Percival Quotes & Sayings

The trouble with disagreeable people, Tibbs, is that the majority of them seem to be either one's direct relations or part of one's daily job. Present company excluded, of course" -Inspector Percival Pensive — Jessica Lawson

It was frustrating and exhausting to gather bits of disconnected information without understanding how it all fitted together. — Wendy Percival

War is a survival among us from savage times and affects now chiefly the boyish and unthinking element of the nation. — Percival Lowell

I have lost friends, some by death - Percival - others through sheer inability to cross the street. — Virginia Woolf

Roses bloom, and then they wither;
Cheeks are bright, then fade and die;
Shapes of light are wafted hither,
Then, like visions, hurry by. — James Gates Percival

Elisabeth Sheffield's new novel is multilayered, smart, beautifully written, and funny. I was taken in by the first paragraph and held firmly through the roller coaster of a ride. The depth of the novel was evidenced by the constantly shifting meaning of the title itself. In fact, the entire work never changes its meaning, but somehow, seamlessly, simply means more. This is a rare and memorable piece of work. — Percival Everett

Formulae are the anaesthetics of thought, not its stimulants and to make any one think is far better worth while than cramming him with ill-considered, and therefore indigestible, learning. — Percival Lowell

Are physical forces alone at work there, or has evolution begotten something more complex, something not akin to what we know on Earth as life? It is in this that lies the peculiar interest of Mars. — Percival Lowell

Percival was mouse-coloured and had not been very attractive even to his mother. — William Golding

I don't think meaning exists without form, and certainly form does not exist without meaning. Meaning and story come first. Story is the most important part of fiction. Without it, what's the point? If all you care about is form, become a critic. — Percival Everett

Unlike him I had been unable to escape into the simple complexities of science. All he had to do was solve the mystery of the universe, which may be difficult but is not as difficult as living an ordinary life ... (How happy scientists are! Why didn't we become scientists, Percival? They confront problems which can be solved. We don't know what we confront. Does it have a name?) — Walker Percy

I was, in life, to be a gambler, a risk taker, a swashbuckler, a knight. I accepted, then and there, my place in this world. I was a fighter of windmills. I was a chaser of whales. — Percival Everett

Stressful situations cause alterations in behavior that reveal true character, Tibbs. If a person gradually begins acting like someone else altogether, you may very well find that they *are* someone else altogether" -Inspector Percival Pensive — Jessica Lawson

Scarcely a year previously, his father, Percival, had been convicted of a savage and well-publicized attack upon three young Muggles. — J.K. Rowling

Our thoughts are boundless, though our frames are frail,
Our souls immortal, though our limbs decay;
Though darken'd in this poor life by a veil
Of suffering, dying matter, we shall play
In truth's eternal sunbeams; on the way
To heaven's high capitol our cars shall roll;
The temple of the Power whom all obey,
That is the mark we tend to, for the soul
Can take no lower flight, and seek no meaner goal. — James Gates Percival

I was relying on Suliman being alive.THen when all that seemed to be left of him was Percival, I was so scared I had to go out and get drunk. And then you go and play into the Witch's hand!" "I'm the eldest!" Sophie shrieked. "I'm a failure!" "Garbage!" Howl shouted. "You just never stop to think! — Diana Wynne Jones

Man is born to die. His works are short-lived. Buildings crumble, monuments decay, and wealth vanishes, but Katahdin in all it's glory forever shall remain the mountain of the people of Maine. — Percival Proctor Baxter

The world is full of poetry. The air is living with its spirit; and the waves dance to the music of its melodies, and sparkle in its brightness. — James Gates Percival

This land needed a sword forged in the hottest of fires to regain what was lost...and you are that sword. — S. Alexander O'Keefe

Consciousness is the ultimate Reality; compared with it, all else is illusion. — Harold Percival

Mordecai allowed a smile to play across his face. "I have little doubt this ploy will try your patience. You must present Sir Percival as a gallant knight well-versed in chivalry and a favored champion in the tourneys. Perhaps a bit of poetry would be in order as well."
Dante rolled his eyes and sighed. "I shall be the very picture of chivalrous drivel. — Elizabeth Elliott

