Phryne Quotes & Sayings

Eventually, we come to love certain novels because we have expended so much imaginative labor on them. This is why we hang on to those novels, whose pages are creased and dog-eared. — Orhan Pamuk

Whenever you're in conflict with someone, there is one factor that can make the difference between damaging your relationship and deepening it. That factor is attitude. — William James

Actually, I came because I have a last-minute invitation. My friend Erika Gill is having a big party tomorrow night, one of those all-out birthday bashes that girls like. Want to go?"
"No. Sorry."
"Since it's a catered thing, at a restaurant, I'll pick you up at- what did you say?"
"I'm sorry. I can't do it."
"You're busy?"
"I just can't do it," I said. — Elizabeth Chandler

My solution would be to bridge the skills gap, such as coal to gas training, you have to give people a sense of hope that they have the tools to be able to diversify and stay in the community where they wish to live. — Shelley Moore Capito

Where God is, there is no other. Where world is, there is no God. These two will never unite. Like light and darkness. — Swami Vivekananda

Don't be silly, Phryne, I'm an - ' 'Invert?' said Phryne. 'Of course you are.' She said this as though he had just claimed to have blue eyes, as something utterly ordinary. 'And that means,' John persisted, 'that I am a sinner.' 'Rubbish,' said Phryne sharply. 'No one can help whom they love. I am positive that your God doesn't care a fig. — Kerry Greenwood

She was sensible of the fact that while there were two sets of masculine arms to fall into, and one of them her current pet, Phryne had fallen into Dot's. — Kerry Greenwood

She restored herself with a cocktail and an excellent lobster mayonnaise. Phryne was devoted to lobster mayonnaise, with cucumbers. — Kerry Greenwood

She smiled brightly on Mrs. West. "Who's your dressmaker, Mrs. West?" she asked, with a view to avoiding the woman all costs. Such extremes of fashion as the purple shift dress which Mrs. West was almost wearing was not for Phryne. She preferred her personality to supply the outrageous edge to her appearance, not her exposed bosom. — Kerry Greenwood

Phryne opened her book and sipped her lemonade. Agatha Christie. What a plotter. Phryne wished briefly that the real world was so amenable to being solved. *** — Kerry Greenwood

Phryne was feeling most displeased with a species to which, she reminded herself, she belonged. — Kerry Greenwood

I have to write three books a year to make a reasonable living out of writing - unless, of course, she gets a major American film deal. Phryne has been optioned since the very first book, but to make a historical TV movie, it costs $30,000 a day extra for the historical detail to be correct, so most people aren't doing it. — Kerry Greenwood

Miss Phryne Fisher. Investigations. 221B, The Esplanade, St Kilda,' read Bunji. 'You becoming a private Dick, eh? What larks! And what luck about the address.' 'It wasn't luck, I just added a B to 221. I bought the house for the number. You must drop in and see me, Bunji. Now come upstairs and we'll find you a gown. — Kerry Greenwood

Amazement could go no further. If Phryne had ridden in on a unicorn he would merely have remarked on its elegant hocks and golden horn and suggested that she enter it weight for age at Felmington. Well, no, not a unicorn. Not Phryne. A dragon, perhaps. He was sure that she could tame a dragon. — Kerry Greenwood

As far as executing work is concerned, you do it all in order. You do it in contractual order. There's no overlap, it's just continuation of your ordinary work. You move from one project into another. — William Monahan

Phryne looked at a large statue of St. Joseph, for whom she had always had an admiration. It can't have been easy, managing a girl with an inexplicable pregnancy. But he had accepted the word of the Lord and not put her away. Later generations had not been so forgiving. — Kerry Greenwood

