Osbert Quotes & Sayings

Poetry is like fish: if it's fresh, it's good; if it's stale, it's bad; and if you're not certain, try it on the cat. — Osbert Sitwell

The boredom occasioned by too much restraint is always preferable to that produced by an uncontrolled enthusiasm for a pointless variety. — Osbert Lancaster

Osbert Mulliner was simply unequal to the task of tackling cavemen. — P.G. Wodehouse

They cannot conquer for ever! — J.R.R. Tolkien

For Poetry is the wisdom of the blood,That scarlet tree within, which has the powerTo make dull words bud forth and burst in flower. — Osbert Sitwell

Architecture may be frozen music, but it melts. — Osbert Lancaster

Some mothers soften their sons, but Osbert was motherless and I had raised him hard because a man must be hard. The world is filled with enemies. — Bernard Cornwell

Make no mistake about it, a perfect storm is forming, and it's coming our way. Its sudden onset and fierce intensity will surprise even its most vocal proponents and cheerleaders. Many people who are now in the fetish lifestyle will vainly leap into the fray, foolishly thinking that this will be an orderly battle of opposing ideas that can be fought civilly and rationally. They will quickly learn that they are tragically wrong in this assumption, and many of them will pay a terrible price emotionally, socially, and financially as a result. — Michael Makai

Heroic figures are now obsolete,So Demigod and Devil find retreatIn minds of children - as rare beasts and men,Elsewhere extinct, persist in hill or fenFrom man protected - where each form assumesGigantic stature and intention, loomsFrom wind-moved, twilight-woven histories:For them each flower teems with mysteries. — Osbert Sitwell

Osbert was the only one who didn't seem suspicious. He was so interested in the Decline of Western Civilization that he missed the version of it taking place under his nose. — Meg Rosoff

Blood is that fragile scarlet tree we carry within us. — Osbert Sitwell

My education [takes place] during the holidays from Eton. — Osbert Sitwell

A golf course outside a big town serves an excellent purpose in that it segregates, as though a concentration camp, all the idle and idiot well-to-do. — Osbert Sitwell

It is fatal to be appreciated in one's own time. — Osbert Sitwell

The Rich Man's Banquet, which was to last for a decade, had now begun: the feast, it was recognised, went to the greediest. — Osbert Sitwell

Everywhere men have unlocked the prisoners within, and from under the disguising skins the apes have leapt joyfully out. — Osbert Sitwell

Eccentricity, to be socially acceptable, had still to have at least four or five generations of inbreeding behind it. — Osbert Lancaster

I really don't have any secrets. I've never met a photographer whose work I respected that had a secret because the secret lies within each and every one of us. — John Sexton

I know I screwed up my 'Godzilla.' — Dean Devlin

In reality, killing time is only the name for another of the multifarious ways by which Time kills us. — Osbert Sitwell

A household where a total unawareness of the world of ideas not only existed but was regarded as a matter for congratulation. — Osbert Lancaster

One of the things that helps use cope with loss is the fact that while memories may remian, the emotions associated with them will fade like old photographs. At the same time, there is a masochistic desire to retain those feelings spurred on by the dread of losing the power they hold. Sometimes I can't think of anything more awful than simply being human. — James Pratt

George Clooney is a wonderful philanthropist. But I've heard regular people say, "Would he just shut up and be hot?" — Wendy Williams

How simple-minded of the Germans to imagine that we British could be cowed by the destruction of our ancient monuments! As though any havoc of the German bombs could possibly equal the things we have done ourselves! — Osbert Sitwell

We attended stables, as we attended church, in our best clothes, thereby no doubt showing the degree of respect due to horses. — Osbert Sitwell

I hardly saw Osbert that week because he went to school, unlike Isaac and Edmond and Piper, who were supposed to be homeschooled, which as far as I could tell meant reading whatever books you happen to be interested in, and every once in a blue moon having Aunt Penn say Have you learned any geography? and them saying yes. — Meg Rosoff

My father, a closet astronomer, has tried to explain black holes to me, how they are so heavy they absorb everything, even light, right into their center. Moments like this are the same kind of vacuum; no matter what you cling to, you wind up being sucked in. — Jodi Picoult

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

It had happened to me once, long ago. I had been named Osbert by my father, who was called Uhtred, but when my elder brother, also Uhtred, was slaughtered by the Danes my father had renamed me. It is always thus in our family. The eldest son carries on the name. My stepmother, a foolish woman, even had me baptized a second time because, she said, the angels who guard the gates of heaven would not know me by my new name, and so I was dipped in the water barrel, but Christianity washed off me, thank Christ, and I discovered the old gods and have worshiped them ever since. — Bernard Cornwell

I have always said that if I were a rich man, I would employ a professional praiser. — Osbert Sitwell

The artist, like the idiot or clown, sits on the edge of the world, and a push may send him over it. — Osbert Sitwell

The terrible newly imported American doctrine that everyone ought to do something. — Osbert Sitwell

Hell has a climate, but no situation. It lies in the spirit, and not in space. — Osbert Sitwell

Much of the study of history is a matter of comparison, of relating what was happening in one area to what was happening elsewhere, and what had happened in the past. To view a period in isolation is to miss whatever message it has to offer. — Louis L'Amour

The only difference between an artist and a lunatic is, perhaps, that the artist has the restraint or courtesy to conceal the intensity of his obsession from all except those similarly afflicted. — Osbert Sitwell

The appropriation of radical thinking by lazy, self-obsessed hippies is a public relations disaster that could cost the earth. — Ben Elton

I always think plot is what you fall back on if you can't write, to keep things going. — Meg Rosoff

In order to save the forty million inhabitants of the United Kingdom from a bloody civil war, our colonial statesmen must acquire new lands for settling the surplus population of this country, to provide new markets ... The Empire, as I have always said, is a bread and butter question. — Cecil Rhodes

Although very few people are actually called upon to live in palaces a very large number are unwilling to admit the fact. — Osbert Lancaster

For forty days he went out into the desert - and never shot anything [on Jesus] — Osbert Sitwell