Imagination is as vital to any advance in science as learning and precision are essential for starting points. — Percival Lowell

This is the law: Every thing existing on the physical plane is an exteriorization of thought, which must be balanced through the one who issued the thought, and in accordance with that one's responsibility, at the conjunction of time, condition, and place. — Harold Percival

A metaphor cannot be paraphrased — Percival Everett

Night steals on; and the day takes its farewell, like the words of a departing friend, or the last tone of hallowed music in a minister's aisles, heard when it floats along the shade of elms, in the still place of graves. — James Gates Percival

Sweet flower, thou tellest how hearts as pure and tender as thy leaf, as low and humble as thy stem, will surely know the joy that peace imparts. — James Gates Percival

For the benefit of your research people, I would like to mention (so as to avoid any duplication of labor): that the planet is very like Mars; that at least seventeen states have Pinedales; that the end of the top paragraph Galley 3 is an allusion to the famous "canals" (or, more correctly, "channels") of Schiaparelli (and Percival Lowell); that I have thoroughly studied the habits of chinchillas; that Charrete is old French and should have one "t"; that Boke's source on Galley 9 is accurate; that "Lancelotik" is not a Celtic diminutive but a Slavic one; that "Betelgeuze" is correctly spelled with a "z", not an "s" as some dictionaries have it; that the "Indigo" Knight is the result of some of my own research; that Sir Grummore, mentioned both in Le Morte Darthur ad in Amadis de Gaul, was a Scotsman; that L'Eau Grise is a scholarly pun; and that neither bludgeons nor blandishments will make me give up the word "hobnailnobbing". — Vladimir Nabokov

How awful is that hour when con, science stings. — James Gates Percival

But the same in the plural in ia must be. E, or i, are the ablative's ends, - mark my song, While or to the nominative case doth belong; For the neuter aforesaid we settle it thus: The plural is ora; the singular us. — Percival Leigh

PERCIVAL: Now, who is telling the story?
SEVERIN: The camera is telling the story. It's watching everything, and you can't lie to it, or it will know.
PERCIVAL: My girl is so clever! No, the camera witnesses the story and records it, but it is outside the story. Like a very tiny god with one big, dark eye ... Which of [the characters] is the authority? Who controls how the story is told? And who is the audience, for whom all these wonderful things are meant?
SEVERIN: They are all telling the story to me. — Catherynne M Valente

Now when we think that each of these stars is probably the centre of a solar system grander than our own, we cannot seriously take ourselves to be the only minds in it all. — Percival Lowell

Why will I bury you? So that one day I might disturb your grave. — Percival Everett

Yes, there is a Government of this changing world. The Government is not in the changing world. It is in the Realm of Permanence, and though the Realm of Permanence pervades this world of change, it cannot be seen by mortal eyes. — Harold Percival

Often one finds surprises in a novel, but it is rare to find a novel that is a surprise. Richard Melo's 'Happy Talk' is just that. It is like a collision of William Gaddis, M*A*S*H and The Beguiled. It is a Haiti I could never have imagined and will not soon forget. These nurses are crazy and I wish I knew them. — Percival Everett

Like most people I am smarter than some, dumber than others, skinnier than most, and fatter than a few, but none was ever more confused than I was. I flew with confusion always parallel to me, and a whole internal chase at my rear. The one matter that was not confusing to me, but seemed to escape all the others, was the fact that the only thing that was certain to become obsolete, would necessarily become wearied and worn, was the truth. I knew this in spite of the truth that I had had little truck with the truth in my life. It was not that I considered myself a resident in a den of lies, but rather that my history was shrouded and diced and soaking wet with hysteria and contradiction. Contradictions or no, my trajectory through life, though different from most, was, nonetheless, a trajectory. — Percival Everett

It's a bitch, ain't it? The things we assume. — Percival Everett

That Mars is inhabited by beings of some sort or other we may consider as certain as it is uncertain what these beings may be. — Percival Lowell

