Brigid Brophy Quotes

The bull-fighter has merely demonstrated that he is a butcher with balletic tendencies. ~ Brigid Brophy

We Irish had the right word on the tip of our tongue, but the imperialist got at that. What should trip off it we trip over. ~ Brigid Brophy

Sentimentalist is the abuse with which people counter the accusation that they are cruel, thereby implying that to be sentimental is worse than to be cruel, which it isn't. ~ Brigid Brophy

The popular distinction between 'constructive' and 'destructive' criticism is a sentimentality: the mind too weak to perceive in what respects the bad fails is not strong enough to appreciate in what the good succeeds. To be without discrimination is to be unable to praise. The critic who lets you know that he always looks for something to like in works he discusses is not telling you anything about the works or about art; he is saying 'see what a nice person I am. ~ Brigid Brophy

Was it Brigid Brophy who gave up on a certain Virginia Woolf novel when she discovered that Woolf believed one needed a corkscrew to open a bottle of champagne? ~ David Markson

A medical profession founded on callousness to the pain of the other animals may eventually destroy its own sensibility to the pain of humans. ~ Brigid Brophy

The fact that there are bigger injustices and wrongs doesn't make it right to sacrifice an innocent monkey. It doesn't alter the case at all. ~ Brigid Brophy

To argue that we humans are capable of complex multifarious thought and feeling, whereas the sheep's perception is probably limited by lowly sheepish perceptions, is no more to the point than if I were to slaughter and eat you on the grounds that I am a sophisticated personality able to enjoy Mozart, formal logic and cannibalism, whereas your imaginative world seems confined to True Romances and tinned spaghetti. ~ Brigid Brophy

To us it seems incredible that the Greek philosophers should have scanned so deeply into right and wrong and yet never noticed the immorality of slavery. Perhaps 3000 years from now it will seem equally incredible that we do not notice the immorality of our own oppression of animals. ~ Brigid Brophy

By the age of three ... I was already an addicted reader. I still crave daily immersion in experience other than my own; (it needn't be more pleasant, exciting or illuminating
merely other) and I still fall into books as though into catalepsy. ~ Brigid Brophy

O I'm so afraid that it's true about to travel hopefully being better than to arrive. It might be all in the quest, all in the search, all in the anticipation. When it came, there might be nothing there. ~ Brigid Brophy

Whenever people say, 'We mustn't be sentimental,' you can take it they are about to do something cruel. And if they add, 'We must be realistic,' they mean they are going to make money out of it. ~ Brigid Brophy

I told some imprecisely imagined interlocutor that each year I hoped to have outgrown being moved by the autumn and each year I hadn't ~ Brigid Brophy

I don't myself believe that, even when we fulfill our minimum obligations not to cause pain, we have the right to kill animals. I know I would not have the right to kill you, however painlessly, just because I liked your flavour, and I am not in a position to judge that your life is worth more to you than the animal's to it. ~ Brigid Brophy

Writer Brigid Brophy exposes [their motives] with great precision:
"Whenever people say 'We mustn't be sentimental,' you can take it they are about to do something cruel. And if they add 'We must be realistic,' they mean they are going to make money out of it. These slogans have a long history. After being used to justify slave traders, ruthless industrialists, and contractors who had found that the most economically 'realistic' method of cleaning a chimney was to force a small child to climb it, they have now been passed on, like an heirloom, to the factory farmers. 'We mustn't be sentimental' tries to persuade us that factory farming isn't, in fact, cruel. It implies that the whole problem had been invented by our sloppy imaginations. ~ Peter Cox

When sonneteering Wordsworth re-creates the landing of Mary Queen of Scots at the mouth of the Derwent -
Dear to the Loves, and to the Graces vowed,
The Queen drew back the wimple that she wore
- he unveils nothing less than a canvas by Rubens, baroque master of baroque masters; this is the landing of a TRAGIC Marie de Medicis.
Yet so receptive was the English ear to sheep-Wordsworth's perverse 'Enough of Art' that it is not any of these works of supreme art, these master-sonnets of English literature, that are sold as picture postcards, with the text in lieu of the view, in the Lake District! it is those eternally, infernally sprightly Daffodils. ~ Brigid Brophy

In a sense, the first (if not necessarily the prime) function of a novelist, of ANY artist, is to entertain. If the poem, painting, play or novel does not immediately engage one's surface interest then it has failed. Whatever else it may or may not be, art is also entertainment. Bad art fails to entertain. Good art does something in addition. ~ Brigid Brophy

