Piers Quotes

There are many different ways of categorizing news. It doesn't have to be just war and famine and serious politics. ~ Piers Morgan

Three miles long and two streets wide, the town curls around the bay ... a gaudy run with Mediterranean splashes of color, crowded steep-pitched roofs, fishing piers and fishing boats whose stench of mackerel and gasoline is as aphrodisiac to the sensuous nose as the clean bar-whisky smell of a nightclub where call girls congregate. ~ Norman Mailer

Thank you," Betsie went on serenely, "for the fleas and for-"

The fleas! This was too much. "Betsie, there's no way even God can make me grateful for a flea."

"Give thanks in all circumstances," she quoted. "It doesn't say, 'in pleasant circumstances.' Fleas are part of this place where God has put us."

And so we stood between piers of bunks and gave thanks for fleas. But this time I was sure Betsie was wrong. ~ Corrie Ten Boom

We do eventually get dressed and look for food, although we only make it to the dining room in time for lunch. Egeria accepts her ousting as Alpha Sinta without a hint of anger or regret. Clearly, it's what she was expecting all along. Piers is away on a recruitment trip, but the rest of the family is here and overjoyed by our wedding announcement. Jocasta decrees that we have to go shopping, now, and Kaia bounces in her seat, beyond excited about any outing that will actually get her on the other side of the castle gate.

Shopping requires money, so I dig around in Griffin's pocket under the table, letting my fingers wander enough for him to nearly choke on his stew. I find four gold coins and hold on to them. "You never pay me."

He looks aghast. "I can't pay you anymore."

"We're about to get married. No one's going to confuse me with a prostitute."

Kaia spits out a grape. It bounces across the table and then lands in her mother's lap. Kaia slaps her hand over her mouth, her blue-gray eyes huge, and Nerissa gives her a quelling look. The look finishes on me, and I might have felt a little quelled myself if Carver hadn't suddenly made a noise like a donkey, finally belting out the laugh he'd been holding back.

Anatole bangs his hand down on the table and bursts out laughing. He sounds like a donkey, too. It's contagious, and the whole table erupts, snorting and braying until most of us are wiping tears from our eyes. I sha ~ Amanda Bouchet

Here I love you and the horizon hides you in vain.
I love you still among these cold things.
Sometimes my kisses go on those heavy vessels
that cross the sea towards no arrival.
I see myself forgotten like those old anchors.
The piers sadden when the afternoon moors there.
My life grows tired, hungry to no purpose.
I love what I do not have. You are so far.
My loathing wrestles with the slow twilights.
But night comes and starts to sing to me. ~ Pablo Neruda

How many people similarly spent their lives searching for their own spells - some gratuitous benefit such as a silver tree or political power or undeserved acclaim - when all they really needed was to be satisfied with what they already had? Sometimes what they had was better than what they thought they wanted. ~ Piers Anthony

One thing you who had secure or happy childhoods should understand about those of us who did not. We who control our feelings, who avoid conflicts at all costs, or seem to seek them. Who are hypersensitive, self-critical, compulsive, workaholic, and above all survivors. We are not that way from perversity, and we cannot just relax and let it go. We've learned to cope in ways you never had to. ~ Piers Anthony

Sins become more subtle as you grow older: you commit sins of despair rather than of lust. ~ Piers Paul Read

The Thames Shouldered its way past Blackfriars Bridge, impatient with the ancient piers, no longer the passive stream that slid past Chelsea Marina, but a rush of ugly water that had scented the open sea and was ready to make a run for it. ~ J.G. Ballard

At the time I wrote Xone I had never been on the Internet. ~ Piers Anthony

I'm not saying don't do the work you got, but instead of this two hours of watching TV at the hotel lobby or this three hours of sitting under the pier and reading comic books or worrying about what you're doing ... what value do you have? Can you read? There are people out there who can't read - go read to them. ~ Andy Andrews

Eight hundred and more years later, more than three and a half thousand miles away, and now more than one thousand years ago, a storm fell upon our ancestors' city like a bomb. Their childhoods slipped into the water and were lost, the piers built of memories on which they once ate candy and pizza, the boardwalks of desire under which they hid from the summer sun and kissed their first lips. The roofs of houses flew through the night sky like disoriented bats, and the attics where they stored their past stood exposed to the elements until it seemed that everything they once were had been devoured by the predatory sky. Their secrets drowned in flooded basements and they could no longer remember them. Their power failed them. Darkness fell. ~ Salman Rushdie

Materialism and consumerism are merely emergent properties of our neurobiology given free rein in a free market. ~ Piers Steel

