Gaudy Night Quotes

She could have made a much better thing of that, if she had not been afraid of giving herself away. What hampered her was this sense of being in the middle of things, too close to things, pressed upon and bullied by reality. If she could succeed in standing aside from herself she would achieve self-confidence and a better control. ~ Dorothy L. Sayers

The incident had that rich savor of the ludicrous which neither pity nor charity can destroy. Unfortunately, she could not in decency share it with anybody; she could only enjoy it in lonely ecstasies of mirth. ~ Dorothy L. Sayers

What do you want me to do, Peter?"
"Chuck the ball back to me if it runs out of the circle. Not obviously. Just exercise your devastating talent for keeping to the point and speaking the truth."
"That sounds easy."
"It is
for you. That's what I love you for."
Gaudy Night ~ Dorothy L. Sayers

The first thing a principle does is to kill somebody.
Gaudy Night ~ Dorothy L. Sayers

She went to bed thinking more about another person than about herself. This goes to prove that even minor poetry may have its practical uses. ~ Dorothy L. Sayers

Come,
Let's have one other gaudy night. Call to me
All my sad captains. Fill our bowls once more.
Let's mock the midnight bell. ~ William Shakespeare

We live in bloodbath times ... and looks like tonight is bath night. ~ Richard K. Morgan

Ravn had given me much advice and all of it was good, but now, in the night wind, I remembered just one thing he had said to me on the night we first met, something I had never forgotten.
Never, he had said, never fight Ubba. ~ Bernard Cornwell

I haven't been out driving at this time of night in many years, much less in an unfamiliar area. These are the things that scare you as you get older. You understand night all too well, all its attendant meanings. You try to avoid it, work around it, keep it from entering your house. Your weary, ornery body tells you to stay up late, sleep less, keep the lights on, don't go into the bedroom - if you have to sleep, sleep in your chair, at the table. Everything is about avoiding the night. Because of that, I suppose that I should be scared out here in the dark, but I am finally past that, I think.
(p.204) ~ Michael Zadoorian

For those I come from, there is nothing more devouring than the feeling of want for home, the feeling of need for home. We are all waiting for a form of transport, a ship, a saucer to carry us out of the too-dark night. ~ Hannah Lillith Assadi

Colin's head injury had loosened his tongue. First he seemed to know that she wouldn't marry him and why, which she had never discussed with him, then he was saying he had kissed her, which he hadn't, and now he was saying he liked hearing her talk. He had also said last night that her talking sounded cheerful, now that she thought about it. Could he truly think that? This strange conversation was making her heart leap madly. She had to stop thinking these wonderful but confusing things about Colin. She must focus on the task at hand - making sure he was well enough to travel. ~ Melanie Dickerson

There are people who cannot say good-bye
They are born this way/this is how they die
They are the keepers of promises/what moves them does not wear out
Their loyalty will tear apart your clocks

These are the people who can hear the music in songs
They are the Vow carriers
The grandmothers who always leave the porchlight on
No one is lost to the one who sees

These are the women widowed by men they never married
These are the girls who wait even when you don't come
These are the mothers of orphans/They can turn a fake into an original
They will hear the prayer in your self-contempt

As distance is measured/people do not end
It is one of those stories that cannot be written down except across a lifetime of open doors
There is a holding on beyond the letting go
There is a reunion in everybody's chest
This is how we come to make a family from strangers
This is how we light candles

These are people who will remember you when you meet them
These are the people you can always call at night
They are humans turned angels by your asking
With each separation they go to seed again.

These are the men who carried you on their shoulders
This is the one your are lonely for
the one who begins and ends your hunger
This is the man who said "Always"

There is something that does not wear out
It is the third part of any two people ~ Merrit Malloy

It was almost a mystical experience. I do not know how else to put it. My mind outran time as he neared, and it was as though I had an eternity to ponder the approach of this man who was my brother. His garments were filthy, his face blackened, the stump of his right arm raised, gesturing anywhere. The great beast that he rode was striped, black and red, with a wild red mane and tail. But it really was a horse, and its eyes rolled and there was foam at its mouth and its breathing was painful to hear. I saw then that he wore his blade slung across his back, for its haft protruded high above his right shoulder. Still slowing, eyes fixed upon me, he departed the road, bearing slightly toward my left, jerked the reins once and released them, keeping control of the horse with his knees. His left hand went up in a salute-like movement that passed above his head and seized the hilt of his weapon. It came free without a sound, describing a beautiful arc above him and coming to rest in a lethal position out from his left shoulder and slanting back, like a single wing of dull steel with a minuscule line of edge that gleamed like a filament of mirror. The picture he presented was burned into my mind with a kind of magnificence, a certain splendor that was strangely moving. The blade was a long, scythe like affair that I had seen him use before. Only then we had stood as allies against a mutual foe I had begun to believe unbeatable. Benedict had proved otherwise that night. Now that I sa ~ Roger Zelazny

