Licence Quotes & Sayings

Once I know people know who I am, it gives me a lot of licence and freedom to behave in ways I wouldn't normally. — Larry David

Keeping pigeons without a licence is illegal as well, but we can't have people going round shooting pigeon-keepers, can we? It is the job of the RUC to enforce the law in Northern Ireland, not paramilitary groups, not vigilantes, not 'concerned citizens', it's our responsibility and ours alone," McCallister said which made me proud of him. Not quite tears-in-eyes but maybe warm-glow-in-tummy. — Adrian McKinty

We all have to recognise, no matter how great our strength, that we must deny ourselves the licence to do always as we please. — Harry S. Truman

In her, as an Alexandrian, licence was in a curious way a form of self-abnegation, a travesty of freedom; and if I saw her as an exemplar of the city it was not of Alexandria, or Plotinus that I was forced to think, but of the sad thirtieth child of Valentinus who fell, 'not like Lucifer by rebelling against God, but by desiring too ardently to be united to him'.* — Lawrence Durrell

I have to admit to not being the greatest technician, but stop motion animation gives me licence to create machines that wouldn't otherwise be possible - inventions that seem real and actually work. — Nick Park

The items on the counter in the shop had been pawned by a man who had used an American driving licence as his ID, issued in the state of New Mexico in the name Jack Bauer. He had received 16,430 kronor in total. "Is this some sort of fucking joke?" Jacob asked. "How the hell can someone get away with calling himself Jack Bauer? Jack Bauer! The TV show? Twenty-four? — James Patterson

Without entering here into a dissertation upon the historical romance, it may be said that in proper hands it has been and should continue to be one of the most valued and valuable expressions of the literary art. To render and maintain it so, however, it is necessary that certain well-defined limits should be set upon the licence which its writers are to enjoy; it is necessary that the work should be honest work; that preparation for it should be made by a sound, painstaking study of the period to be represented, to the end that a true impression may first be formed and then conveyed. Thus, considering how much more far-reaching is the novel than any other form of literature, the good results that must wait upon such endeavours are beyond question. The neglect of them - the distortion of character to suit the romancer's ends, the like distortion of historical facts, the gross anachronisms arising out of a lack of study, have done much to bring the historical romance into disrepute. — Rafael Sabatini

Ignorance is ignorance, not a licence to believe what we like. — Bryan Magee

Yes, it's true, I have bought a helicopter. I really like it. I can't fly it, but I plan to get a licence one day. — Shane Filan

I've been a road-rat since I got my driver's licence at 16, so I've probably gone across America 20 times. — Sean Penn

I love being able to go on local flights when the weather is right. I've popped to the Isle of Wight, Cornwall and been mountain flying in Wales. When I got my licence I was over the moon, it was one of the greatest days of my life - it took two years to get! — Jay Kay

Everything written, if it has anything in it, will offend someone, and if the mere taking of offence was to amount to a licence to kill the offender, well the world would be sadly underpopulated of novelists, columnists, bloggers, and the writers of editorials. — Rex Murphy

( ... ) I headed over the river to the address listed on Mr Wilkinson's driving licence to see whether there was anyone who loved him enough to kill him. — Ben Aaronovitch

If he failed the first time he took his driver's licence test, it was mainly because he started an argument with the examiner in an ill-timed effort to prove that nothing could be more humiliating to a rational creature than being required to encourage the development of a base conditional reflex by stopping at a red light when there was not an earthly soul around, heeled or wheeled. He was more circumspect the next time, and passed ... — Vladimir Nabokov

As Joel said, there's a bit more licence to attack over here, whereas the NRL is a bit more grinding-type football. — Brett Finch

I don't have my pilot's licence anymore, but I'm still very political. — Mathias Rust

This reliance on puns gives Freud an interpretative freedom which might often be considered licence. — Sigmund Freud