Most of the men that sue in Hollywood are all about 5' 2'. They wake up every day, know they're tiny and feel very angry about it, so they go out and sue people. ~ Piers Morgan

Some people wait so long for their ship to come in, their pier collapses. ~ John Goddard

But I've been dead much longer than I lived, and I have had the chance to educate myself in that that I lacked in life. I wasn't stupid when I lived, just ignorant. There's a lot to learn, simply by watching the follies of the living. ~ Piers Anthony

Adults had the notion that juveniles needed to suffer. Only when they had suffered enough to wipe out most of their naturally joyous spirits and innocence were they staid enough to be considered mature. An adult was essentially a broken-down child. ~ Piers Anthony

When you have something you would die to protect it ceases to be a matter of courage." Niobe explained, "You just know what you have to do and you can't afford fear. ~ Piers Anthony

Who knows the meaning of life, death, or anything else quasi-important. Maybe the starving poets on street corners and oceanside piers. I'd give 'em my last dollar to inspire me. That's all I really want. ~ Anne Clendening

Robert Jordan ... is a lot of writer ~ Piers Anthony

When I started writing this, I found that I simply couldn't take fantasy seriously, so it became humorous, and continued from there. ~ Piers Anthony

Now you must excuse your Raja for he must suffer to give audience to the prince of Punt, a pompous old fool, who believes that his frequent flatulencies are the echoes of the Gods applauding his non sequiturs. ~ Piers Anthony

Oh, Mummy, it was hilarious," laughed William. "They had a photo of Mrs. Parker Bowles and a horse's head and asked what the difference was. The answer was that there isn't any!"
Diana absolutely exploded with laughter.
We talked about which was the hottest photo to get.
"Charles and Camilla is still the really big one," I said, "followed by you and a new man, and now, of course, William with his first girlfriend."
He groaned. So did Diana.
- Piers Morgan ~ Larry King

Obviously it could be, because it was. ~ Piers Anthony

Here I love you.
In the dark pines the wind disentangles itself.
The moon glows like phosphorous on the vagrant waters.
Days, all one kind, go chasing each other.

The snow unfurls in dancing figures.
A silver gull slips down from the west.
Sometimes a sail. High, high stars.
Oh the black cross of a ship.
Alone.


Sometimes I get up early and even my soul is wet.
Far away the sea sounds and resounds.
This is a port.

Here I love you.
Here I love you and the horizon hides you in vain.
I love you still among these cold things.
Sometimes my kisses go on those heavy vessels
that cross the sea towards no arrival.
I see myself forgotten like those old anchors.

The piers sadden when the afternoon moors there.
My life grows tired, hungry to no purpose.
I love what I do not have. You are so far.
My loathing wrestles with the slow twilights.
But night comes and starts to sing to me.

The moon turns its clockwork dream.
The biggest stars look at me with your eyes.
And as I love you, the pines in the wind
want to sing your name with their leaves of wire.
Pablo Neruda ~ Pablo Neruda

Cities on the ocean have a choice whether to turn their faces or their backs to the water, lining the shore either with pretty hotels and rich homes or dim warehouses, narrow streets, and greasy piers. All prairie towns turn away from the prairie, however. The huddled houses form a storm-battened island in the midst of endless space. ~ Joseph Bottum

The sweetest temptation could be that which was known to be the most foolish. ~ Piers Anthony

All the heat should come my way ~ Piers Morgan

Although it was only six o'clock, the night was already dark. The fog, made thicker by its proximity to the Seine, blurred every detail with its ragged veils, punctured at various distances by the reddish glow of lanterns and bars of light escaping from illuminated windows. The road was soaked with rain and glittered under the street-lamps, like a lake reflecting strings of lights. A bitter wind, heavy with icy particles, whipped at my face, its howling forming the high notes of a symphony whose bass was played by swollen waves crashing into the piers of the bridges below. The evening lacked none of winter's rough poetry. ~ Theophile Gautier

There's nothing good on the news. You're not telling me CNN is all cats in trees, are you? Nothing can be that good if Piers Morgan is in it, you know what I mean? ~ Noel Gallagher

I wish my readers took less of my time - about a third of my working time goes to them - but I love and need them all. ~ Piers Anthony

What I like least is dealing with publishers who simply don't want collaborations regardless of their merit. ~ Piers Anthony

Don't chase women, they will chase you. They are like horses in a pasture: if you don't go drooling over her, she is going to want to know why. ~ Piers Morgan

