George Bowden Quotes

I know very little about darkness, Mr Bowden, except that we cannot stop its coming. ~ Anna Freeman

I have always thought it bad manners to let one's fingers stay too long in another man's snuffbox. ~ Anna Freeman

If I lost all, at least I would have played for it. It had always been my philosophy that one must play, or be a loser two-fold. ~ Anna Freeman

Wall Street got drunk and now it's got a hangover. And the question is, how long will it sober up and not try to do those fancy financial instruments? ~ George W. Bush

Sometimes there is no happy choice, Sam, only one less grievous than the others. - Jon Snow ~ George R R Martin

The mere difficulty of getting hold of a house is one of the worst aggravations of poverty. ~ George Orwell

I've been a radio and television news person since I was 19 years old. I'm 57 years old now. But the advantage is that I have studied, investigated, and reported over those years on nearly every major story from wars and recessions to grass roots local issues. ~ George Noory

Between my generation and that of my students is an entire cohort of writers in their 30s and 40s. I think they've suffered most from the climate I'm describing. They prepared for their trade in the traditional way, by reading literature, learning something about history or foreign countries, training as reporters, and developing the habit of thinking in complexity. And now that they've reached their prime, these writers must wonder: Who's the audience for all this? Where did the broad and persuadable public that I always had in mind go? What's the point of preparation and knowledge and painstaking craft, when what the internet wants is volume and speed and the loudest voices? Who still reads books?

Some give in to the prevailing current, and they might enjoy their reward. Those who don't are likely to withdraw. The greatest enemy of writing today might be despair.

From a speech made in January 2020 on receipt of the 2019 Hitchens Prize, also printed as an essay in The Atlantic. ~ George Packer

Something fell and George was off, barking like a mad dog. What if whoever is back there hurts him?
Oh. My. Goodness. If I do die, I can do so happily now. That man's eyes were so blue - and I swore they changed color.
"I made a huge mistake," Jake said as he took the leash off of George. "I said p-i-z-z-a out loud. And he took off at a fast jog all the way back here from the park right through Ms. Helen's sprinklers down the street."
And then nothing…no words entered my brain. I sniffed and quickly nodded, like I was about to cry. "Okay. Right. Amen."
Then I forced myself to slow down and not run back to my seat. ~ Candace Havens

I felt somehow for many years that George Washington and Alexander Hamilton just left me out by mistake. But through the process of amendment, interpretation, and court decision, I have finally been included in 'We, the people.' ~ Barbara Jordan

The secret of directing is working with really good people. ~ George Clooney

When I was coming up, it was a dangerous world, and you knew exactly who they were. It was us versus them, and it was clear who them was. Today, we are not so sure who the they are, but we know they're there. ~ George W. Bush

One might have to be a little ruthless to seize back control of one's life, don't you think? ~ Nina George

The most significant New York club for me was Paradise Garage, where they played house music. This was around '84 or '85. ~ Boy George

A sword of fire! It burns! It burns! A sword of fire! ~ George R R Martin

I am convinced that much more emphasis should be placed on history. The purpose of history is to learn how human beings react when exposed to the danger of wounds or death ... ~ George S. Patton Jr.

The British people think that if someone is disabled, then they should get all the care and support that we can offer. ~ George Osborne

I can't tell you how terribly glad I am that you're going to be all right," George said, rather thickly. "I...I wouldn't know how to act without a twin. ~ Sarah Brazytis

When you know that somebody lost their loved one as a result of a decision that I made, that's a tough moment. If you're a faithful person you try to empathize with the suffering that that person is going through. ~ George W. Bush

By perseverance, study, and eternal desire, any man can become great. ~ George S. Patton

Rich men without convictions are more dangerous in modern society than poor women without chastity. ~ George Bernard Shaw

I'm dancing to the music of the madness inside me. ~ George C. Wolfe

If, in the Judaic perception, the language of the Adamic was that of love, the grammars of fallen man are those of the legal code. ~ George Steiner

A man's feet should be planted in his country, but his eyes should survey the world. ~ George Santayana

Face it, George – unlike cholera, death is the only disease everyone is guaranteed to get.'

Heath nodded slowly. 'But usually only once, Hamish. Usually only once. ~ Nigel Holloway

If all you are going to do in life are the things that are convenient and comfortable, the great things never get done. ~ George Bernard Shaw

I don't think my music's as traditional as people make it out. ~ George Strait

I'm very proud of all the movies I made. I am very happy with everything I've done. I like to watch my movies. Some of them work. Some of them don't. Some of them people like, most of them they don't. ~ George Lucas

The first condition of human goodness is something to love; the second, something to reverence. ~ George Eliot

We don't really know what Iran are capable of when the gun is put to their head ~ George Hamilton

Her clothes were almost dry by the time she reached the gatehouse. The portcullis was down and the gates barred, so she turned aside to a postern door. The gold cloaks who had the watch sneered when she told them to let her in. "Off with you," one said. "The kitchen scraps are gone, and we'll have no begging after dark."