The person who kills for fun is announcing that, could he get away with it, he'd kill you for fun. Your ... life may be of no consequence to anyone else but is invaluable to you because it's the only one you've got. Exactly the same is true of each individual deer, hare, rabbit, fox, fish, pheasant and butterfly. Humans should enjoy their own lives, not taking others'. ~ Brigid Brophy

The best thing a society can do is ensure its children are taken care of. ~ Brigid Schulte

Irish grabbed her hand and kept the water directed at the wall. His voice cam across her radio. "Hannah. Wait. What do you see?"
She stared. She saw fire. A lot of fire.
But then a pattern started to emerge. "A message?" She guessed. Then she looked mroe closelt. "A star? What does that mean?"
"That's not a star," said Irish. "But it's definitely a message."
"It's not a star?"
He let go of the hose, the water streaked across the flames on the floor.
"No," he said. "That's a pentagram. ~ Brigid Kemmerer

She was starting to get a little breathless from trailing Casper, though the guys weren't having any trouble. "How far have we gone? Like three miles?"
Gabriel gave her a look. "Like one."
So she needed more cardio. ~ Brigid Kemmerer

Failed a physics test," Nick said.
"You know how I solve that problem?" Said his twin. "I don't take physics. ~ Brigid Kemmerer

Choices are never easy. There are good and bad options, but the most dangerous is to not make any choice at all. ~ Brigid Kemmerer

Becca pressed her face against his shoulder again, and he knew he wasn´t going anywhere.
"You keep saving me", she said.
"Yeah, well." He stroked the hair down her back.
"I think we might be close to breaking even on that. ~ Brigid Kemmerer

Hello, Aaron," Brigid said, sliding up to him and running a finger down his chest. "You're
looking good .
. as always."
Aaron lifted her finger off his shirt and let it drop. "Put some clothing on, Brigid."
She smiled up at him. "Why? Tempted?"
"Yeah, to cover my eyes. ~ Kelley Armstrong

Oh, you can't back out now. I already texted Adam that you'll be there."

His head swung around. "You what?"

"He's looking forward to it. See?" She held up her phone.

A smiley face.

A smiley face? Nick had no idea what that meant. Was that casual happy? Excited happy? An obligatory response that didn't mean anything? It wasn't even a D smiley. It was one of the parenthesis ones.

God, he was trying to puzzle out the hidden meaning of the punctuation in a frigging emoticon.

"You look nervous," said Quinn.

He shrugged. ~ Brigid Kemmerer

Can you fly?"

She couldn't keep the hushed wonder from her voice, and Nick smiled. "No. Too much weight. I can't focus the air pressure enough for that."

"What does air pressure have to do with anything?"

"Are you kidding? Air pressure is awesome."

She rolled her eyes. "You are such a nerd sometimes. You're lucky you're hot or you couldn't get away with saying things like air pressure is awesome."

"Seriously. Air pressure affects everything. Haven't you ever heard the expression nature abhors a vacuum?" He grinned.

"Actually, we were doing this experiment in class once where Dr. Cutter was trying to prove a point with a balloon, but I kept making it pop - "

"You are the only person alive who would use superpowers to be more dorky."

"They're not superpowers."

That sounded a lot like the difference between to-MAY-to and to-MAH-to to Quinn. ~ Brigid Kemmerer

So, Chris," he said. "You couldn't make a smaller cut?"
Nick's eyes were closed, but he smiled."Chris asked me to bite him first."
Gabriel gave him a disguested look."You are one sick bastard."
"I was desperate." Chris smiled, too, but then he dropped it. "Desperate people do crazy things. ~ Brigid Kemmerer

When need something really aggressive, outrageous and not done half-way, I feel like I'm your girl. ~ Brigid Brannagh

Never is okay, you know," he murmurs.

I draw back a bit. "What?"

"You said 'not yet.'" He looks at me. "I'll leave it up to you. But 'never' is okay, too, Jules. Never is always okay. ~ Brigid Kemmerer

His expression changed, and he took a step back. He looked away. "When you said it was broken, you were just being-"
"No! It is. My phone. Broken." Now she sounded like Yoda on crack. ~ Brigid Kemmerer

a picture wasn't worth anything if it didn't produce a reaction, that it takes talent to capture feeling with an image. ~ Brigid Kemmerer

