Wych Quotes & Sayings

Four years in England had filled Obi with a longing to be back in Umuofia. This feeling was sometimes so strong that he found himself feeling ashamed of studying English for his degree. He spoke Ibo whenever he had the least opportunity of doing so. Nothing gave him greater pleasure than to find another Ibo-speaking student in a London bus. But when he had to speak in English with a Nigerian student from another tribe he lowered his voice. It was humiliating to have to speak to one's countryman in a foreign language, especially in the presence of the proud owners of that language. They would naturally assume that one had no language of one's own. He wished they were here today to see. Let them come to Umuofia now and listen to the talk of men who made a great art of conversation. Let them come and see men and women and children who knew how to live, whose joy of life had not yet been killed by those who claimed to teach other nations how to live. — Chinua Achebe

I don't know if Jim was a major part of that or not. He is one of a small group of real storytellers. He has enormous imagination and ability to write. I'm glad he's coming back. It's going to be good for the show. — Matthew Ashford

I'm sure you do know how to pick guys back on the farm, but this is a whole different world. You can't just grunt and bend some guy over your tractor. — Maris Black

Lust is an enemy to the purse, a foe to the person, a canker to the mind, a corrosive to the conscience, a weakness of the wit, a besotter of the senses, and finally, a mortal bane to all the body. — Pliny The Elder

If you ever start to feel good about yourself ...
... they have this thing called the internet. — Tina Fey

Sometimes we get confused about what happiness really means. Sometimes we get confused about what path to take to get to happiness. — Chinelo Okparanta

The purple haze of the wych elms; the blue flash of a kingfisher's wings; the statuesque rightness of the milch cows in that green place chomping on the rich flood-grass. — Ronald Frame

About six in the evening I came out of the moorland to a white ribbon of road which wound up the narrow vale of a lowland stream. As I followed it, fields gave place to bent, the glen became a plateau, and presently I had reached a kind of pass where a solitary house smoked in the twilight. The road swung over a bridge, and leaning on the parapet was a young man. He was smoking a long clay pipe and studying the water with spectacled eyes. In his left hand was a small book with a finger marking the place. Slowly he repeated - As when a Gryphon through the wilderness With winged step, o'er hill and moory dale Pursues the Arimaspian. He jumped round as my step rung on the keystone, and I saw a pleasant sunburnt boyish face. 'Good evening to you,' he said gravely. 'It's a fine night for the road.' The smell of peat smoke and of some savoury roast floated to me from the house. — John Buchan

I do think a lot of sexual violence stems from experiences in childhood or at puberty. Some people become sadistic after suffering early abuse at the hands of parents, relatives or friends. But for others, the seed is planted in the formative years by the conflation of images of violence with those of sexual arousal. Magazines, TV shows and, especially, slasher movies are masters at doing this. — Park Dietz

That's the biggest problem existing in this country! People are always mixing up the word free and freedom. Free is something you get for nothin.' Freedom is a responsibility. We think freedom means do nothing, don't be responsible for your actions ... I think its time for adult Americans to be responsible for themselves, to take back the responsibility of being a free nation. — Aaron Tippin

Ursula craved solitude but she hated loneliness, a conundrum that she couldn't even begin to solve. — Kate Atkinson

Pooley rose to investigate but the Professor restrained him with a firm and unyielding hand. Jim marvelled at the ancient's newly acquired strength. 'Do not look, Jim,' the Professor said dramatically, 'you would not care for what you saw. — Robert Rankin

It was English, and the wych-elm that she saw from the window was an English tree. No report had prepared her for its peculiar glory. It was neither warrior, nor lover, nor god; in none of these roles do the English excel. It was a comrade, bending over the house, strength and adventure in its roots, but in its utmost fingers tenderness, and the girth, that a dozen men could not have spanned, became in the end evanescent, till pale bud clusters seemed to float in the air. — E. M. Forster

All the world over we are very conscious of the trees in spring, and watch with delight how the network of twigs on the wych-elms is becoming spangled with tiny puce flowers, like little beetles caught in a spider's web, and how little lemon-colored buds are studding the thorn. While as to the long red-gold buds of the horse-chestnuts - they come bursting out with a sort of a visual bang. And now the beech is hatching its tiny perfectly-formed leaves — Hope Mirrlees

Contrary to common public opinion, Iraq is not simply about oil. It is also about water and geopolitics. Both the Tigris and Euphrates rivers flow through Iraq; thus, of all the countries in that part of the world, Iraq controls the most important sources of increasingly critical water resources. — John Perkins

Labor is rest
from the sorrow that greet us;
Rest from all petty vexations that meet us,
Rest from sin-promptings that ever entreat us,
Rest from the world-sirens that hire us to ill.
Work
and pure slumbers shall wait on thy pillow;
Work
thou shalt ride over Care's coming billow;
Lie not down wearied 'neath Woe's weeping willow!
Work with a stout heart and resolute will! — Frances Sargent Osgood

When desire dies,fear is born — Baltasar Gracian