The sun was setting behind a line of trees; it cast a great bird's wing halfway across the field when she finally headed back towards the house. In the warm shade of the first enclosed garden, the datura plants were already releasing pulses of their heady night scent. The coffee aroma of earlier was now a burnt chocolate and earthy spice smell that would deepen with the night. Ellie felt a burning sensation in her nose, like mustard. ~ Deborah Lawrenson

If cheese was a woman, I'd marry her. I'd come home and eat her every night. ~ Solange Nicole

I didn't go to university straight after school. I went at night. ~ Jim Crace

In the harsh veracity of the real world, he was rich, successful, and one of the most desired bachelors in New York - and I was, well, me. A world I hoped wouldn't tear us apart by pointing out just how different our lives were.
"You're probably eager to get home," Jett whispered in my ear so the flight attendant serving coffee wouldn't hear us, "but will you stay with me one more night? I'm not quite ready to let this go. ~ J.C. Reed

This looks very much as if the integration of the day's experience into our memory, the forging of new neural links, is either an easier or a more urgent task. As the night wears on and this function is completed, the more affecting dreams, the more bizarre
material, the fears and lusts and other powerful emotions of the
dream material emerge. ~ Carl Sagan

I am fluent in snark.
Bethany only notices snark when snark grabs her off the sidewalk, throws her in the back of a sketchy van with tinted windows, drives to the middle
of the Meadow-lands in the dead of night, and uses a heavy blunt instrument
to smack her repeatedly about the head as it screams, "I'M SNARK. DO YOU FUCKING HEAR ME? I'M SNARKY SNARKY SNARK!" And even then she's like, "Ohhhh? Snark? Is that you? ~ Megan McCafferty

It wouldn't have to be sunny
It wouldn't have to be anything else then just that
It would really simplify my walk home at night,
where every thought I think is some contrived line I repeat over and over to myself
Words are always just replaced with new ones
The pictures would never need to know otherwise ~ Jackie Clark

It takes a long time to drag myself out of bed, and at night I'm buzzing. As a young man it was helpful, but now I'd like to be tired when I go to bed and alive in the morning. ~ David Morrissey

I was soon discharged from the rehab center and sent back to the SAS. But the doctor's professional opinion was that I shouldn't military parachute again. It was too risky. One dodgy landing, at night, in full kit, and my patched-up spine could crumple.
He didn't even mention the long route marches carrying huge weights on our backs.
Every SF soldier knows that a weak back is not a good opener for life in an SAS squadron.
It is also a cliché just how many SAS soldiers' backs and knees are plated and pinned together, after years of marches and jumps. Deep down I knew the odds weren't looking great for me in the squadron, and that was a very hard pill to swallow.
But it was a decision that, sooner or later, I would have to face up to. The doctors could give me their strong recommendations, but ultimately I had to make the call.
A familiar story. Life is all about our decisions. And big decisions can often be hard to make.
So I thought I would buy myself some time before I made it.
In the meantime, at the squadron, I took on the role of teaching survival to other units. I also helped the intelligence guys while my old team were out on the ground training.
But it was agony for me. Not physically, but mentally: watching the guys go out, fired up, tight, together, doing the job and getting back excited and exhausted. That was what I should have been doing.
I hated sitting in an ops room making tea for intelligence officers.
I tried ~ Bear Grylls

Now, money, for the night is coming. Money for my hair, money for my teeth, money for shoes that won't deform my feet (it's not so easy now to walk around in cheap shoes with very high heels), money for good clothes, money, money. The night is coming. ~ Jean Rhys

Please. Don't try and play games with me. It's belittling. I'm not stupid - I can spot a wolf in sheep's clothing when I see one - and your claws are showing. -Enoch Michelson ~ S.G. Night

I don't have time for any special skin routines. Many a night I go to bed with the gloppy mascara and all. ~ Keri Russell

The seasons come and go, summer follows spring and fall follows summer and winter follows fall, and human beings are born and mature, have their middle age, begin to grow older and die, and everything has its cycles. Day follows night, night follows day. It is good to be part of all of this.' When you begin to have that kind of trust in basic creativity and directness and fullness, in the alive quality of yourself and your world, then you can begin to understand renunciation. ~ Pema Chodron

Since that night I have come to understand that sometimes the best families of all are those we create ourselves, the people we choose to be with. ~ Silas House

He was the spark, twinkle and gleam of the stars and she was merely the dark night sky behind that allowed him to shine in contrast. She was stupid for ever thinking otherwise. ~ Ali Harper

Ben and I live like hermits. The night of a concert, we'll be like, 'Do you think we can get tickets?' And everybody is like, 'No, why didn't you do this earlier?' ~ Melissa McCarthy

On the way to Santa Cruz Dirk and Duck stopped along the coast to surf. They stopped so many times to surf and eat (they finished the avocado sandwiches in the first fifteen minutes and bought sunflower seeds, licorice, peaches, and Foster's Freeze soft ice cream along the way) that they didn't get to Santa Cruz until late that night. ~ Francesca Lia Block