I have trashed the to-do list to help my brain. ~ Brigid Schulte

Scared of storms?"
She jumped. The voice had come from behind her, and she forced her hands to her sides, ready to feign nonchalance. "No," she lied, starting to turn. "I'm just - "
Face-to-face with hotness.
Her tongue stumbled for a minute. She'd seen the Merrick twins around school, of course. But catching a glimpse down the hall wasn't the same as being six inches away from one of them, getting an eyeful of the way his long-sleeve tee clung to muscled shoulders, or of the faint shadow of stubble along his jaw, or the depth of blue in his eyes.
Eyes that studied her a little too closely just now, a spark of amusement there. ~ Brigid Kemmerer

Nick wanted to shove him off the bed and kick him in the face. Not aggressive, my ass. ~ Brigid Kemmerer

As work weeks get longer and leisure time shrinks, people are becoming sicker, more distracted, absent, unproductive, and less innovative. ~ Brigid Schulte

I loved playing Sasha. You don't have this on every job, or every show or movie, but every day was really an adventure, character wise, for what I got to do at that age. ~ Brigid Brannagh

I'm a big believer in education. If people learn the truth, they'll see the benefit if they have gender neutral policies. ~ Brigid Schulte

They do not kiss
but they both want to
instead their feet touch and so do their arms
it is electric magic
their tiny arm hairs tingling
happily lying together
the sun warming them
watching sky through green-leafed gum branch
close enough to hear each other breathe
sweet togetherness
this lazy lying down dance of love ~ Brigid Lowry

Mom!" Becca stared at her. "You think - you think I'm dating Michael?"
Her mom stared back at her, obviously thrown. "You're not?"
This would be hilarious if her mom didn't look so serious.
"Oh my god," cried Becca. "Are you kidding? Michael is the last person I would ever - oh my god. I wouldn't go out with him if someone paid me. Ugh, that's just - "
"You know I can hear you, right?" called Michael. ~ Brigid Kemmerer

Hunter held out the gun, stock first. "You want to just shoot me and save Dad the time?"
Jay smiled and took the weapon, checking the magazine before putting it back on the wall. "He's not going to shoot you."
"That would be too quick? ~ Brigid Kemmerer

One of the Merrick twins was asleep in the recliner on the other side of the room. His T-shirt said I Google Myself.

Gabriel.

Hunter wasn't sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing. ~ Brigid Kemmerer

If you can't fix what's wrong, you focus on what you can make right. ~ Brigid Kemmerer

She held his eyes. "Truth."
"How did Taylor get you to that party, really?" He gave her a quick once-over. "Especially looking like that."
She shifted to look out at the darkness. "I changed my mind. Dare."
Gabriel slid his cell phone out of his picket and held it out. "Okay. Here. I dare you to call your father and tell him you're sitting in a dark parking lot with me."
"Ooooh." She glared up at him without any real malice. "I don't think I like this game."
He smiled. "Come on, pony up. ~ Brigid Kemmerer

In the Middle Ages, the sin of sloth had two forms," he said. "One was paralysis, the inability to do anything - what we would see as lazy. But the other side was something called acedia - running about frantically. The sense that, 'There's no real place I'm going, but by God, I'm making great time getting there. ~ Brigid Schulte

It is not the moment of passing that is most important. It is all the moments that came before. ~ Brigid Kemmerer

You're so damn worried about what everyone else wants. Well, you know what, Nick? You're going to disappoint people sometimes. You just are. And you know what else? They're either going to get over it or they're not. If they don't, it sucks. But it's not going to kill them, and it's sure not going to kill you. ~ Brigid Kemmerer

The terrible thing about sunlight is it shows the dirt. ~ Brigid Berlin

Michael will go ballistic if you start a fire up here again." "Michael needs to switch to decaf. ~ Brigid Kemmerer

I pissed off Quinn, and probably chased her into the arms of a psychopath. Oh, and I made out with another guy. It's a miracle our clothes stayed on. ~ Brigid Kemmerer

[The Pigeon had learned something about [women] from his eight sisters, and if over the years he had absorbed only this one thing, it would stand as vindication that a boy does not suffer needlessly from growing up in a house with eight sisters. That thing was that a woman's heart is not bought by the currency of a man's emotion for her. A woman's heart is won over by her own feelings for herself when he just happens to be around ... ~ Brigid Pasulka

Wait a minute," said Gabriel. "Someone knows what the secret tattoo says?"
Hunter gave him a look. "It´s not a secret. It´s on my arm."
"Enough with the suspense already. What does it say?"
"Nothing important," said Hunter.
The nurse smiled and released the pressure in the cuff. "It says ,
The first day you meet, you are friends. The next day, you are brothers."
Gabriel lost the smile. Then he clapped Hunter on the shoulder.
Hunter frowned at him. "What was that for?"
"Brotherhood," he said. "Welcome to the family. ~ Brigid Kemmerer