A Lovely War Quotes & Sayings

There's a special madness strikes travellers from the North when they reach the lovely land where the lemon trees grow. We come from countries of cold weather; at home, we are at war with nature but here, ah! you think you've come to the blessed plot where the lion lies down with the lamb. Everything flowers; no harsh wind stirs the voluptuous air. The sun spills fruit for you. And the deathly, sensual lethargy of the sweet South infects the starved brain; it gasps: 'Luxury! more luxury!' But then the snow comes, you cannot escape it, it followed us from Russia as if it ran behind our carriage, and in this dark, bitter city has caught up with us at last, flocking against the windowpanes to mock my father's expectations of perpetual pleasure as the veins in his forehead stand out and throb, his hands shake as he deals the Devil's picture books. — Angela Carter

Mary Welland was certainly lovely. She was gentle and kind. She remained my friend all the time I was in hospital. But there is a world of difference falling in love with a voice and remaining in love with a person you can see. From the moment I opened my eyes, Mary became a human instead of a dream and my passion evaporated. — Roald Dahl

Once upon a time, [ ... ]. There was a world that was perfectly made and full of birds and striped creatures and lovely things like honey lilies and star tenzing and weasels
[ ... ] And this world already had light and shadow, so it didn't need any rouge stars to come and save it, and it had no use for bleeding suns or weeping moons, either, and most important, it had never known war, which is a terrible and wasteful thing that no world needs. It had earth and water, air and fire, all four elements, but it was missing the last element. Love.
[ ... ]
And so this paradise was like a jewel box without a jewel. There it lay, day after day of rose-colored dawns and creature sounds and strange perfumes, and waited for lovers to find it and fill it with their happiness. The end.
[ ... ]
The story is unfinished. The world is still waiting. — Laini Taylor

It's almost as frustrating as Galen's game of hot and cold. Thing is, I'm not sure it's a game. From his expression, there's out-and-out war going on behind the scenes. He leans in, pulls away. Leans in, pulls away. It's like a battle between good and evil. I'm just not sure which one he thinks kissing me is.
Probably evil.
Which is pathetic. For the next twenty-four hours, I'm going to be stuck in a hotel room, unsupervised, with a guy who's trying his hardest not to kiss me. Lovely. — Anna Banks

(T)he book had convinced her (there in the softly lit waiting room of the abortion clinic) that despite war and death and pain )despite the way the girl with a woman who might have been her mother seemed to gulp air every once in a while, a handkerchief to her mouth), life was lovely, rich with small gifts: a warm fire, a fine meal, love. — Alice McDermott

Annabeth stumbled and almost slipped on the giant's severed ear. 'We need to get out of here.'
'I'm working on it,' Piper said.
'And, uh, I think this ear is your spoil of war.'
'Gross.'
'Would make a lovely shield.'
'Shut up, Chase. — Rick Riordan

The women of the Malesian Tales were however modelled after the lovely women of Singapore, the most urbane of the Malesian cities & the winners of the War of the Sexes.These lovely women,who belonged to a unique sub-species known as the "Singapore Girl", were spawn when the little City State imposed draconian measures in order to ensure its survival- measures covering population control, civic-consciousness, national hygiene & military preparedness- just as Sparta did during Milesian times. And thus, the Singapore girls,just as the girls of Sparta, were constantly in a state of military preparedness when it came to men.[INTRO] — Nicholas Chong

You're still lovely," Mor said a bit gently.
Elain offered a half smile. "I suppose that war makes wanting things like that unimportant."
Mor was quiet for a heartbeat. "Perhaps. But you should not let war steal it from you regardless. — Sarah J. Maas

Hephaestus told Phyllis that she owed her name to the lovely girl whom Acamas left behind in Thrace after the Trojan War, promising to return.The poor girl waited in vain & out of desparation, hanged herself.The Goddess Nemesis took pity on the girl & turned her into a leafless almond tree.When Acamas at last returned,he was overcome with grief & embraced the tree which immediately sprouted green leaves, which gave the Greeks their word "phylla" meaning "green leaves" & all the botanists of the world their "phylla" words.Hephaestus also said that Vicky stood for Victory[Nike].[MMT] — Nicholas Chong

My first professional job was appearing in a disastrous theatre production of Oh, What a Lovely War in Leicester Rep, shortly after leaving Cambridge. — Eric Idle