The first two letters of the name Pluto are the initials of Percival Lowell. Its symbol is , a planetary monogram. But Lowell's lifelong love was the planet Mars. He was electrified by the announcement in 1877 by an Italian astronomer, Giovanni Schiaparelli, of canali on Mars. — Carl Sagan

Why are people so fucked up?" I asked
"Maybe you do need college, Poiter," Everett said. "You want to know why people are so fucked up? Son, that's about the only question I can answer with even a small measure of authority. It's because they're people. People, my friend, are worse than anybody. — Percival Everett

Because infinite growth is impossible with finite resources. Any new corporate model needs to take that into account. Phillip Percival, consultant/director, IC Science — Anonymous

A first novel of astonishing force, craft and beauty, The Headmaster's Wager conjures up a dizzyingly evocative wartime Saigon in the story of Percival Chen, a Chinese schoolmaster in Vietnam. This extraordinary book made me weep. Read it. — Janice Y.K. Lee

Bright points in the sky or a blow on the head will equally cause one to see stars. — Percival Lowell

Percival pinched his lips, sending his laugh to his eyes. — Rachel Hauck

In Eastern lands they talk in flowers,
And they tell in a garland their loves and cares;
Each blossom that blooms in their garden bowers,
On its leaves a mystic language bears. — James Gates Percival

There is nothing but death
Our affections can sever,
And till life's latest breath
Love shall bind us for ever. — James Gates Percival

Everybody should read fiction ... I don't think serious fiction is written for a few people. I think we live in a stupid culture that won't educate its people to read these things. It would be a much more interesting place if it would. And it's not just that mechanics and plumbers don't read literary fiction, it's that doctors and lawyers don't read literary fiction. It has nothing to do with class, it has to do with an anti-intellectual culture that doesn't trust art. — Percival Everett

Linda Mallory is the postmodern fuck. — Percival Everett

The recollection of one upward hour
Hath more in it to tranquilize and cheer
The darkness of despondency, than years
Of gayety and pleasure. — James Gates Percival

We are about to part," said Neville. "Here are the boxes; here are the cabs. There is Percival in his billycock hat. He will forget me. He will leave my letters lying about among guns and dogs unaswered. I shall send him poems and he will perhaps reply with a picture post card. But it is for that that I love him. I shall propose a meeting - under a clock, by some Cross; and shall wait and he will not come. It is for that that I love him. — Virginia Woolf

If astronomy teaches anything, it teaches that man is but a detail in the evolution of the universe, and the resemblant though diverse details are inevitably to be expected in the hosts of orbs around him. He learns that, though he will probably never find his double anywhere, he is destined to discover any number of cousins scattered through space. — Percival Lowell

The thundering voice that wrings, in one dark, damning moment, crimes of years! — James Gates Percival

The whole object of science is to synthesize, and so simplify; and did we but know the uttermost of a subject we could make it singularly clear. — Percival Lowell

For you it is possible to do anything; the only thing impossible for you to do is to do wrong, inasmuch as you are knowledge and justice and love. — Harold Percival

O rose! the sweetest blossom,
Of spring the fairest flower,
O rose! the joy of heaven.
The god of love, with roses
His yellow locks adorning,
Dances with the hours and graces. — James Gates Percival

Caroline Trent hadn't meant to shoot Percival Prewitt, but she had, and now he was dead.
Or at least she thought he was dead. — Julia Quinn

Green sods are all their monument; and yet it tells A nobler history than pillared piles, Or the eternal pyramids. — James Gates Percival

There are only three motives for all crimes. Tibbs: money, power, and love. Sometimes those things get muddled together, of course, and you could argue that hunger is a bloody good motivator as well, but one might lump that in with love of self or love of others or love of food, and---well, never mind all that. Pass the pickled radishes. - Inspector Percival Pensive, The Case of the Gilded Guardian — Jessica Lawson

Speculation has been singularly fruitful as to what these markings on our next to nearest neighbor in space may mean. Each astronomer holds a different pet theory on the subject, and pooh-poohs those of all the others. Nevertheless, the most self-evident explanation from the markings themselves is probably the true one; namely, that in them we are looking upon the result of the work of some sort of intelligent beings ... The amazing blue network on Mars hints that one planet besides our own is actually inhabited now. — Percival Lowell