Miss? Miss Phryne? Are you all right?' 'Come in, Dot. I'm fine. Some son of unmarried parents just tried to kidnap me.' 'What did you do with the body, Miss? — Kerry Greenwood

you are out of the field of the novel — Anthony Burgess

One might be tempted to extol as an advance over Sophocles the radical tendency of Euripides to produce a proper relation between art and the public. But "public," after all, is a mere word. In no sense is it a homogeneous and constant quantity. Why should the artist be bound to accommodate himself to a power whose strength lies solely in numbers? And if, by virtue of his endowments and aspirations, he should feel himself superior to every one of these spectators, how could he feel greater respect for the collective expression of all these subordinate capacities than for the relatively highest-endowed individual spectator? — Friedrich Nietzsche

The Colonel was far too firmly married and full of military honours to be a threat to Phryne's virtue, or what remained of it, so she agreed. — Kerry Greenwood

I remember talking to John Mortimer, and he said he was relying on Rumpole to keep him in his old age; well, I'm doing the same with Phryne - she's my mainstay. — Kerry Greenwood

Come to the jacaranda tree at seven o'clock and you will hear something to your advantage. Destroy this note.'
No signature, no clue to the identity. Just what sort of heroine do you think I am? Phryne asked the air. Only a Gothic novel protagonist would receive that and say, 'Goodness, let me just slip into a low-cut white nightie and put on the highest heeled shoes I can find,' and, pausing only to burn the note, slip out of the hotel by a back exit and go forth to meet her doom in the den of the monster - to be rescued in the nick of time by the strong-jawed hero (he of the Byronic profile and the muscles rippling beneath the torn shirt). 'Oh, my dear,' Phryne spoke aloud as if to the letter-writer. 'You don't know a lot about me, do you? — Kerry Greenwood

Her Beretta was holstered in her garter worn high on her thigh, under the shapeless blue dress. She had donned shoes in which she could run. The high heels had done their work and could be presented to the poor, assuming that they wanted to court a broken ankle along with their other problems. Along her forearm, covered by the loose sleeve, her throwing knife was strapped. Phryne, as a helpless victim, was a complete failure. — Kerry Greenwood

All this display, while the working classes were pinched beyond bearing; it was not wise, or tasteful: it smacked of ostentatious wealth. The Europe from which Phryne had lately come was impoverished, even the nobility; and was keeping its head down, still shocked by the Russian revolution. It had become fashionable to make no display; understatement had become most stylish. — Kerry Greenwood

We must have more union members in this country to fight the political and business forces that are undermining workers in this country. The AFL-CIO has chosen the opposite approach by planning to throw even more money at politicians. — James P. Hoffa

Oh wondrous,' murmured Lin Chung. 'Oh, water, mistress of earth, valley spirit, eternal feminine!'
'Taoism again?' Phryne leaned close to hear what he was whispering.
'From the "Tao Te Ching." The old Master should have seen this. All made by water, the female, cold, moon principle.'
'Yin,' said Phryne. 'This is the womb of the earth.'
'Indeed.' He took her hand. 'Completely foreign to all male, hot, sun creatures.'
'Like you?'
'Like me. Yang can only admire and tremble.'
'Come along.' She led him into the centre of the huge space. 'We don't want to get lost in the earthmother's insides. — Kerry Greenwood

Sometimes I feel like Fletcher Christian. — Mekons

Phryne read a detective story, frequently going back because she suddenly found herself reading a conversation between two characters she had not met before - — Kerry Greenwood

One of the best things about life is friends. We all agree on that. And yet our shyness with strangers often prevents friendship from ever gaining a foothold. If only we would realize that the other person is probably just as shy as we are and is simply waiting - and hoping - for us to make the first move. — Jerry Spinelli

And they need not cause you grief. As my Highland grandmother said - and she had the Sight - "Tis not the dead ye have to be concerned about! Beware of the Living!" And she was a wise woman. The dead are beyond your help or mine, poor things. But the living need us. Thirty souls at the least, Phryne, are still on that island to praise God who might now be angels - or devils. — Kerry Greenwood

Phryne was getting out of the car. Dot closed her eyes. Miss Fisher was about to happen to someone again. — Kerry Greenwood