When you listen to radio you are a witness of the everlasting war between idea and appearance, between time and eternity, between the human and the divine. Exactly, my dear sir, as the radio for ten minutes together projects the most lovely music ithout regard into the most impossible places, into respectable drawing rooms and attics and into the midst of chattering, guzzling, yawning and sleeping listeners, and exactly as it strips this music of its sensuous beauty, spoils and scratches and beslims it and yet cannot altogether destroy its spirit, just so does life, the so-called reality, deal with the sublime picture-play of the world and make a hurley-burley of it. — Hermann Hesse

Now stop that, you two," said Brytta, "how can you talk about the stupid war when something so much more important is going on? Congratulations on your betrothal, Rhen. She's a lovely, accomplished lady."
Rhenand's eyebrows shot up and his mouth dropped open.
"Whoops," said Edmond, "it appears he hasn't been informed yet."
"Oh no," said Brytta.
"Oh my," said Rivanon as Osbert and Edmond burst into laughter.
Rhenand's mouth worked soundlessly and he blinked several times.
"Breathe, Rhen," said Edmond, "just like when you're in battle. Slowly, in and out. Come on, just as I taught you a few centuries ago. — James Wilson

How lovely." The old lady sighed. "An office romance. I always wanted an office romance. Of course I never really had a job, which made the situation more challenging. Oh, I worked on an assembly line during World War II, but there weren't very many men around and as my husband was off serving his country, an office romance would have been unpatriotic, don't you think?
Mrs. Ford — Susan Mallery

Dulce bellum inexpertis. - War is lovely for those who know nothing about it. — Desiderius Erasmus

Oh you, my generation!- we were a lovely lot! Sharp minds- arguing all the time and brittle bodies and even more brittle laughter- and all the time knowing that we were growing up to die. — Joan Wehlen Morrison

And the naked lovers looked for a place where they could lay together & Aphrodite suggested that her bed was as good as any. And thus, Ares & Aphrodite, dropped their war games in favour of love games, to make love, not war. And as they kissed & coupled again & again in Aphrodite's bed, the Goddess of Love was impregnated with the lovely Harmonia since Harmony & Peace prevailed when people made love, not war. And that was also the time when Chaos fell on the lovers as the invisible netting rigged by Hephaestus over his wife's bed caught the lovers in its trap. — Nicholas Chong

The man who did the shouting at the P.S.U.C. post down on our right was an artist at the job. Sometimes, instead of shouting revolutionary slogans he simply told the Facists how much better we were being fed than they were. His account of the Government rations was apt to be a little imaginative. 'Buttered toast!' - you could hear his voice echoing across the lonely valley - 'We're just sitting down to buttered toast over here! Lovely slices of buttered toast!' I do not doubt that, like the rest of us, he had not seen butter for weeks or months past, but in the icy night the news of buttered toast probably set many a fascist mouth wattering. It even made mine water, though I knew he was lying. — George Orwell

When You Reveal Those Rose-Colored Cheeks
Ghazal 1711
1941 When you reveal those rose-colored cheeks (of yours),you
make the stones whirl2 from joy.
Put (your) head out from the veil once again, for the sake of
amazed lovers
So that knowledge may lose the way, (and) the intellectual may
shatter (his) learning;
So that water may become a pearl3 from your reflection, (and) fire
may quit war.
1945 With (the presence of) your beauty, I don't desire the (lovely
full) moon or those few little hanging lanterns (in the heavens).
(And) with (the presence of) your face, I don't call the ancient rusty
sky a "mirror."
You breathed into and created this narrow world4 in another form
once again.
O Venus,5 make that harp melodious again, in desire for his
Mars-like eyes! — Rumi

The cold war was over, but all the little games persisted. It was a good thing those puppets in the Middle East had been too busy grubbing around in their deserts to play any serious role in international espionage ... She took a calming moment to visualize the entire Arab world as a giant parking lot. Lovely. — Magnus Flyte