God created the earth but the Devil evolved it. ~ Piers Anthony

I think that man was half-right. He is better off out of the game - but the game may not be better off without him. A man should not exist for himself alone. Life made an investment in him, and that investment was not paid off. ~ Piers Anthony

The general trend in the last 4,000 years is that carbon dioxide and temperature have been moving against each other. ~ Piers Corbyn

It is the man who can't be trusted who does not trust others because he judges them by himself. ~ Piers Anthony

For an instant Stile was daunted by the improbability of it all: a man, a cyborg, a robot, an animalhead, and a wooden golem, all riding unicorns through a battlefield strewn with goblins and dragons, pursuing an invaluable ball of power-rock that rolled along a channel cleared by plastic explosive. What a mishmash! ~ Piers Anthony

Terry Pratchett's right up my alley ... give him a try! ~ Piers Anthony

Absolutely nobody in the entire United States of America has even a modicum of interest in who I am, but I'm determined to change that. Because if I can pull it off here, then I can kiss goodbye to tedious speeches, crappy TV jobs and all the other nonsense I have to do back in England to pay the bills. ~ Piers Morgan

In his land, owing to the absence of settees and sofas of all sorts, the king, chiefs, and great people generally, were in the custom of fattening some of the lower orders for ottomans; and to furnish a house comfortably in that respect, you had only to buy up eight or ten lazy fellows, and lay them round in the piers and alcoves. Besides, it was very convenient on an excursion; much better than those garden-chairs which are convertible into walking-sticks; upon occasion, a chief calling his attendant, and desiring him to make a settee of himself under a spreading tree, perhaps in some damp marshy place. ~ Herman Melville

Harry had the best morning he'd had in a long time. He was careful to walk a little way apart from the Dursleys so that Dudley and Piers, who were starting to get bored with the animals by lunchtime, wouldn't fall back on their favorite hobby of hitting him. ~ J.K. Rowling

Normally I work out a general summary of what I mean to do, then start writing, and the details can be different from my anticipation. So there is considerable flow, but always within channels. ~ Piers Anthony

I turned my home state of Florida into the Land of Xanth. ~ Piers Anthony

Why did things have to be so complicated with human beings? ... Yet if we were not what we were, creatures with at least the awareness of purpose and honor, what would we be? Empty knights in armor, seeming so strong on the outside, yet hollow inside? ~ Piers Anthony

There was one question, however, which Inciarte had asked him and he could not answer. Why was it that he had lived while others had died? What purpose had God in making this selection? What sense could be made out of it? 'None,' replied Father Andrés. 'There are times when the will of God cannot be understood by our human intelligence. There are things which in all humility we must accept as a mystery. ~ Piers Paul Read

A pier is a disappointed bridge. ~ Julian Barnes

William asked Diana if she'd seen the portrait of the Queen in yesterday's papers. "Her hands looked like she'd been in the garden all day; they were all big and dirty," he laughed. Diana giggled instinctively, then stopped herself. "William, please, don't say that."
"Sorry, Mummy, but it's true: Granny did look really funny."
Granny. How odd it sounded.
"Can I have some wine, Mummy?"
"No, William! Whatever are you thinking?"
"But Mummy, I drink it all the time."
"Erm, no, you don't actually, and, well, you can't have any."
"Yes, I can," he replied with a mischievous but determined grin.
And he did. A small but interesting piece of power play to observe. William knew what he wanted, and Diana was a soft touch with her boys.
- Piers Morgan ~ Larry King

Admit it, I was right." "Very well, you were right." She grinned. "I'll never let you forget it, either." Piers wouldn't have it any other way. She must always remain the optimist to his cynic, the laughter to his silence, the chaos to his order, the warmth to his cool. Their hearts would meet in the middle somehow. ~ Tessa Dare

It took forever for me to get work because I was a political comic, and now it's become good business, and God knows how long that'll last. You have to do it night after night after night to kind of make it. I still find myself on 'Piers Morgan' or on some show and I think, 'I hope this is funny.' ~ Lewis Black

In fact, I believe that we need better sex education in our own culture, here in America, so that young folk learn about things like venereal disease before they encounter it. ~ Piers Anthony

What kind of fool had he been, to throw away romance untried? ~ Piers Anthony

But one must go where one's road leads, even when it's a distressing road. ~ Piers Anthony

Now it was done. He was free of Xanth forever. Free to make his own life, without being ridiculed or mothered or tempted. Free to be himself.
Bink put his face in his hands and cried. ~ Piers Anthony

People talk
they sneer at escapism. Well, there are those of us who need it. ~ Piers Anthony

