The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (417 page)
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Authors: Elizabeth Knowles
1850–94
Am I no a bonny fighter?
Kidnapped
(1886) ch. 10
I've a grand memory for forgetting, David.
Kidnapped
(1886) ch. 18
I have thus played the sedulous ape to Hazlitt, to Lamb, to Wordsworth, to Sir Thomas Browne, to Defoe, to Hawthorne, to Montaigne, to Baudelaire and to Obermann.
Memories and Portraits
(1887) ch. 4 "A College Magazine"
The strange case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.
title of novel, 1886
I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel's sake. The great affair is to move.
Travels with a Donkey
(1879) "Cheylard and Luc"
If landscapes were sold, like the sheets of characters of my boyhood, one penny plain and twopence coloured, I should go the length of twopence every day of my life.
Travels with a Donkey
(1879) "Father Apollinaris"
Fifteen men on the dead man's chest
Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!
Drink and the devil had done for the rest—
Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!
Treasure Island
(1883) ch. 1
Tip me the black spot.
Treasure Island
(1883) ch. 3
Pieces of eight, pieces of eight, pieces of eight!
Treasure Island
(1883) ch. 10
Many's the long night I've dreamed of cheese—toasted, mostly.
Treasure Island
(1883) ch. 15
To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive, and the true success is to labour.
Virginibus Puerisque
(1881) "El Dorado"
What hangs people…is the unfortunate circumstance of guilt.
The Wrong Box
(with Lloyd Osbourne, 1889) ch. 7
If you are going to make a book end badly, it must end badly from the beginning.
letter to J. M. Barrie, November 1892
The world is so full of a number of things,
I'm sure we should all be as happy as kings.
A Child's Garden of Verses
(1885) "Happy Thought"
I was the giant great and still
That sits upon the pillow-hill,
And sees before him, dale and plain,
The pleasant land of counterpane.
A Child's Garden of Verses
(1885) "The Land of Counterpane"
I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me.
A Child's Garden of Verses
(1885) "My Shadow"
I will make you brooches and toys for your delight
Of bird-song at morning and star-shine at night.
Songs of Travel
(1896) "I will make you brooches and toys for your delight"
Trusty, dusky, vivid, true,
With eyes of gold and bramble-dew,
Steel-true and blade-straight,
The great artificer
Made my mate.
Songs of Travel
(1896) "My Wife"
Sing me a song of a lad that is gone,
Say, could that lad be I?
Merry of soul he sailed on a day
Over the sea to Skye.
Songs of Travel
(1896) "Sing me a song of a lad that is gone"
Give to me the life I love,
Let the lave go by me,
Give the jolly heaven above
And the byway nigh me.
Songs of Travel
(1896) "The Vagabond"
All I seek, the heaven above
And the road below me.
Songs of Travel
(1896) "The Vagabond"
Go, little book, and wish to all
Flowers in the garden, meat in the hall,
A bin of wine, a spice of wit,
A house with lawns enclosing it.
Underwoods
(1887) "Envoy".
Under the wide and starry sky
Dig the grave and let me lie.
Underwoods
(1887) "Requiem"
This be the verse you grave for me:
"Here he lies where he longed to be;
Home is the sailor, home from sea,
And the hunter home from the hill."
Underwoods
(1887) "Requiem"
1945–
Genes are not like engineering blueprints; they are more like recipes in a cookbook. They tell us what ingredients to use, in what quantities, and in what order—but they do not provide a complete, accurate plan of the final result.
Life's Other Secret
(1998) preface
1951–
If I were a Brazilian without land or money or the means to feed my children, I would be burning the rain forest too.
in
International Herald Tribune
14 April 1989
1911–
A diplomat…is a person who can tell you to go to hell in such a way that you actually look forward to the trip.
Out of the Red
(1960) ch. 4