THE WHISTLER
All of a sudden she began to whistle. By all of a sudden
I mean that for more than thirty years she had not
whistled. It was thrilling. At first I wondered, who was
in the house, what stranger? I was upstairs reading, and
she was downstairs. As from the throat of a wild and
cheerful bird, not caught but visiting, the sounds war-
bled and slid and doubled back and larked and soared.
Finally I said, Is that you? Is that you whistling? Yes, she
said. I used to whistle, a long time ago. Now I see I can
still whistle. And cadence after cadence she strolled
through the house, whistling.
I know her so well, I think. I thought. Elbow and an-
kle. Mood and desire. Anguish and frolic. Anger too.
And the devotions. And for all that, do we even begin
to know each other? Who is this I've been living with
for thirty years?
This clear, dark, lovely whistler? — Mary Oliver

It's why a song such as John Lennon's "Imagine" continues to resonate - it's lovely to daydream about a world no longer plagued by the threat of famine, violence, war, or death. As long as these visions exist as a distant utopian fantasy, a counterbalance to a good zombie yarn, they don't threaten us - but neither do they really inspire us. — Jonathan Martin

And thus Bacchus turned Phyllis into his slave. She had become the lovely slave girl, Briseis, whom Achilles took as a war prize & whom Achilles had to yield to Agamemnon, his boss. Just as Phyllis was the prize that Eros found & whom Eros had to yield to Bacchus,his boss.[MMT] — Nicholas Chong

Tania, I was spellbound by you from the first moment I saw you. There I was, living my dissolute life, and war had just started. My entire base was in disarray, people were running around, closing accounts, taking money out, grabbing food out of stores, buying up the entire Gostiny Dvor, volunteering for the army, sending their kids to camp - " He broke off. "And in the middle of my chaos, there was you!" Alexander whispered passionately. "You were sitting alone on this bench, impossibly young, breathtakingly blonde and lovely, and you were eating ice cream with such abandon, such pleasure, such mystical delight that I could not believe my eyes. As if there were nothing else in the world on that summer Sunday. — Paullina Simons

No, I chose the name Jane Seymour because I was doing my first film, 'Ode to Lovely War,' and one of the top agents in England spotted me dancing in the chorus. I was a singer and dancer in that movie with Maggie Smith, um, and he told me he couldn't sell me as Joyce Penelope Willomena Frankenburger. — Jane Seymour

She was as lovely as ever, my Jessie Anne. I paused for a moment, taking her beauty in, laying up this vision of her in the deepest and most secret place of my mind, allowing the sight of her to renew my spirit. I stepped slowly down to the platform, never allowing my gaze to drift from her. Jessie Anne was looking toward the front of the car, and it was a moment or two before she turned and spotted me.
The bright and hopeful smile I had so expected and longed for darkened, just for a moment to be sure, but long enough for me to recognize a fleeting glimpse of shock and anguish, possibly of horror. No longer did she see the man she had known, the man she had given her life to. No, she saw me for the man I truly was, the man with blood on his hands. — Karl A. Bacon

One evening, at the time of the Six-Day War, I [Christopher Hitchens] had my wicked way with a lovely lady, who had earlier intimated that she did not perhaps find me entirely repulsive. We procured a decent room, as I remember, at the Cadogan Hotel. Perhaps a little flown with wine, I asked her to don a Martin Amis face mask which I had - with a combination of sticky tape, elastic bands, cardboard, and a much-treasured photograph - prepared earlier. The fair damsel was happy to oblige, and thus attired she permitted me to embark on the hugely agreeable pathway to libidinous fulfillment. — Craig Brown

We have made men proud of most vices, but not of cowardice. Whenever we have almost succeeded in doing so, God permits a war or an earthquake or some other calamity, and at once courage becomes so obviously lovely and important even in human eyes that all our work is undone, and there is still at least one vice of which they feel genuine shame. The danger of inducing cowardice in our patients, therefore, is lest we produce real self-knowledge and self-loathing, with consequent repentance and humility. — C.S. Lewis

A woman's work, from the time she gets up to the time she goes to bed, is as hard as a day at war, worse than a man's working day ... To men, women's work was like the rain-bringing clouds, or the rain itself. The task involved was carried out every day as regularly as sleep. So men were happy - men in the Middle Ages, men at the time of the Revolution, and men in 1986: everything in the garden was lovely. — Marguerite Duras

I had created a happy world of make-believe around me during the long years of loneliness, a world of beauty and love. It had helped me to survive, this lovely world that was to be mine when the war was over. — Gerda Weissmann Klein