I am one who finds within me a nobility that spurns the idle pratings of the great, and their mean boasts of what their fathers were, while they themselves are fools effeminate. — James Gates Percival

Ever since celestial mechanics in the skillful hands of Leverrier and Adams led to the world-amazed discovery of Neptune, a belief has existed begotten of that success that still other planets lay beyond, only waiting to be found. — Percival Lowell

Thought can wing its way
Swifter than lightning-flashes or the beam
That hastens on the pinions of the morn. — James Gates Percival

Accidents and chance are words used by persons who do not think clearly when they attempt to account for certain happenings. Anyone who thinks must be convinced that in a world as orderly as this there is no room for the words accident and chance. — Harold Percival

And in me too the wave rises. It swells; it arches its back. I am aware once more of a new desire, something rising beneath me like the proud horse whose rider first spurs and then pulls him back. What enemy do we now perceive advancing against us, you whom I ride now, as we stand pawing this stretch of pavement? It is death. Death is the enemy. It is death against whom I ride with my spear couched and my hair flying back like a young man's, like Percival's, when he galloped in India. I strike spurs into my horse. Against you I will fling myself, unvanquished and unyielding, O Death! — Virginia Woolf

Yes. I was looking for Lettie. They were both very kind to me," Percival said, "Even though they'd never seen me before. And Wizard Howl kept visiting to court Lettie. Lettie didn't want him, and she asked me to bite him to get rid of him, until Howl suddenly began asking her about you and - "
"what?"
he said, " I know someone called sophie who looks a little like you.. And Lettie said, that's my sister,' without thinking," Percival said. " And she got terribly worried then, particularly as Howl went on asking about her sister. — Diana Wynne Jones

Witness for the defense, Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore. — J.K. Rowling

Irrigation, unscientifically conducted, would not give us such truly wonderful mathematical fitness [as we observe in the Martian canals] ... A mind of no mean order would seem to have presided over the system we see-a mind certainly of considerably more comprehensiveness than that which presides over the various department of our own public works. — Percival Lowell

I must be able to say, 'Percival, a ridiculous name'. At the same time let me tell you, men and women, hurrying to the tube station, you would have had to respect him. You would have had to form up and follow behind him. How strange to oar one's way through crowds seeing life through hollow eyes, burning eyes. — Virginia Woolf

You don't see me as the kind of knight in shining red armor? My name is already Percival, how come it doesn't turn you on? He's the ultimate fictional brooding hero."
"Let me think of possible reason why I don't see you in my regular mythology-themed fetish dream, since you assume that all girl's sex fantasy starts with bunch of homos in iron suit
Oh right, red doesn't suit you. — Rea Lidde

Happy the life, that in a peaceful stream,
Obscure, unnoticed through the vale has flow'd;
The heart that ne'er was charm'd by fortune's gleam
Is ever sweet contentment's blest abode. — James Gates Percival

It's okay to love something bigger than yourself without fearing it. Anything worth loving is bigger than we are anyway. — Percival Everett

There are celestial sights more dazzling, spectacles that inspire more awe, but to the thoughtful observer who is privileged to see them well, there is nothing in the sky so profoundly impressive as the canals of Mars. Fine lines and little gossamer filaments only, cobwebbing the face of the Martian disk, but threads to draw one's mind after them across the millions of miles of intervening void. — Percival Lowell

He made enemies as naturally as soap makes suds. — Percival Wilde

There are moments of life that we never forget, which brighten and brighten as time steals away. — James Gates Percival

Read. Always read. No one can take that away from you. — Percival Everett

A thought has no size in the physical sense but is vast as compared to the physical acts and objects into which it is later precipitated. The power of a thought is enormous and superior to all the successive physical acts, objects, and events that body forth its energy. A thought often endures for a time much greater than the whole life of the man who thought it. — Harold Percival

Percival guessed that his prey preferred to listen, letting her friends carry on with whatever amusing nonsense filled their lives, while she privately assessed their habits, cataloging their strengths and faults with clinical ruthlessness. — Danielle Trussoni