60 quotes
But of course she knew it. Chambers was a hotbed of gossip. People spoke in front of her. Gossip permeated the very air as if by a mysterious process of osmosis.
A Certain Justice (1997)
You're going to have to, Xan. You may have to kill her, too.
The Children of Men (1992)
Use some reverence. Remember what he was only a minute ago. You wouldn't have dared laid a hand on him.
The Children of Men (1992)
Darling, you can't promise that...but I like to hear you say it.
The Children of Men (1992)
We can experience nothing but the present moment, live in no other second of time, and to understand this is as close as we can get to eternal life.
The Children of Men (1992)
I'm not a tyrant, but I can't afford to be merciful. Whatever it is necessary to do, I will do it.
The Children of Men (1992)
The Man Penal settlement. Do you know whats happening there? The murders, the starvation, the complete breakdown of law and order.
The Children of Men (1992)
It was only in fiction that the people one wanted to interview were sitting ready at home or in their office, with time, energy and interest to spare. In real life they were about their own business and one waited on their convenience.
An Unsuitable Job for a Woman (1972)
Invited by Major Markland to sit, Cordelia perched on the edge of the sofa, half expecting the smooth cushion to let out a rude noise as it subsided beneath her. She found it, however, unexpectedly hard.
An Unsuitable Job for a Woman (1972)
She remembered what Bernie had told her: "In this country, if people won't talk, there's nothing you can do to make them, more's the pity. Luckily for the police most people just can't keep their mouths shut. The intelligent ones are the worst. They just have to show how clever they are, and once you've got them discussing the case, even discussing it generally, then you've got them."
An Unsuitable Job for a Woman (1972)
There were moments, usually on a sunny Easter morning, when she wished that she could with sincerity call herself a Christian; but for the rest of the year she knew herself to be what she was - incurably agnostic but prone to unpredictable relapses into faith.
An Unsuitable Job for a Woman (1972)
We also had the inestimable advantage of beginning each school day with an act of worship which included a reading from the King James Bible which, with the Book of Common Prayer, has had more influence on our language, literature, history and culture than any other book, but which today a majority of our children will never encounter.
Marriage is both the most public and the most secret of institutions, its miseries as irritatingly insistent as a hacking cough, its private malaise less easily diagnosed. And nothing is so destructive as unhappiness to social life. No one wants to sit in embarrassed silence while his host and hostess demonstrate their mutual incompatibility and dislike.
We do. The question is, how do you?
The Children of Men (1992)
Because English is spoken and written in so many forms for a variety of purposes throughout the world it is surely important that English in its highest form should be taught, spoken and valued in this country. Yet few would deny that standards of written and spoken English are in decline among all sections of the community and that we are in real danger of becoming an illiterate society.
He looked more like a professional rugger player than a lawyer, though not when he wore his wig. Then the face became an impressive mask of judicial gravitas. But, thought Langton, wigs metamorphose us all; perhaps that's why we're so unwilling to get rid of them.
A Certain Justice (1997)
I don't think God bargains.
The Children of Men (1992)
I don't want to kill you.
The Children of Men (1992)
"...We have a reputation for being difficult. Chambers is a collection of intelligent, highly independent, idiosyncratic, critical and overworked men and women whose profession is argument. It's a dull set which doesn't contain its share of eccentrics and personalities who could be described as difficult. ..."
A Certain Justice (1997)
How odd, he thought, that one could get used to beauty [i.e. in one's wife]. Once he had thought that any price would be worth paying if he could possess it, know it to be exclusively his, feed on it, be comforted, exalted, even sanctified by it. But you couldn't possess beauty any more than you could possess another human being.
A Certain Justice (1997)