Gaudy Night Quotes
"Thou blind man’s mark, thou fool’s self-chosen snare, Fond fancy’s scum, and dregs of scattered thought."
"Desire! Desire! I have too dearly bought With price of mangled mind, thy worthless ware."
"Memory peopled the quad with moving figures."
"It was all so long ago; so closely encompassed and complete; so cut off as by swords from the Bitter years that lay between."
"But, by God! I won’t be a coward. I’ll go and be damned to it."
"No one can bathe in the same river twice, not even in the Isis."
"We can only know what things are of overmastering importance when they have overmastered us."
"A ploughshare is a nobler object than a razor. But if your natural talent is for barbering, wouldn’t it be better to be a barber?"
"And at any rate, the women are no worse than the men."
"What with young men and motor-cars and parties, their lives are so much fuller than they were before the War."
"The present lot are the real War-time generation, you know."
"Learning and literature have a way of outlasting the civilization that made them."
"One can’t go back to things. One gets out of touch and one’s brain gets rusty."
"Nobody likes being pitied. Most of us enjoy self-pity, but that’s another thing."
"If you ever find a person who likes you in spite of it-still more, because of it-that liking has very great value."
"I think it’s rather an impertinence to pity people."
"I suppose marriage is the really important job, isn’t it?"
"I was meditating on the impenetrability of the human countenance."
"The great man, on the other hand, could marry where he liked, not being restricted to great women."
"Being a great father is either a very difficult or a very sadly unrewarded profession."
"All women are sensitive to male criticism. Men are not sensitive to female criticism. They despise the critics."
"A woman may achieve greatness, or at any rate great renown, by merely being a wonderful wife and mother."
"I dare say you noticed there was a wretched newspaper paragraph about that bonfire in the quad last November."
"What is being said is that your experience in these affairs is-if anything-a disadvantage."
"No doubt my own life has been blameless as far as the more generous sins are concerned."
"I'm afraid they re not much use to me. They're really quite undecipherable."
"You have contrived to cast the Apple of Discord among us with a vengeance."
"But surely there are no men running about the college at night." – Harriet
"One’s mind on the job. Yes. What am I doing, letting my mind stray all over the place. Is this a job, or isn’t it?" – Harriet
"It’s disquieting to reflect that one’s dreams never symbolize one’s real wishes, but always something Much Worse." – Harriet
"If I really wanted to be passionately embraced by Peter, I should dream of something like dentists or gardening." – Harriet
"The modern idea is that young people should discipline themselves. But do they?" – The Librarian
"In my day, we simply thirsted for responsibility." – The Dean
"It’s a great thing to know your own limitations." – Harriet
"If you must take your drink like a man the least you can do is to carry it like a gentleman." – Harriet
"I’m not a visitor," said Mr. Pomfret, "I’ve been attending Miss Hillyard’s lecture on Constitutional Developments."
"Dark and true and tender is the North." – Mr. Pomfret
"Get that made up at the chemist’s, and bring it back. I’m damned if I want to go myself and ask for a recipe for hobnailed liver."
"Where did you learn that one?" said he. "Not at Oxford."
"He had the appeal of a very young dog of a very large breed-a kind of amiable absurdity."
"I know, I know," said Mr. Pomfret, disconsolately. "You’re fed up with the sight of me, and no wonder."
"I suppose so," said Mr. Farringdon, rather ungraciously. "There’ll be an awful crowd anyway."
"Couldn’t you both come along, then, afterwards?" said Mr. Farringdon.
"You seem to be very much interested in my affairs. Miss Vane."
"What’s the sense of it?" said Harriet. "You have contrived to commit every crime in the calendar and got dashed little fun out of it, haven’t you?"
"If," said Harriet, "you hadn’t, by this silly piece of work, contrived to clear yourself of the suspicion of being the College lunatic, I should go to the Dean."
"If you learn how to tackle your subject-any subject-you’ve learnt how to tackle all subjects."
"But schoolmistresses and parents are such jugginses."
"Let’s hear about this. Just come back here a minute, will you?" He stretched out a powerful arm, and yanked the reluctant Jukes over the threshold.
"None of that," said Jukes. "I ain’t a-going to have my character took away."
"If ever you show your dirty face here again," said Mr. Pomfret, opening the door, "I’ll kick you downstairs and right through the quad."