The biggest fool is the one who thinks he knows it all. ~ Piers Anthony

I think that variety is the key to our success. It is what makes us [artists] different, and long may that continue. ~ Piers Morgan

As I told Piers Morgan, 'Catholics have confession, whereas Northern Irish Protestants only have interviews.' ~ James Nesbitt

Good novels are not written, they are rewritten. Great novels are diamonds mined from layered rewrites. ~ Piers Paul Read

My favorite place in L.A. is Manhattan Beach. It's an intimate, friendly little beachside city within a city-smaller than most of its neighbors, so it reminds me of a British seaside resort. If my three teenage sons are in town, we'll play some cricket on the flat, hard sand where the water breaks, just to really confuse the locals! ~ Piers Morgan

A mortal person's mind is like a wilderness, with a tremendous volume of decaying constructs and half-understood experience forming natural harbors for wild animal effects. ~ Piers Anthony

Be what you are; it is better that way.
--Dolph ~ Piers Anthony

Come try my strength, you dogs who thought to attack helpless prey! But when you do, O beasts of night, know that you face the Lord of Night. I am Death! ~ Piers Anthony

At present I answer about 100 letters a month, and read 300 emails. ~ Piers Anthony

I want to understand the piers of language and music and comprehension that can hold up a building even when what the building houses is an earthquake. This thinking must surely come into the poems I write, but more by osmosis than will. ~ Jane Hirshfield

He [Piers] might have been a goofy flake, but he was, in the end, her goofy flake, and she loved him as much as she could. ~ Craig Robertson

Never thought I'd see the day when Death was denied. That leaves taxes as the only certainty. ~ Piers Anthony

I don't want ever to be guilty of what my critics claim: doing formula without original elements. ~ Piers Anthony

One day you'll discover that the opinions of worthless people are worthless. ~ Piers Anthony

Many questions torment America in its dark night of the soul, questions more urgently pressing, and yet it must be asked: How did we get stuck with Piers Morgan? Who is he, why is he here, is he returnable? ~ James Wolcott

I gained a first class degree in Physics at Imperial College London in 1968 and did research in solid state physics, but did not pursue meteorology matters until gaining an M.Sc. in astrophysics from Queen Mary College London in 1981, after which I investigated and attempted to construct theories of solar activity. ~ Piers Corbyn

Piers is always going on about how he hated Stowe. As if that solves everything, as if to hate something means it can't have affected you. ~ John Fowles

Writers pay a lot of attention to wordage, because some publishers seem to care more about length than about quality and will automatically reject novels that don't fit their narrow standards of length - or will chop out extra wordage to make a novel fit. ~ Piers Anthony

Keep writing, because not only does practice improve skill, it gives you more chances to score on the market. I did that for eight years before making my first sale. ~ Piers Anthony

I am just not a great fan of the Piers Morgan format. I would rather do something a bit more substantial. ~ David Cameron

For Indians, chai resolves most things, consoles for the things it can't. ~ Piers Moore Ede

You're Piers Brandon, the Marquess of Granville, diplomat and secret agent in the Crown's service." She ran a fingertip down the noble slope of his nose. "And I'm Char - "
Her words were lost in a gasp.

With the speed and strength of a whip, he had her turned on her back, sprawled beneath him on the tufted carriage seat.
"You will be Lady Charlotte Brandon, the Marchioness of Granville, diplomat's wife and mother of my heir."
.......
"You'll be mine," he murmured. "I swear it, Charlotte. I will make you mine. ~ Tessa Dare

Stretch of I-95 has already had one brush with disaster. In 2008 two contractors from the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation stopped to get a sausage sandwich, and parked their cars under this bridge. And fortunately they wanted that sausage sandwich because they saw one of these piers with an eight foot gash in it about five inches wide. And oh, they knew automatically that this bridge was in deep trouble. ~ Steve Kroft

Being terrified but going ahead and doing what must be done - that's courage. The one who feels no fear is a fool, and the one who lets fear rule him is a coward. ~ Piers Anthony

In December of 2001, after September 11th, my wife, Jane Rosenthal, and Robert DeNiro asked me if I would help them create the Tribeca Film Festival. The idea was to revitalize lower Manhattan. We would show films on piers, in high schools. It was all about the community. We wanted it to be accessible to everybody. ~ Craig Hatkoff

Of two simple men I saw today on the pier in the midst of the crowd, parting the parting of dear friends, the one to remain hung on the other's neck and passionately kissed him. While the one to depart tightly pressed the one to remain in his arms. ~ Walt Whitman

Where did you go to school?" Piers inquired. "Your all together too literate for a butler. Most bulters I know say things like as you wish, my lord, and leave it at that. Our conversations should be along these lines: Prufrock, bring me a wench and then you would say, as you wish. ~ Eloisa James

She heard Piers give an excited little cry and someone gave an excited little cry in return, and Grace Vaughn appeared in the open doorway, laden down with garment bags.