There's a rumour going 'round that if you amass a certain number of penalty points on your driving licence, the authorities will make you take your test again! Now, if ever there was an incentive to drive carefully, they could not have threatened a more terrifying ordeal. — Jasper Carrott

The onset of more severe climate impacts overseas may also open up temporary opportunities, or 'policy windows.' These would allow legislators the licence to take specific bold actions which they ordinarily believe would not otherwise be possible or politically acceptable ... In effect, envisaged solutions can become rapidly translated into practical options for action following a major disaster or near-miss. — John Beddington

But what is Freedom? Rightly understood, A universal licence to be good. — Hartley Coleridge

Go, write it in a martial hand; be curst and brief; it is no matter how witty, so it be eloquent and fun of invention: taunt him with the licence of ink: if thou thou'st him some thrice, it shall not be amiss; and as many lies as will lie in thy shee. — William Shakespeare

General amnesty, weekly carnival with masked licence, bonuses for all, esperanto the universal language with universal brotherhood. No more patriotism of barspongers and dropsical impostors. Free money, free rent, free sex and a free lay church in a free lay state. — James Joyce

There were moments when I wondered at the gossamer veil that stops licence from being libel. I suspect that taking on the job of England manager puts you outside the protection of the courts. It must be part of the job description that you will be held hostage by media speculation and can have your character tortured, molested and finally executed at the public whim, in exchange for a lifetime's supply of money. — A.A. Gill

I have a driver's licence, but the truth is that I hardly ever drive. I prefer to get around by taxi. — Ferran Adria

Crash Holly's so short, you can see his feet on his driver's licence photo. — Jerry Lawler

I lurch from chaos to chaos. I can't find my driving licence and my clothes are everywhere - cooking is the neatest thing I do. — Nigella Lawson

Proposition 8 fails to advance any rational basis in singling out gay men and lesbians for denial of a marriage licence. Indeed, the evidence shows Proposition 8 does nothing more than enshrine in the California constitution the notion that opposite-sex couples are superior to same-sex couples. — Vaughn Walker

Feeling I'd scarcely arrived at a style, I now find I'm near the end of it. I'm not quite sure what Late Style means except that it's some sort of licence, a permit for ageing practitioners to kick their heels up. — Alan Bennett

There was no real fringe theatre in London until way after the war, so either a play was done secretly with a club licence or it was done openly and had to be assessed along with everything else. — Timothy West

Getting hold of illegal weapons is so easy that gun laws would not stop anyone who really wanted to kill. The gun used by Martin Bryant in Port Arthur was stolen and he had no licence. Gun laws would not have stopped that, but the reason such laws are being introduced all over the world is to prevent the population from defending themselves when the order goes out to round up those who are challenging the Agenda. — David Icke

Woman is a violent and uncontrolled animal, and it is useless to let go the reins and then expect her not to kick over the traces. You must keep her on a tight rein ... Women want total freedom or rather - to call things by their names - total licence. If you allow them to achieve complete equality with men, do you think they will be easier to live with? Not at all. Once they have achieved equality, they will be your masters ... — Cato The Elder

Memory takes a lot of poetic licence. It omits some details; others are exaggerated, according to the emotional value of the articles it touches, for memory is seated predominantly in the heart. The interior is therefore rather dim and poetic. — Tennessee Williams

The myriad-minded man, our, and all men's, Shakespeare, has in this piece presented us with a legitimate farce in exactest consonance with the philosophical principles and character of farce, as distinguished from comedy and from entertainments. A proper farce is mainly distinguished from comedy by the licence allowed, and even required, in the fable, in order to produce strange and laughable situations. The story need not be probable, it is enough that it is possible. — Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Like having your own licence to print money. — Roy Thomson

[That form of] eloquence, the foster-child of licence, which fools call liberty.
[Lat., Eloquentia, alumna licentiae, quam stulti libertatem vocabant.] — Tacitus

Crush humanity out of shape once more, under similar hammers, and it will twist itself into the same tortured forms. Sow the same seeds of rapacious licence and oppression over again, and it will surely yield the same fruit according to its kind. — Charles Dickens

