The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (354 page)
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Authors: Elizabeth Knowles
1905–2000
Books do furnish a room.
title of novel (1971).
A dance to the music of time.
title of novel sequence (1951–75), after "
Le 4 stagioni che ballano al suono del tempo
[The four seasons dancing to the sound of time]", title given by Giovanni Pietro Bellori to a painting by Nicolas Poussin
He's so wet you could shoot snipe off him.
A Question of Upbringing
(1951) ch. 1
Growing old is like being increasingly penalized for a crime you haven't committed.
Temporary Kings
(1973) ch. 1
1937–
First, we are going to cut it off, and then, we are going to kill it.
strategy for dealing with the Iraqi Army in the Gulf War
at a press conference, 23 January 1991
1912–98
History is littered with the wars which everybody knew would never happen.
speech to the Conservative Party Conference, 19 October 1967
As I look ahead, I am filled with foreboding. Like the Roman, I seem to see "the River Tiber foaming with much blood".
speech in Birmingham, 20 April 1968.
For a politician to complain about the press is like a ship's captain complaining about the sea.
in
Guardian
3 December 1984
All political lives, unless they are cut off in midstream at a happy juncture, end in failure, because that is the nature of politics and of human affairs.
Joseph Chamberlain
(1977)
1848–1919
The mules of politics: without pride of ancestry, or hope of posterity.
of the Liberal Unionists
H. H. Asquith
Memories and Reflections
(1928) vol. 1, ch. 16.
1948–
Most modern fantasy just rearranges the furniture in Tolkien's attic.
Stan Nicholls (ed.)
Wordsmiths of Wonder
(1993)
1938–
People like me were branded, pigeon-holed, a ceiling put on our ambitions.
on failing his 11-plus
speech at Ruskin College, Oxford, 13 June 1996
We did it! Let's wallow in our victory!
on Tony Blair's warning that the Labour Party should not be triumphalist in victory
speech to the Labour Party Conference, 29 September 1997