"Whew!" exclaimed Mr. Pomfret, returning. "By jove! that was great!"
"All this running round and busting rules is rot," said Mr. Rogers. "Why do we do it?"
"The worst of being a job," said Miss de Vine, "is the devastating effect it has on one’s character."
"I suppose one oughtn’t to marry anybody, unless one’s prepared to make him a full-time job."
"You mightn’t think it to look at him, but it’s there. (Shall we try these on the carp? I don’t think they’re really fit for human consumption.)"
"You needn’t think you will get away with it."
"You deserve to fail and I shall see that you do."
"What’s the good of pretending that you put the interests of the College first, when you hesitate for two whole terms about getting rid of a dishonest porter, because you’re so sorry for his family?"
"It’s nice to sit out in the open air in this lovely weather," suggested Miss Chilperic, almost apologetically.
"To that still centre where the spinning world sleeps on its axis."
"Who complains of want? of wounds? of cares? of great men’s oppressions? of captivity? whilst he sleepeth?"
"Beggars in their beds take as much pleasure as kings."
"Can we therefore surfeit on this delicate Ambrosia."
"Do but consider what an excellent thing sleep is: it is so inestimable a jewel that, if a tyrant would give his crown for an hour’s slumber, it cannot be bought."
"What the devil do they mean by doing a thing like that?"
"It’s pleasant to meet old friends. And very salutary."
"Lord, teach us to take our hearts and look them in the face, however difficult it may be."
"He that questioneth much shall learn much, and content much; but especially if he apply his questions to the skill of the persons whom he asketh."
"Go tell that witty fellow, my godson, to get home. It is no season to fool it here!"
"The only ethical principle which has made science possible is that the truth shall be told all the time."
"The great advantage about telling the truth is that nobody ever believes it."
"The expressions 'manly' and 'womanly' should be almost more offensive than their opposites."
"I have tried if I could reach that great resolution, to be honest without a thought of heaven or hell."
"The real tragedy is not the conflict of good with evil but of good with good."
"A bad picture by a good painter is a betrayal of truth - his own truth."
"What does it matter if it hurts? Let them fight it out. Unattractive; but if he meant what he said, it explained a great many things."
"I seem to be a perfect mill-stone tied round your neck, and the sooner I clear out the better."
"The heroines of thrillers deserve all they get. When a mysterious voice rings them up and says it is Scotland Yard, they never think of ringing back to verify the call."
"It’s no good you making a noise, gentlemen. The Dean ain’t a-coming down tonight."
"I do excel thee in my rapier, as much as thou didst excel me in carrying gates. I am in love, too."
"Oh, for goodness’ sake! If you’re going to be morbid about it, it certainly would be better for you if you did clear out."
"I can’t be disgraced like this in my own quad. Frankly, I can’t afford it."
"Mine is only a balance of opposing forces. What does it matter if it hurts like hell, so long as it makes a good book?"
"I have been running away from myself for twenty years, and it doesn’t work."
"I suppose any decently grateful person would give him what he wants… But it wouldn’t be much gratitude to make him miserable."
"What the devil possessed me to bring him to Oxford?… Yes-and I thought it would be so nice to retire to Oxford…"
"Never-not even in those later dizzying moments on the river-had she considered him primarily as a male animal, or calculated the promise implicit in the veiled eyes, the long, flexible mouth, the curiously vital hands."
"Six centuries of possessiveness, fastened under the yoke of urbanity."
"If all the pens that ever poets held had had the feeling of their masters’ thoughts, they could not recite as much solid fact as you can hold in a pair of callipers."
"I don’t think I did it in malice. I hope not. But I was bitterly unkind to her."
"A fact is a fact, and your state of mind won’t alter it by a hair’s breadth."
"Are you going to be afraid of the facts? And you a scholar?"
"Let’s go now and have the truth at all hazards."
"How quietly Annie had taken Peter’s warning."
"To subdue one’s self to one’s own ends might be dangerous, but to subdue one’s self to other people’s ends was dust and ashes."
"Compression of the big blood-vessels there will cause almost instant unconsciousness."
"I say you can’t do it… You beasts, I’d kill myself first."
"You’re fit for nothing but to keep your hands white and father other men’s children."
"I’m not afraid. I did nothing but stand up for my own flesh and blood."