I thought I'd join the RAF and become a wing commander. I realised this wasn't possible, although I do have a pilot's licence. — Mike Oldfield

I didn't get my licence because I wasn't allowed to. But I haven't had a seizure for a long time so I could, theoretically, get my licence. But I'm now just so used to not driving, I'm scared of what I'd do. — Hugo Weaving

The early years of a Bes (and presumably an Ul Qoman) child are intense learnings of cues. We pick up styles of clothing, permissible colours, ways of walking and holding oneself, very fast. Before we were eight or so most of us could be trusted not to breach embarrassingly and illegally, though licence of course is granted children every moment they are in the street. — China Mieville

Every dog is allowed one bite, but a different view is taken of a dog that goes on biting all the time. He may not get his licence returned when it falls due. — Harold Wilson

A good joke, that!" returned Don Quixote. "Books that have been printed with the king's licence, and with the approbation of those to whom they have been submitted, and read with universal delight, and extolled by great and small, rich and poor, learned and ignorant, gentle and simple, in a word by people of every sort, of whatever rank or condition they may be - that these should be lies! — Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra

My late friend Graham Chapman, an idiosyncratic driver at the best of times, used to exploit the mutual incomprehension of British and U.S. driving habits by always carrying both British and California driver's licences. Whenever he was stopped in the States, he would flash his British licence, and vice versa. He would also mention that he was just on his way to the airport to leave the country, which he always found to be such welcome news that the police would breathe a sigh of relief and wave him on. — Douglas Adams

I'm the only man in the world with a marriage licence made out to whom it may concern. — Mickey Rooney

Do you have to pay to be Jewish? Do you need a licence? — Markus Zusak

Bear with me G-Harrison because this is going to be a long speech. I've always had this feeling that the world is not enough and I won't be happy in life unless I hold hands with a girl who has a golden eye and a gold finger; I beat the living daylights out a guy called Dr No; I get a postcard from my friend who lives in Russia which reads 'From Russia with love'; I spend some time working for her majesty's secret service; I play the Thunderball Super Spud lottery; I meet a guy called Moonraker; I finally get a licence to kill, which I applied for months ago; I buy a house with a view to kill for and I get a pet octopus called Octopussy. If only I lived twice and tomorrow never died, maybe then I would get a chance to fulfil my dreams. — Michael Diack

Freedom of the press can never be the licence to say anything one desires. Freedom of the press is not the freedom to slander and attack and must never be used to fight other people's wars. It does not mean manipulating a story into speaking your views. One might think it common sense but in the world of journalism a lot of what makes sense is lost to the lure of favouritism, greed and fame. Sadly, in this truth-telling business truth is hard to find. — Aysha Taryam

Every man waits his destined hour; even the cities are doomed to their fate. Let us spend our leisure with our books, which will take our minds off these troubles, and will teach us to despise what many people desire....sometimes I am free for reading, free from all care about public affairs...I live free as much as I can

-Freedom here has nothing to do with political libertyir a notion of rights or the licence to say whatever [Poggio] wished or the ability to go wherever [Poggio] chose. It is rather the experience of withdrawing inwardly from the press of the world - and ensphering himself in a space apart. — Poggio Bracciolini

I can't say I remember this bit in the book,' she commented when he was finished and she was sweeping an applicator along his collarbone and pressing it lightly into the hollow beneath.
'They call it "artistic licence". '
'Not just the producers trying to shoe-horn in a scene involving you in a wet shirt?'
'Why would they want that?' There was a soft gleam of white teeth as his lips parted in a smile. — Emma Jackson

War had given Francis his respite, and success had brought him his final reward: the freedom he wished from his marriage. The licence, if he desired it, to go back to Russia. The knowledge, one supposed, that, severed from Philippa, he could allow the past to lie in peace, and cease troubling him. — Dorothy Dunnett

