quotes from classic

They are at the end of the gallery; retired to their tea and scandal, according to their ancient custom.

more quotes from William Congreve

You are a woman: you must never speak what you think; your words must contradict your thoughts, but your actions may contradict your words.

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Music has charms to sooth a savage breast, to soften rocks, or bend a knotted oak.

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He who closes his ears to the views of others shows little confidence in the integrity of his own views.

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She likes herself, yet others hates, For that which in herself she prizes; And while she laughs at them, forgets She is the thing that she despises.

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Everyone is a reactionary about subjects he understands.

more quotes from Robert Conquest

Why should we strive, with cynic frown, to knock their fairy castles down?

more quotes from Eliza Cook

How cruelly sweet are the echoes that start, When memory plays an old tune on the heart.

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Possibly I've become less funny as I've been happier.

more quotes from Wendy Cope

I've said what I'm prepared to say in my poems, and then journalists think that you're going to tell them a whole lot more.

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I like buying clothes, especially as I get a tax-deductible allowance.

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The interesting thing is that you don't often meet a poet who doesn't have a sense of humour, and some of them do keep it out of their poems because they're afraid of being seen as light versifiers.

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I've never been more famous than I was, suddenly, in 1986.

more quotes from Wendy Cope

I have a theory that if you've got the kind of parents who want to send you to boarding school, you're probably better off at boarding school.

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I always tell students that writing a poem and publishing it are two quite separate things, and you should write what you have to write, and if you're afraid it's going to upset someone, don't publish it.

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Bloody men are like bloody buses - you wait for about a year and as soon as one approaches your stop two or three others appear.

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Bloody Christmas, here again, let us raise a loving cup, peace on earth, goodwill to men, and make them do the washing up.

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I was single for a long time and felt very much alone in the world, and talk of family values upset me very much at that phase in my life, because I used to think: 'What about people like me?'

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In my case, the long gaps between my books have got quite a lot to do with lack of confidence. A lot of the time when I'm not writing I start thinking I can't do it.

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I like a quiet life.

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