Patrick Hamilton Quotes & Sayings

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

He had further narrowed his mind by a considerable amount of travel abroad, where he had again always made his way to the small hotels. — 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

God help us, God help all of us, each one, every one, all of us'. Patrick Hamilton at the concusion of 'The Slaves of Solitude'. — 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

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

Only at dawn should a man awake from excess - at dawn agleam with red and sorrowful resolve. — 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

A goodly soup, i'troth," he said, and he Trothed at the chicken, and Trothed at the waiter, and Trothed at both the waitresses (even the one who was not serving at the table at which they were sitting), and Trothed at the cheese, and Trothed at the furnishing of the dining-room (which met with his approval), and Trothed and Trothed and Trothed. — 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

...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

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

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

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

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

London, the crouching monster, like every other monster has to breathe, and breathe it does in its own obscure, malignant way. Its vital oxygen is composed of suburban working men and women of all kinds, who every morning are sucked up through an infinitely complicated respiratory apparatus of trains and termini into the mighty congested lungs, held there for a number of hours, and then, in the evening, exhaled violently through the same channels. — Patrick Hamilton

Mr. Thwaites was, of course, a pronounced and leading Christmasist, being the instinctive leader of everything irritating and depressing, and the others followed him. — 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

The madness of Christmas is not to be resisted by any human means. It either stealthily creeps or crudely batters its way into every fastness or fortress of prudence all over the land. — 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

It was not so much what Vicki did that night: it was what she said. It was not so much her behaviour: it was her vocabulary! — Patrick Hamilton