I feel sick when I look at the parody synopsis, at the letters from the film company ... The novel is 'about' a colour problem. I said nothing in it that wasn't true. But the emotion it came out of was something frightening, the unhealthy, feverish illicit excitement of wartime, a lying nostalgia, a longing for licence, for freedom, for the jungle, for formlessness. It is so clear to me that I can't read that novel now without feeling ashamed, as if I were in a street naked. Yet no one else seems to see it. Not one of the reviewers saw it. Not one of my cultivated and literary friends saw it. It is an immoral novel because that terrible lying nostalgia lights every sentence. — Doris Lessing

In marriage a little licence, a little independence there must be between people living together day in and day out in the same house ... — Virginia Woolf

Maybe that's what growing up means, in the end - you go far enough in the direction of - somewhere - and you realise that you've neutered the capacity of the term home to mean anything. [ ... ] We don't get an endless number of orbits away from the place where meaning first arises, that treasure-house of first experiences. What we learn, instead, is that our adventures secure us in our isolation. Experience revokes our licence to return to simpler times. Sooner or later, there's no place remotely like home. — Gregory Maguire

A free market was never meant to be a free licence to take whatever you can get, however you can get it. — Barack Obama

Opposite the off-licence on Dockers Road, a car was parked on double-yellow lines. Hidden within the sunlight bouncing from its roof was the source of a frail tapping that defeated the din of the city. Squinting into that diamond of light, I discerned a blue tit crystallising from the glare. The little bird was pecking at its reflection. I wanted to tell it to stop. — Edward L. Lanner

He would be atleast sixteen-old enough to have a driver's licence- and he would have crinkles around his eyes that showed he had a sense of humor and he would be tall, the kind of boy all the other girls would like to date — Beverly Cleary

But the good news was that my elder sister refused to get married straight away and I couldn't get married until she did so I had the licence to go off and dream. — Indra Nooyi

It won't be a volcano that ends man's existence on this planet. It'll be the no-win no-fee lawyers. They are the ones who brought Europe to a halt last week. They are the ones who made a simple trip from Berlin to London into a five-country, all-day hammer blow on your licence fee. They are the ones who must be stopped. — Jeremy Clarkson

There seems little correlation between poverty and honesty. One would rather expect the opposite; dishonesty may not always pay but surely it sometimes does — Milton Friedman

The only store where visitors can officially buy alcohol without a licence is at the Barracuda Beach Resort — Lonely Planet

This excessive licence, which the anarchists think is the only true freedom, provides the stock, as it were, from which a tyrant grows. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

Adiyogi's legacy offers you the licence to believe in the god of your choice, or not to believe at all. And if you do not find a god to your taste, it allows you the freedom to create one. That is how the Indian subcontinent arrived at an exuberant 330 million gods and goddesses at last count! To see the divine in a tree, rock or elephant is not considered absurd because every speck of creation is seen as a portal to the ultimate reality. These — Sadhguru

The system we have built refuses to recognize people. Only credit cards are recognized. Drivers' licenses are recognized. But not people. People haven't any use for faces anymore, it seems. They are busy looking at your credit card, your driver's licence, your social security number. If a driver's licence is more reliable than the face I wear, then why do I have a face? — Muhammad Yunus

I'm a songwriter, and I understand artistic licence. We can embellish, go on little journeys and explore our inner selves. It can be quite self-indulgent. — Laura Marling

L'Age Licence. As in: License to experience, mess up, license to fail, license to do... whatever, before you're settled. — Lucy Knisley

For in marriage a little licence,a little independence there must be between people living together day in and day out in the same house; which Richard gave her, and she him. — Virginia Woolf

But I was still cursed with my duality of purpose; and as the first edge of my penitence wore off, the lower side of me, so long indulged, so recently chained down, began to growl for licence. — Robert Louis Stevenson

I have to get a licence to drive a motorcycle to protect myself and the people around me. I am adamant there should be some sort of licensing required to have children. — Tim Allen

