Palliser Quotes & Sayings

When we can't let the moment in front of us be what it is (because we're afraid that if it's good, it'll end too soon; if it's bad, it'll go on forever; and if it's neutral, it'll bore us to tears), we're out of balance. Mindfulness restores that balance; we catch our habitual reactions of clinging, condemning, and zoning out, and let them go. — Sharon Salzberg

I like to have a plan," said Mr. Palliser. "And so do I," said his wife,
"if only for the sake of not keeping it. — Anthony Trollope

I think every first-person narrator in a novel should be compromised. I prefer that word to 'unreliable.' — Charles Palliser

In Victorian fiction, there would be a chapter at the end devoted to righting all of the wrongs. I thought to right all of the wrongs would be too glib. I thought it would be better to lull the reader into thinking that is the way it would work, but then not to do that. — Charles Palliser

I've recently rediscovered Anthony Trollope. I used to read him back in college, and a friend turned me on to a whole new series of his work, 'The Palliser Series.' It's a series of seven or eight books. — Kevin Kwan

Just because my bank account hasn't swelled astronomically I don't consider myself any less of a success. — Lydia Lunch

Absurdism was really just realism seen from close to the bottom. — George Saunders

To make it interesting and worth doing, writing a novel has to be a leap into the unknown. I have to be unsure if I can write it; otherwise, I won't want to. — Charles Palliser

Desperately seeking something is not what attracts it to us. When we dwell, in deep peace and kindness, whatever would add to our happiness just flows to our door. — Marianne Williamson

All the girls I had ever loved were mine. Each gave me what she alone had to give and to each I gave what she alone knew how to take. — Hermann Hesse

Mr Palliser was one of those politicians in possessing whom England has perhaps more reason to be proud than of any other of her resources, and who, as a body, give to her that exquisite combination of conservatism and progress which is her present strength and best security for the future. — Anthony Trollope

Idle Jeffrey, when asking his cousin for money: "I fear I have not a mercenary tendency."

The Chancellor of the Exchequer and his cousin, Plantagenet Palliser: "Men must have mercenary tendencies or they would not have bred. The man who plows, so he may live, does so because, luckily, he has mercenary tendencies."

Jeffrey: "Just so, but you see I am less lucky than the plowman."

Palliser: "There is no vulgar error so vulgar, that is to say common or erroneous, as that by which men have been taught to say that mercenary tendencies are bad. The desire for wealth is the source of all progress. Civilization comes from what men call greed. Let your mercenary tendencies be combines with honesty, and they cannot take you astray. — Anthony Trollope

But that citizen's perception was also at one with the truth in recognizing that the very brutality of the means by which the IRA were pursuing change was destructive of the trust upon which new possibilities would have to be based. — Seamus Heaney

Living with my grandmother in Bath, I sort of thought I was living in the 19th century. My grandmother was someone who, in a way, was rather defiantly trying to live a pre-World War I existence. — Charles Palliser

Victorian values meant brutalizing people who were often poor. — Charles Palliser

So long, old pal. You're going to a different world now. It's sure to be a better one, since no other world could be as bad as this one is. — Kurt Vonnegut

I'm quite intrigued by the notion of a book that is completely self-contained but related to another book. I've coined a rather hideous word for it - a paraquel. — Charles Palliser

For me, it would be pointless to write a novel that I knew I could complete within a specific length of time. I could do that only by repeating something I had done before, and I've never wanted to do that. — Charles Palliser

To exist is to be betrayed, since we exist for others only by virtue of what we betray of ourselves to them. — Charles Palliser

I know you're not like that anymore, Kane. While I don't approve of the person you used to be, I can't change the past. Lord knows I would if I could. The only thing to do is move forward, and if you want, I would love for you to do so with me. — Amanda Stone

Lets ignore our mothers' well-meant advice. — Anne Taintor