.
Sue Grafton

 If you want to fall in love, you can't hold everything in. You have to open up, take that risk. You'll be hurt sometimes but if you don't, you'll never be happy. The one you find may not be the kind of woman you expected to fall in love with, but it won't matterm you'll love her for exactly what she is.
Jean M. Auel

 If you can't be alone you can't be with someone.
Robert B. Parker

 The eyes of your dog, the most unforgettable thing in the world.
Raymond Chandler

 Like men, some grow best in company, striving to outdo the rest. Others need to grow their own way, though it may be lonely. Both have value.
Jean M. Auel

 Like all other books, the bible was written by men. These men were different from you and me, of course; they lived in simpler times, and were more ignorant than even the two of us. And therefore, the book they wrote is quite as ordinary as any other - containing much that's true and much that's false, much that's good and much that's bad.
Father Morrison in: Thomas Adcock - Grief Street (Neil 'Hock' Hockaday No. 6), P. 232

 Don't you know, [...], that without going outside your door, you can understand everything on earth and in heaven ?
Lydia Adamson

 Some people say the taste of chocolate is second only to sex. I say putting it second is in dispute.
Diane M. Davidson

 Public opinion exists only where there are no ideas.
Oscar Wilde

 History is bunk
Aldous Huxley

 There are only two things to worry about:
either you are well or you are sick.
If you are well, then there is nothing to worry about:
but if you are sick; there are two things for you to worry about:
either you get well or you will die.
If you get well, then there is nothing to worry about.
If you die: then there are two things to worry about:
either you go up or down.
If you go up, then there is nothing to worry about.
But if you go down you'll be so busy shaking hands with old friends
you won´t have time to worry.

???

You can fell a tree just once.
???

And gave her everything he gave to no one else. He gave her all of himself. All of the self no one else sees, or hears, or even knows exist.
Robert B. Parker

 All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That's his.
Oscar Wilde

 The only way to behave to a woman is to make love to her, if she's pretty, and to someone else, if she's plain.
Oscar Wilde

 It's absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious.
Oscar Wilde

 In this world there are only two tragedies. One is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.
Oscar Wilde

 Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes.
Oscar Wilde

A cynic is a man who knows the prize of everything and the value of nothing.
Oscar Wilde

 The only difference between the saint and the sinner is that every saint has a past and every sinner has a future.
Oscar Wilde

 Men marry because they are tired; women because they are curious. Both are disappointed.
Oscar Wilde

 [...]the happiness of a married man [...] depends on the people he has not married.
Oscar Wilde

 One should always be in love. That is the reason one should never marry.
Oscar Wilde

 You know, young girls like to control some big strong masculine thing between their legs.
Robert B. Parker (on Motorcycles and Girls)

 The prize of liberty is eternal housekeeping.
Tom Holt

 The Dream is over
John Lennon

 Everybody is doing it in the road.
Beatles

 Always remember: The world is an orange.
???

If it's wet - drink it.
If it's dry - smoke it.
If it moves - screw it.
???

Remember, the light at the end of the tunnel might be an oncoming train.
???

Your story has truly touched my heart. Never have I met a person with such outstanding problems. I really feel profoundly sorry for you.
Now fuck off and stop bothering me.
???