It was an interesting question as to whether the BBC had a future in the digital world, and what form of market failure could justify the licence fee system. — Gavyn Davies

In the "free world" (Natopolis) the centres of ideological orthodoxy are rarely defined. The diversity of intellectual trends within the orthodoxy, the indeterminate and shifting character of its boundaries, the existence of real centres of dissent (and the licence given to even Stalinist opposition)--all these conspire to create the central illusion of "Natopolitan" culture, that there is in fact no orthodoxy but only an infinite variety of opinions among which one is free to choose. — E.P. Thompson

We are not entitled to such licence, I mean that of affirming what we please; we make the Holy Scriptures the rule and the measure of every tenet; we necessarily fix our eyes upon that, and approve that alone which may be made to harmonize with the intention of those writings — Gregory Of Nyssa

[Men] act in response to an outward situation, and on being presented with an opportunity to conform to a pattern. If the pattern gives licence to cruelty, so much the better. They take advantage of the licence so thoughtlessly, so thoroughly, that it becomes perfectly clear: the generality of mankind are only waiting for the chance, only waiting for outward circumstance to sanction brutality and allow them to be cruel and brutal to their heart's content. — Thomas Mann

What use is a god with boundless mercy, sir? You mock me as a pagan, yet the gods of my ancestors pronounce clearly their ways and punish severely when we break their laws. Your Christian god of mercy gives men licence to pursue their greed, their lust for land and blood, knowing a few prayers and a little penance will bring forgiveness and blessing. — Kazuo Ishiguro

Tackling the environment should not be a licence to lecture people, because they have no excuse not to exercise, or eat their fruit and vegetables. Nannying - at least among adults - is likely to be counterproductive. Providing information is empowering; lecturing people is not. So, no excuses, no nannying. — Andrew Lansley

The prospect of the UK without a BBC funded by the licence fee is anywhere between improbable and impossible. — Tessa Jowell

This was a vagrant of sixty-five, who was going to prison for not playing the flute; or, in other words, for begging in the streets, and doing noting for his livelihood. In the next cell, was another man, who was going to the same prison for hawking tin saucepans without a licence; thereby doing something for his living, in defiance of the Stamp-office. — Charles Dickens

The name Firefox is not part of the open source licence, and that's why it's important to us. — Mitchell Baker

I went to see President Nixon at the White House. It wasn't difficult to get a meeting because I was heavyweight champion of the world. So I came to Washington and walked around the garden with Nixon, his wife and daughter. I said: I want you to give Ali his licence back. I want to beat him up for you. — Joe Frazier

I want the BBC to be a mass market public service broadcaster still funded by the licence fee ... and the licence fee is more durable than many people in the commercial sector believe. — Gavyn Davies

The dominion of good men is profitable, not so much for themselves as for human affairs. But the dominion of bad men is hurtful chiefly to themselves who rule, for they destroy their own souls by greater licence in wickedness; — Augustine Of Hippo

You don't approve?" Joan asked, picking up on Delphine's tone.
"Their stories were for themselves, not the Mirrors."
"What do you mean?" said Bea.
"Certainly sometimes a good little character would find a lamp, and would not be so corrupted by the strangely endless possibilities of three wishes that they ended up causing more harm than they ever imagined. Those stories fostered belief, they were retold, certainly; but they were few and far between. Most of the genie's tales showed the characters exactly who they really were, not when they were despised and degraded, not when they'd reached the gutter and been given licence to look at the stars. No, the genies showed them who they were when they were invincible. The characters, they try to forget stories like that. — F.D. Lee

I've done my coaching badges, I've got my Pro Licence, but I enjoy what I'm doing now. I'm also the elite performance director of the Welsh FA. The main thing for me was always Liverpool Football Club and my country, Wales - and I'm lucky enough to still be involved with both of them. — Ian Rush

Sometimes it seemed like I was the one expected to soldier on while everyone else had a licence to fall apart. — Anni Taylor

