Sington Quotes & Sayings

Who is the other woman whose photograph I do not have? If my mother was the first in my life, she was the last: my lover and my downfall, my hope and my despair. Her photographs I burned in an ashtray, one at a time - some might say to be rid of the evidence. Her name was Theresa Aden: Theresa like the saint; Aden like Eden, complete with snake. — Philip Sington

I can be a bit extreme. I'll spend too much time running round the park, doing yoga and drinking green tea. I can get a bit obsessive. I have to rein it in sometimes. — Sam Taylor-Johnson

The world is an old woman, and mistakes any gilt farthing for a gold coin; whereby being often cheated, she will thenceforth trust nothing but the common copper. — Thomas Carlyle

The wind funnelled down the covered platform, jostling the passengers and tearing at their clothes. A woman's scarf whipped by overhead, somersaulting as if intoxicated by the sudden taste of freedom. — Philip Sington

Desire is an appetite, quickly sated. Longing is a wound, an opening in the heart or the spirit. Whatever the cause, whatever the duration, it almost always leaves a scar. — Philip Sington

How is it that some people go through hell trying to get close to you, while you haven't the haziest notion and don't even give them a thought when two weeks go by and you haven't so much as exchanged a single word between you? Did he have any idea? Should I let him know? — Andre Aciman

For some reason I was unable to call him by his only given name. Niall Stella was a two man honor. Like Prince Harry or Jesus Christ. — Christina Lauren

That was the dream of Montparnasse: to live for the moments of the greatest intensity, to find in them a truthful inspiration, and to hell with all the rest. — Philip Sington

The trouble with many copywriters in general agencies are that they don't really think in terms of selling. They have never written direct-response; they have never tasted blood — David Ogilvy

We drank our coffee the Russian way. That is to say we had vodka before it and vodka afterwards. — Philip Sington

He watched the newly arrived commuters as they stepped into the carriage, pushed their way down the tube, the odours from their damp clothes mingling, giving off varying degrees of mustiness: London grime, or smoke from airless offices. A woman wearing a blue swing coat glanced along the carriage, casting around for an empty seat. Her pale skin, the searching green eyes, reminded him of Emma. Briefly, he felt his breath catch; he stood, clambered back over his neighbour and indicated for her to take his seat. And so his mind stayed with Emma when he knew he should be working out a strategy for telling Dorothy of his news. But Emma was never far away; like the glitter balls in dance halls, she would slowly rotate in his memory, different facets reappearing, as the hues changed in her auburn hair. — Amanda Sington-Williams

And then they would watch her closely as the dark, coagulated masses took form before her eyes, became flesh and bone, became gradually human. For all their show of reluctance, she had a sense that they enjoyed introducing her to these horrors, as seducers took pleasure in the corruption of innocence. — Philip Sington

You don't need to see different things, but rather to see things differently. — Lama Surya Das

To rehearse imaginary conversations on paper is called literature. To do so out loud is called madness. — Philip Sington

A saint? Tanner Stone was the anti-Christ. — Amy Andrews

But then, he calls many things mad that he does not care for. Perhaps that is easier than accepting them. — Philip Sington

The future can always wait so long as the here-and-now is rapturous. — Philip Sington

One thing I knew about the novelist's task: when in doubt, write; when empty, write; when afraid, write. Nothing is more impenetrable than the blank page. The blank page is the void, the absence of sense and feeling, the white light of literary death. — Philip Sington

The railway was part scalpel, part movie camera, slicing the city open, parading its inner workings at fifty frames per second. It was on the S-Bahn that she felt least abandoned, as if the act of travelling turned back the clock, and brought her nearer to the future she had lost. — Philip Sington

Old Prague was a story-book city caked in grime: ancient, soot-blackened. History lived in every detail: in the deerstalker rooftops and the blue-sparking trams. He wandered the streets in disbelief, photographing everything, images from Kafka crowding into his head. With the turn of every corner it came back to him: the special frisson you get behind enemy lines. — Philip Sington

There is no way to success in art but to take off your coat, grind paint, and work like a digger on the railroad, all day and every day. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

... it seemed to Kirsch that the most reliable guide to the mental landscape of a patient was the patient himself. He was better placed to explain his behaviour and his experiences than anyone else. Yet wherever Kirsch went, the patient was the very last person anyone thought to consult. Because, of course, the patient was insane. — Philip Sington

I wanted her body and soul, but body first. — Philip Sington

For the writer under Actually Existing Socialism describing sex is a simple matter: he simply does not do it (the describing, I mean, not the sex). — Philip Sington

Her hair, just long enough now to tie back in a knot, had a coppery sheen, a hint of fire in the darkness. — Philip Sington

You're gonna be going to rock shows for the rest of your natural life right ladies?. You're gonna see sleezy ass rockbands. They're gonna come up to you and ask you, to show your tits for a backstage pass. You know what I want you to fucking do? I want you to spit right in their FUCKING FACE. — Gerard Way

He reached into the grate, picked out a couple of scraps, smoothed them out, leaning close to the flickering light. He was curious to see what it was Zoia had decided to destroy. — Philip Sington

I have found that in fiction one is freer to speak the truth, if only because in fiction the truth is not expected or required. You may easily disguise it, so that it is only recognized much later, when the story and the characters have faded into darkness. — Philip Sington

One's prime is elusive. You little girls, when you grow up, must be on the alert to recognize your prime at whatever time of your life it may occur. You must then live it to the full. — Muriel Spark

Lies kill love, it's been said. Well, what about frankness, then. — Abel Hermant

This place was just a pile of old stones. Pretty stones arranged in intriguing ways, but just old stones.
"And outdated wiring," her father would have added. — Magnus Flyte

Problems are there to be solved. How dull life would be without them. — Philip Sington

I was already at an age when putting off anything was a bad idea. — Philip Sington

All writers are insecure, the male ones especially. It's well known. Why else would they spend so much time on make-believe? They're only happy in their imaginary worlds, because that's where they're in charge - where they're God. Did you know that Hemingway's mother dressed him as a girl until he was six years old?
I was not offended by Claudia's glib psychological theory. Like many glib psychological theories, it struck me as fundamentally correct. — Philip Sington

One of the joys of being in love is that it clarifies your priorities. Complication arises from not knowing what you want. — Philip Sington

I get very tense working, so I often have to get up and wander around the house. It is very bad on my stomach. I have to be mad to be working well anyway, and then I am mad about the way things are going on the page in addition. My ulcer flourishes and I have to chew lots of pills. When my work is going well, I am usually sort of sick. — William H Gass

In the journey of life, certain paths may seem to be leading nowhere because of a mountain or hill on the way which may seem to be the end of the journey, but should a pilgrim of life climb such a mountain with tenacity and courage and gets to its apex, he would not only deeply feel and understand the tenacity and the courage it takes to climb the mountain, but he would also see ahead and have a clearer picture of the way forward better! — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah