Patrick Hamilton Quotes

[ ... ] at any rate there is nothing in the world more dreary, damping, and obscurely perturbing than to come out of a cinema in the afternoon to a noisy world. ~ Patrick Hamilton

The meal was breakfast: the subject, utility clothing. 'As for the stuff they're turning out for men nowadays,' said Mr Thwaites bitterly, 'I wouldn't give it to my Valet.'

Mr Thwaites' valet was quite an old friend. An unearthly, flitting presence, whose shape, character, age, and appearance could only be dimly conceived, he had been turning up every now and again ever since Miss Roach had known Mr Thwaites. Mostly he was summoned into being as one from whom all second-rate, shoddy, or inferior articles were withheld. But sometimes things were good enough for Mr Thwaites' valet, but would not do for Mr Thwaites. ~ Patrick Hamilton

The feeling of the morning after the night before is not a sensation endured by the dissolute only: every morning, for every human being, is in some sort a morning after the night before... ~ Patrick Hamilton

Dawn, slowly filling Church Street with grey light, disclosed another day of war. Because it did this, this dawn bore no more resemblance to a peace-time dawn than the aspect of nature on a Sunday bears a resemblance to the aspect of nature on a weekday. Thus it seemed that dawn itself had been grimly harnessed to the war effort. ~ Patrick Hamilton

Your mind indeed is tired. Your mind so tired that it can no longer work at all. You do not think. You dream. Dream all day long. Dream everything. Dream maliciously and incessantly. Don't you know that by now? ~ Patrick Hamilton

She was decidedly attractive, he saw, but in an ill-natured, ungracious way. Because of his connection with Fitzgerald, Carstairs & Scott, Johnnie had an extensive knowledge of the external appearance and different modes of behavior of a great variety of attractive women: they came up to the office in shoals, with their nails dipped in blood and their faces covered with pale cocoa. And some were charming and simple beneath their masks, and some were complex and arrogant. This girl belonged to the latter type, the type which would ignore or stare surlily at him if he spoke to them, until they learned that the actual money came through him, when their manner sweetened wonderfully. This girl wore her attractiveness not as a girl should, simply, consciously, as a happy crown of pleasure, but rather as a murderous utensil with which she might wound indiscriminately right and left, and which she would only employ to please when it suited her purpose. They were like bad-tempered street-walkers, without walking the street. ~ Patrick Hamilton

He had been fooled. He had not, after all, had a great time: he had merely been drinking again. ~ Patrick Hamilton

Too much thought is bad for the soul, for art, and for crime. It is also a sign of middle age. ~ Patrick Hamilton

The Law saith, Where is thy righteousness, goodness, and satisfaction? The Gospel saith, Christ is thy righteousness, goodness, and satisfaction. ~ Patrick Hamilton

Though it had no wide reputation, all manner of people frequented 'The Midnight Bell.' This was in its nature, of course, since it is notorious that all manner of people frequent all manner of public-houses - which in this respect resemble railway stations and mad-houses. ~ Patrick Hamilton

What a thing this sleeplessness was!...If sleep, she thought, could be compared to a gentle lake ina dark place, the sleeplessness was a roaring ocean, a raging, wind-buffeted voyage, lit with mad rocket-lights, pursued by wild phantoms from behind, plunging upon fearful rocks ahead, a mad tempest of the past and present and future all in one. Through all this the pale, strenuous mariner must somehow steer a way, until at last the weary dawn, not of sleep, but of resignation to sleeplessness, comes to calm the waters of the mind. ~ Patrick Hamilton

It was not for the piano-tuner to know that in this still, grey, winter-gripped dining-room, this apparent mortuary of desire and passion (in which the lift rumbled and knives and forks scraped upon plates), waves were flowing forward and backward, and through and through, of hellish revulsion and unquenchable hatred! ~ Patrick Hamilton

If he knew anything of her habits, she was certain to be somewhere about. He was not looking for her. He was submitting himself to the possibility of encounter. ~ Patrick Hamilton

There was not even any hope for Miss Roach that Mr. Thwaites would ever die. ~ Patrick Hamilton

...elderly guests were already setting about their business--the business, that is to say, of those who in fact had no business on this earth save that of cautiously steering their respective failing bodies along paths free from discomfort and illness in the direction of the final illness which would exterminate them. ~ Patrick Hamilton

Unto those who have,it shall,uncannily, be given.Unto those who have not,it shall,uncannily,be taken away. ~ Patrick Hamilton

Those entering the Saloon Bar of the 'The Midnight Bell' from the street came through a large door with a fancifully frosted glass pane, a handle like a dumb-bell a brass inscription 'Saloon Bar and Lounge,' and a brass adjuration to Push. Anyone temperamentally so wilful, careless, or incredulous as to ignore this friendly admonition was instantly snubbed, for this door would only succumb to Pushing. Nevertheless hundreds of temperamental people nightly argued with this door and got the worst of it. Given proper treatment, however, it swung back in the most accomplished way, and announced you to the Saloon Bar with a welcoming creak. ~ Patrick Hamilton

Thus looked at from outside, these guests
--in this dead-and-alive dining room, of this dead-and-alive house, of this dead-and-alive street, of this dead-and-alive little town--in grey, dead winter of the deadliest part of the most deadly war in history--thus seen from a detached point of view, they presented an extraordinary spectacle. ~ Patrick Hamilton

They then interviewed us, asking about our love of Qingdao, how we met, why we came. Having learned quickly what they wanted to hear, we answered with the obligatory enthusiasm. Patrick, in especially fine form, waxed the kind of cheesy poetic that put yen-signs in the eyes of the producers. On a seaside boardwalk, for example, they asked him a simple question about the appeal of Qingdao to which he replied with a philosophical metaphor on what he lovingly dubbed, "The Qingdao Mist," a euphemism for the constant polluted haze that enveloped the city. He compared it to the dreamlike state of early love, when all landscapes are a pleasant blur of fuzzy details. I, trying not to laugh, vented my amusement in a wide, photographic smile. ~ Megan Rich

And that's what happened to that show. It started ordinary, it started really rather bad. As I said, there was a review that said, really, we think the commercials are better than the show. And then it gradually developed. ~ Patrick Macnee

You just have to follow your own heart. I listen to so many different kinds of music and at the end of the day you want to make a record that you're super proud of. ~ Richard Patrick

Religion is a set of social and political institutions and spirituality is a private pursuit which may or may not take place in a church setting. ~ D. Patrick Miller

I could have just said I'm good at my job, but I didn't. Didn't want the police thinking I was holding out information when I wasn't. I've got one advantage over a normal homicide detective, I expect it to be a monster. No one ever calls me in if it's just a stabbing, or a hit-and-run. I don't spend a lot of time trying to come up with nice, normal explanations. It means I get to ignore a lot of theories. ~ Laurell K. Hamilton

It's hard for people to get their hands around fame, because it's heady stuff, and you have to look at it as being dangerous explosives, and you have to handle it with care. ~ George Hamilton

I doubt any system that won't reveal its purpose, that only offers promises of a better tomorrow. ~ Peter F. Hamilton

The knights of the theater represented to me not only the pinnacle of the profession but the esteem in which the profession was held. To find myself, to my astonishment, in that company is the grandest thing that has professionally happened to me. ~ Patrick Stewart

Well sir ... some of the officers are sweet on Mrs Oakes.'
'I dare say they are - a very amiable young woman.'
'No, sir. I mean serious - bloody serious - cut-your-throat serious - fucking serious ..."
'Oh.' Jack Aubrey was taken aback entirely. 'But you surely do not mean that last word literally?"
'No, sir. It is just my coarse way of speaking: I beg pardon. ~ Patrick O'Brian

How do you introduce boyfriend C to boyfriend A after boyfriend A has been such a good sport, of late, about boyfriend B, who is no longer in the picture? ~ Laurell K. Hamilton

Very few people see their own actions as truly evil, ... It is left to their victims to decide what is evil and what is not. ~ Laurell K. Hamilton

Yet his own daughters were not outstandingly meek: he thought of their shrill bawling 'Oh Papa, Papa, do come on, Papa. We shall never get up the hill at this rate. Pray, Papa, do not be such a slug.' Early it would have been 'goddam slug', they having caught a free way of speaking from the seamen who formed part of the household, but since the last voyage or two Sophie had taken the matter in hand, and now girlish cries of 'infernal swab' or 'short-arsed cullion' were to be heard only in the remoter parts of Ashgrove wood. ~ Patrick O'Brian

But perhaps most important of all, having too many people on a team makes team dynamics during meetings and other decision-making events almost impossible. That's because a good team has to engage in two types of communication in order to optimize decision making, but only one of these is practical in a large group. According to Harvard's Chris Argyris, those two types of communication are advocacy and inquiry. Basically, advocacy is the statement of ideas and opinions; inquiry is the asking of questions for clarity and understanding. When a group gets too large, people realize they are not going to get the floor back any time soon, so they resort almost exclusively to advocacy. It becomes like Congress (which is not designed to be a team) or the United Nations (ditto). ~ Patrick Lencioni

Dune by Christian Dior. Luca Turin, who wrote a fragrance guide, calls it 'the bleakest beauty in all perfumery.' Here, ~ Denise Hamilton

Losing an arm is kinda lame at one point, but at the same time, so much good has come out of it. ~ Bethany Hamilton

The senseless killing of 20 children and their teachers and principal at Sandy Hook Elementary School was not part of God's grand plan. It was a thwarting of God's plan. It was the misuse of human freedom. ~ Adam Hamilton

I've always prided myself on being myself and trying to stick true to who I am and how I was raised. ~ Patrick Kane

I personally never thought that 'Dallas' would resurrect itself because I didn't think anybody knew how to do it. And it was proven to me on the few attempts that were made. The movie that was going to be done, I read that script, it was atrocious. It was just awful. And I just didn't think anybody understood it anymore. ~ Patrick Duffy

Embrace the change an obstacle forces. That is my advice. ~ Patrick De Haan CPCU

I'm a Golden Globe nominee, yes. It's very nice. It's a very nice thing, but I kind of think of all the awards I wasn't ever nominated for, for years and things. ~ Patrick Marber

The colour books great on her, but she Looks beautiful every day. ~ J. Lynn

Why did the earthquake and tsunami occur in Japan? Was it the act of an angry God? No, it was the result of the movement and collision of the earth's tectonic plates - a process driven by the earth's need to regulate its own internal temperature. Without the process that creates earthquake, our planet could not sustain life. ~ Adam Hamilton

I can't stand it when Lewis Hamilton or anyone else, is made out to be a godlike character. If Lewis was driving for Red Bull I'm sure he would race extremely well, but he'd be battling for points. ~ David Coulthard

I'll ask ye this once," the woman says, lifting the rifle again. "Am I gonna need this?"
I exchange a glance with Viola.
"No," I say.
"No, mam," Viola says.
Mam? I think.
"It's like sir, bonny boy." The woman slings the rifle over her shoulder by its strap. "For if yer a-talking to a lady. ~ Patrick Ness

It's time for democrats to grow a backbone and stand up for what we believe. ~ Deval Patrick

Television has some lovely aspects to it - and some ghastly aspects - but the theater itself was a wonderful invention. ~ Patrick Macnee

Whenever my body heals and the pain and all the swelling goes away is when I'll be ready. ~ Patrick Ewing

Selective memory is surely one of nature's most effective ways of ensuring the survival of our species. ~ Nigel Hamilton

The constitution of our country says that all men are created equal, but it's a lie. I'll never be able to make a jump shot like Magic Johnson, or drive a car like Mario Andretti, or paint like Picasso. We are not created equal in talent. But the place where we are least equal is the heart. You can work at a talent, take lessons, but love, love either works or it doesn't. You love someone or you don't. You can't change it. You can't undo it. - A Lick of Frost ~ Laurell K. Hamilton

To answer the question, what makes a tragedy, is to answer the question wherein lies the essential significance of life, what the dignity of humanity depends upon in the last analysis. Here the tragedians speak to us with no uncertain voice. The great tragedies themselves offer the solution to the problem they propound. It is by our power to suffer, above all, that we are of more value than the sparrows. Endow them with a greater or as great a potentiality of pain and our foremost place in the world would no longer be undisputed. Deep down, when we search out the reason for our conviction of the transcendent worth of each human being, we know that it is because of the possibility that each can suffer so terribly. What do outside trappings matter, Zenith or Elsinore? Tragedy's preoccupation is with suffering. But, ~ Edith Hamilton

The world is cynical and sarcastic, but that doesn't mean that that's always the truth. ~ Patrick Ness

Some issues stay fresh every time you open them up. It's like evil magical Tupperware
it stays fresh forever. ~ Laurell K. Hamilton

People we love must be loved as they are. It is a want both of wisdom and courage on our part - a sort of drug - this wilful blindness, to blame them, because they fail our vision of them ... ~ Mrs. Patrick Campbell