"I'm not a beggar," she said. "I live here."

"I said, off with you. Do you need a clout on the ear to help your hearing?"

"I want to see my father."

The guards exchanged a glance. "I want to fuck the queen myself, for all the good it does me," the younger one said.

The older scowled. "Who's this father of yours, boy, the city ratcatcher?"

"The Hand of the King," Arya told him.

Both men laughed, but then the older one swung his fist at her, casually, as a man would swat a dog. Arya saw the blow coming even before it began. She danced back out of the way, untouched. "I'm not a boy," she spat at them. "I'm Arya Stark of Winterfell, and if you lay a hand on me my lord father will have both your heads on spikes. If you don't believe me, fetch Jory Cassel or Vayon Poole from the Tower of the Hand." She put her hands on her hips. "Now are you going to open the gate, or do you need a clout on the ear to help your hearing? ~ George R.R. Martin

They always seemed to know everything, but now there is only me, and it seems I know nothing, not even my duty. How can I do my duty if I do not know where it lies? - Catelyn ~ George R R Martin

Vladimir Nabokov and George Orwell had quite different gifts, and their self-images were quite different. But, I shall argue, their accomplishment was pretty much the same. Both of them warn the liberal ironist intellectual against temptations to be cruel. Both of them dramatise the tension between private irony and liberal hope.

In the following passage, Nabokov helped blur the distinctions which I want to draw:

...'Lolita' has no moral in tow. For me a work of fiction exists only in so far as it affords me what I shall bluntly call aesthetic bliss, that is a sense of being somehow, somewhere, connected with other states of being where art (curiosity, tenderness, kindness, ecstasy) is the norm. There are not many such books. All the rest is either topical trash or what some call the Literature of Ideas, which very often is topical trash coming in huge blocks of plaster that are carefully transmitted from age to age until somebody comes along with a hammer and takes a good crack at Balzac, at Gorki, at Mann.

Orwell blurred the same distinctions when, in one of his rare descents into rant, "The Frontiers of Art and Propaganda," he wrote exactly the sort of thing Nabokov loathed:

You cannot take a purely aesthetic interest in a disease you are dying from; you cannot feel dispassionately about a man who is about to cut your throat. In a world in which Fascism and Socialism were fighting one another, any thinking person had to take side ~ Richard M. Rorty

What are we doing here? Has something gone wrong?"
"Oh no, Ron," came Fred's voice, very sarcastically. "No, this is exactly where we wanted to end up. ~ J.K. Rowling

Let me tell you how it will be. There's one for you, nineteen for me. Cause I'm the taxman. ~ George Harrison

Patriotism, or the peculiar relation of an individual to his country, is like the family instinct. In the child it is a blind devotion; in the man in intelligent love. The patriot perceives the claim made upon his country by the circumstances and time of her growth and power, and how God is to be served by using those opportunities of helping mankind. Therefore his country's honor is dear to him as his own, and he would as soon lie and steal himself as assist or excuse his country in a crime. ~ George William Curtis

The hotel bar was quiet and dark, with the kind of mood that promotes good talk and serious drinking. ~ George R R Martin

When we see religion split into so many thousand of sects, and I may say Christianity itself divided into its thousands also, who are disputing, anathematizing and where the laws permit burning and torturing one another for abstractions which no one of them understand, and which are indeed beyond the comprehension of the human mind, into which of the chambers of this Bedlam would a man wish to thrust himself.
[Letter to George Logan, 12 November 1816] ~ Thomas Jefferson

All my sons are named George Foreman. They all know where they came from. ~ George Foreman

You know I vowed when I became President not to talk about the loneliest toughest job in the world and I didn't. ~ George H. W. Bush

Hoooodor," said Hodor, swaying. "Hooooooodor, hoooooodor, hoDOR, hoDOR, hoDOR." Sometimes he liked to do this, just saying his name different ways, over and over and over. ~ George R R Martin

My parents were very poor, but we never felt any sense of need or want. It was a very close, loving, tightly-knit family growing up, and I never felt any sense of deprivation or anything like that. ~ George J. Mitchell

Perseverance is persistent insistence. ~ Manuela George-Izunwa

Whenever I hear about parents who have nine or ten children, the only thing I wonder is how they survive the birthday parties. ~ George Carlin

If he does that, he will be the greatest man in the world. ~ George III

A succession of eye-openers each involving the repudiation of some previously held belief. ~ George Bernard Shaw

All men are our brothers. As far as the discovery of the truth is concerned, they are all working for the same purpose; they may be separated by the accidents of space and time, and by the exigencies of race, religion, nationality, and other groupings; from the point of view of eternity they are working together. ~ George Sarton

His Theory of the Universe seems to have been, that it consisted solely of a multitude of objects which could be weighed, numbered, and measured; and the vocation to which he considered himself called was, to weigh, number and measure as many of those objects as his allotted three-score years and ten would permit. This conviction biased all his doings, alike his great scientific enterprises, and the petty details of his daily life. ~ George Wilson