Zitat des Tages über George Orwell:
Women have served all these centuries as looking glasses possessing the power of reflecting the figure of man at twice its natural size.
Until the age of thirteen, I tortured the waiting worlds of book illustration and professional football by shilly-shallying over which of them was going to get the benefit of my inestimable talents.
Little children are still the symbol of the eternal marriage between love and duty.
When death, the great reconciler, has come, it is never our tenderness that we repent of, but our severity.
No compliment can be eloquent, except as an expression of indifference.
Perhaps the greatest reading pleasure has an element of self-annihilation. To be so engrossed that you barely know you exist.
No nude, however abstract, should fail to arouse in the spectator some vestige of erotic feeling, even if it be only the faintest shadow - and if it does not do so it is bad art and false morals.
Although I'm deaf in only my left ear, when there is noise all around, I'm unable to distinguish sounds and can't hear anything.
In the western part of England lived a gentleman of large fortune, whose name was Merton.
As a novelist, I suppose I can say that I'm highly articulate. But I know, as a person, in other ways, I'm not always articulate. I think we are all, from time to time, inarticulate, at some level, about some things.
I don't think I'd seen anything like 'The Killing.'
What I've discovered and really confirmed to myself is that opera really likes loud colours, and you need something bold, something savage, unpredictable, passionate. You can't really run a two-hour opera round some muted murmuring.
Comedy tends to come out of things which are quite painful and serious.
I don't regard James Bond precisely as a hero, but at least he does get on and do his duty, in an extremely corny way.
In bad times, the rich usually get richer.
The great advantage about telling the truth is that nobody ever believes it.
I'm a fairly undisciplined writer.
All of my books have the potential to become movies, it's just a question of finding a studio who wants to get behind me and put up the money to make the movie.
None of us feels the true love of God till we realize how wicked we are. But you can't teach people that - they have to learn by experience.
In my experience, those who make the biggest fuss about not spending much at Christmas are generally the ones who buy what they want and eat where they want 12 months a year.
Yet another thing Canadians and Europeans have in common is an obsession with the United States, and with distinguishing themselves from it, often by crude stereotyping.
I make no claim to be an authority on writing or illustrating for children.
Belief consists in accepting the affirmations of the soul; unbelief, in denying them.
The only sin passion can commit is to be joyless.
Everything is becoming science fiction. From the margins of an almost invisible literature has sprung the intact reality of the 20th century.
I think mine is the fullest and most plausible account of what went on in Marie Antoinette's life.
As regards literary culture, it fascinates me that it has been so resilient to the Union. For example, when T.S. Eliot wanted to become poet in these lands, it wasn't as an English poet, it was an Anglian poet he wanted to be.
The idea that the mind can extend even beyond the body is an intriguing one, and is bound to become more pressing as we increasingly develop technologies that augment our natural abilities.
One has to secrete a jelly in which to slip quotations down people's throats - and one always secretes too much jelly.
It's good to get your hands dirty a bit and to test how you see things at a given point. And it's very pleasing after writing something like 'Atonement' or 'On Chesil Beach,' which are historical, to get involved in some plausible re-enactment of the here and now.
Death seems to provide the minds of the Anglo-Saxon race with a greater fund of amusement than any other single subject.
What do we live for, if not to make life less difficult for each other?
The man in gray decided to take the Glen Suite of diamonds at midnight. Provided they were still in the apartment safe and the occupants away. This he needed to know. So he watched and he waited. At half past seven he was rewarded.
Sometimes the wheels of justice grind slowly.
People are intrigued by fame, power and wealth and I think Hollywood is the only place where you get all three together.
I have written 20 books, and each one is like having a baby. Writing is not easy; some people want to write books but just can't put a story together. I can put together a story that interests both me and my readers.