At school, I was a shy lad and still am. But acting gives me licence to be up there, demanding the focus. It's the one time in my life where I don't have to shout to be heard. — Emun Elliott

Ten years ago, when I was living in a small flat above an off-licence in SW1, I learned that the big house next door had been bought by the wife of the dictator of Nicaragua, Anastasio Somoza Debayle. The street was obviously going down in the world, what with the murder of the nanny Sandra Rivett by that nice Lord Lucan at number 44, and I moved out a few months later. I never met Hope Somoza, but her house became notorious in the street for a burglar alarm that went off with surprising frequency, and for the occasional parties that would cause the street to be jammed solid with Rolls - Royce, Mercedes-Benz and Jaguar limousines. Back in Managua, her husband 'Tacho' had taken a mistress, Dinorah, and Hope was no doubt trying to keep her spirits up. — Salman Rushdie

None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but licence. — John Milton

The TV licence people just can't believe we don't have a television. I'm a bolshie git. I shout at them things like, 'I don't need TV, I'm an intellectual.' — Julian Cope

Even non-commercial media rely on transferring cost to users through licence fees, donations from listeners, viewers, or readers, or grants from companies and foundations that have wrestled their funds from the public in some form of earlier commercial activity. — Robert G. Picard

Licence my roving hands, and let them go
Before, behind, between, above, below. — John Donne

It is an absurd law [Section 295A of the Indian penal code] but also extremely dangerous because it gives fanatics, whether they are Hindus, Catholics or Muslims, a licence to be offended. It also allows people who are in dispute with you to make up false accusations of blasphemy. — Richard Dawkins

If unbridled licence of speech and writing be granted to all, nothing will remain sacred and inviolate; even the highest and truest mandates of nature, justly held to be the common and noblest heritage of the human race, will not be spared. Thus, truth being gradually obscured by darkness, pernicious and manifold error, as too often happens, will easily prevail. — Pope Leo XIII

What is a writer of fiction but a liar with a licence? — Joanne Harris

There is this thing called the GPL (Gnu Public Licence), which we disagree with ... nobody can ever improve the software. — Bill Gates

Funny how being decrepit, diseased and sentenced to death gave you so much power. She couldn't go to Morocco nor even drive herself into town. She could hardly move off the couch. But she could say whatever she wanted: she had bitch licence. — Fiona McGregor

Tell me, ' he continued, 'would it be true that you are an itinerant dentist and that you came on a tricycle?'
'It would not, ' I replied.
'On a patent tandem?'
'No.'
[ ... ]
'Then maybe you are no ... dentist at all, ' he said, 'but only a man after a dog licence or papers for a bull?'
'I did not say I was a dentist, ' I said sharply, 'and I did not say anything about a bull. — Flann O'Brien

The commonplace needs no defence,Dullness is in the critic's eyes,Without a licence life evolvesFrom some dim phase its own surprise;Under these yellow-twinkling elms,Behind these hedges trimly shorn,As in a stable once, so hereIt may be born, it may be born. — William Plomer

First I went to the Sorbonne to do my licence en lettres, but I also started to study law. — Claude Chabrol

Philip Marlowe, 38, a private licence operator of shady reputation, was apprehended by police last night while crawling through the Ballona Storm Drain with a grand piano on his back. Questioned at the University Heights Police Station, Marlowe declared he was taking the piano to the Maharajah of Coot-Berar. Asked why he was wearing spurs, Marlowe declared that a client's confidence was sacred. Marlowe is being held for investigation. Chief Hornside said police were not yet ready to say more. Asked if the piano was in tune, Chief Hornside declared that he had played the Minute Waltz on it in thirty-five seconds and so far as he could tell there were no strings in the piano. He intimated that someting else was. A complete statement to the press will be made within twelve hours, Chief Hornside said abruptly. Speculation is rife that Marlowe was attempting to dispose of a body. — Raymond Chandler