For one fleeting moment, Ellie saw both husband and wife's faces light up before they resembled their usual expressions – a scowl and a pout respectively. ~ Sarra Manning

When you steal from the library, you are preventing anyone else from reading that book, and the very notion makes me want to drop you in the Void. ~ Piers Anthony

Here's a secret: fictive text doesn't necessarily flow easily. Most of the time it's more like cutting a highway through a mountain. You just have to keep working with your pick, chipping away at the rock, making slow progress. ~ Piers Anthony

A CITY IS AS much a state of mind as a place - a set of perceptions of place. On the last train home to Mullaghbrack or Gortyfarnham or half a hundred other BallyBogMans, two farmers fall to reviewing their experiences of the big city. One has walked the streets and avenues and come away with memories of glistening steeples and dreaming spires, monuments to men of bearing and import, Palladian porticos and grand civic cupolas, pillars, piers, and palisades, and the air full of singing birds. The other has walked the same streets, yet his memories are of grey brick tenements shouldering against each other like nervous thugs; cracked fanlights, windows boarded over with card, baby carriages full of coal or potatoes, tramps in doorways, cabbage leaves underfoot, the perfume of urine and porter, pressing people with voices like flatirons. They might have visited cities continents apart, but it is the same city. ~ Ian McDonald

I want to interview the most important people in the world and have everyone in America the next day going, 'Did you see that?' ~ Piers Morgan

We have already shown by references to the contemporary drama that the plea of custom is not sufficient to explain Shakespeare's attitude to the lower classes, but if we widen our survey to the entire field of English letters in his day, we shall see that he was running counter to all the best traditions of our literature. From the time of Piers Plowman down, the peasant had stood high with the great writers of poetry and prose alike. Chaucer's famous circle of story-tellers at the Tabard Inn in Southwark was eminently democratic. ~ William Shakespeare

Do you seek to bribe Death? Zane asked, half angry and two-thirds curious. ~ Piers Anthony

If you get made fun of working at Pier One Imports, you can't pelt them with poop. ~ Doug Stanhope

At this slower pace the journey took a couple of days, and I fought off a few minor threats along the way
griffins, carnivorous plants, giant serpents, hostile centaurs, that sort of thing, purely routine
and I was beginning to get bored when at last the dusky towers of Castle Roogna hove into view. ~ Piers Anthony

What is life, except an ongoing instinct for survival? Nature uses that instinct to make us perform; otherwise we would all relax, and the species would disappear. Nature is a cruel green mother. The survival instinct is a goad, not a privilege. ~ Piers Anthony

Polar bears did very well in the warmer times. They didn't die out at all; they didn't die out in the last 10,000 years, nor during the previous interglacial, nor the one before that. So, they're just used as a deceitful heartthrob; you know, to pluck your heartstrings because the polar bears might die out. ~ Piers Corbyn

Al the povere peple tho pescoddes fetten; Benes and baken apples thei broghte in hir lappe, Chibolles and chervelles and ripe chiries manye, And profrede Piers this present to plese with Hunger. ~ William Langland

It's not the case that carbon dioxide drives temperatures. When you leave Ice Ages, it's the other way around: The temperatures go up first, and then carbon dioxide levels go up. ~ Piers Corbyn

As for collaboration - I have done a lot, 26 books, and found publishers increasingly resistive to them. It's not that the books are bad; editors won't even read them. ~ Piers Anthony

There is a type of snobbish, pompous journalist who thinks that the only news that has any validity is war, famine, pestilence or politics. I don't come from that school. ~ Piers Morgan

Polishing: a useful lesson for the hopeful writer. You say your tormented prose doesn't read as well as mine? Neither does mine, at first! ~ Piers Anthony

I have always admired the work of Phil Farmer and was glad for the chance to work with him. Readers today may be too young to remember his classics like The Lovers. ~ Piers Anthony

the Army contracts private carriers to handle the overflow. In the Gulf War, they even had to resort to forcing major airline companies to cough up planes to make ends meet, under a compulsive federal system known as the Civilian Reserve Airfleet Program (my favorite government acronym of all time). ~ Piers Platt