Joe Louis was one of my closest friends ... I'm a great boxing fan. I used to go to the American Legion Stadium in Hollywood, every Friday night for 15 years. Down the aisle would come Lupe Velez, Johnny Weismuller, Mae West. All at ringside. ~ Mickey Rooney

Give me all of you for one night, no holding back. Please, Chloe, I'll leave you alone after that but I haven't seen you in almost two weeks and ... I just need tonight. ~ Christina Lauren

Ensorcelled by that belling resonance, Conan crouched forgetful of all else, until its hypnotic power caused a strange replacement of faculties and perception, and sound created the illusion of sight. Conan was no longer aware of the voice, save as far-off rhythmical waves of sound. Transported beyond his age and his own individuality, he was seeing the transmutation of the being men called Khosatral Khel which crawled up from Night and the Abyss ages ago to clothe itself in the substance of the material universe. ~ Robert E. Howard

Out in the world not much happened. But here in the special night, a land bricked with paper and leather anything might happen, always did. ~ Ray Bradbury

That was the only decision there was once upon a time: what to do with the night. ~ Harry Crews

What came next wasn't exactly silence, because although it was quiet, a thousand things were being said. I hated that part about an unhappy household--that feeling of being perched and listening, the way an animal must feel at night in the dark, assessing danger. ~ Deb Caletti

You're not very fond of your room by day. You never think about it. You're in and out, the door opens and slams, the cupboard creaks. You sit down on the side of your bed, change your shoes and dash out again. A dive down to the glass, two pins in your hair, powder your nose and off again. But now–at night time- it's suddenly dear to you. It's a darling little funny room. It's yours. Oh, what a joy it is to own things! ~ Katherine Mansfield

I could have knocked him out in the 3rd round but I wanted to do it slowly, So he would remember this night for a long time. ~ Mike Tyson

No," said Luis, "You can't date the Lord of the Night Court."
"Well, I'm not, he dumped me."
"You can't get dumped by the lord of the night court."
"Oh, yes, you can. You so completely can. ~ Holly Black

While most branches of science have ascended in this era, the field of astrophysics persistently rises to the top. I think I know why. At one time or another every one of us has looked up at the night sky and wondered: What does it all mean? How does it all work? And, what is my place in the universe? ~ Neil DeGrasse Tyson

Then the sun came up and shook the night chill out of the air the way you'd shake a rug. ~ John Steinbeck

Our troops are terrorizing women and children in the dark of night in Iraq. ~ John F. Kerry

I felt once again the unease of arriving at night in an unknown city
that faint sour panic which seems to cling to a place until one has found oneself a bed. ~ Laurie Lee

Raising the flag and singing the anthem are, while somewhat suspicious, not in themselves acts of treason. ~ Terry Pratchett

Poetic Terrorism
WEIRD DANCING IN ALL-NIGHT computer-banking lobbies. Unauthorized pyrotechnic displays. Land-art, earth-works as bizarre alien artifacts strewn in State Parks. Burglarize houses but instead of stealing, leave Poetic-Terrorist objects. Kidnap someone & make them happy. Pick someone at random & convince them they're the heir to an enormous, useless & amazing fortune--say 5000 square miles of Antarctica, or an aging circus elephant, or an orphanage in Bombay, or a collection of alchemical mss. ...
Bolt up brass commemorative plaques in places (public or private) where you have experienced a revelation or had a particularly fulfilling sexual experience, etc.
Go naked for a sign.
Organize a strike in your school or workplace on the grounds that it does not satisfy your need for indolence & spiritual beauty.
Graffiti-art loaned some grace to ugly subways & rigid public monuments--PT-art can also be created for public places: poems scrawled in courthouse lavatories, small fetishes abandoned in parks & restaurants, Xerox-art under windshield-wipers of parked cars, Big Character Slogans pasted on playground walls, anonymous letters mailed to random or chosen recipients (mail fraud), pirate radio transmissions, wet cement...
The audience reaction or aesthetic-shock produced by PT ought to be at least as strong as the emotion of terror-- powerful disgust, sexual arousal, superstitious awe, sudden intuitive break ~ Hakim Bey

What will I write in this beautiful book?
She carried the book to class for the rest of the day, and that night she put it under her pillow, still blank. She liked it blank right now, liked to know that it was waiting, listening. Just like her friends. ~ Simone St. James

Peachy. Alrighty, then. She'd just get in her car, run home to check her clothes, hair, and makeup, walk across the street to Jason's apartment, knock on his door, stare at his masculine hotness in stupid adoration, probably insert her foot into her mouth fifty-five times in under five minutes, then go back to her place and relive the embarrassment all night long while replaying what she should've done or said had she been a sophisticated woman, instead of a blundering moron.
Done and done. Piece of cake. ~ Kelly Moran

Pagans they were into sex, death, and religion in an interesting night-time telly type of way. ~ Eddie Izzard