H Quotes
Browse famous quotes beginning with H. This page is a child index of the full Popular Quotes A-Z directory.
“He had often been put into a time-out to "think about what he said," but when he did, he never wanted to revise his original words. Eventually her learned to guess what people wanted to hear and what they didn't . To him, it had always felt like lying. Wasn't an omission just as bad as an untruth?”
Source: By Any Other Name
“He had often thought it must be hard for mortals to give up on their families and friends to claim the immortals they loved. They gained a lot in return, of course: eternal youth and a love and passion most mortals could only dream of. Still, family was important to his clan, and to his mind it spoke well of Sam and her sisters that they deemed family important as well.”
Source: Hungry For You
“He had often thought of Bombay as the museum of failures, an exhibit hall filled with thwarted dreams and broken promises.”
Source: The Museum of Failures
“He had often wondered if the sea that incessantly broke its many heads against the boulders without doing them any injury was in effect trying to convey something to man. Why it was an insinuation of the same charge – the message that the succession of sunshine and shade of the jungle carried and in a matter of a few moments it had become all too clear to him: Truth, deceit! Truth, deceit! the chant to which this world of ours whirls.”
Source: The Thugs & a Courtesan
“He had on a funny T-shirt, as usual. Today's featured acartoon figure running from a giant T. rex, and it read EXERCISE: SOME MOTIVATIONREQUIRED.”
Source: Ghost Town: The Morganville Vampires
“He had on bunny slippers. These had fangs. They all stared at them in silence for about a heartbeat, and then Shane said, "That is impressively wicked. Crazy, but wicked.”
“He had once found himself in a room with Lady Bessborough's long-haired white cat. He happened to be dressed in an immaculate black coat and trousers, and was there thoroughly alarmed by the cat's stalking round and round and making motions as if it proposed to sit upon him. He waited until he believed himself to be unobserved, then he picked it up, opened a window, and tossed it out. Despite falling three storeys to the ground, the cat survived, but one of its legs was never quite right afterward and it always evinced the greatest dislike of gentlemen in black clothes.”
“He had once said to Cranmer, the dreams of kings are not the dreams of other men. They are susceptible to visions, in which the figures of their ancestors come to speak to them of war, vengeance, law and power. Dead kings visit them; they say, ‘Do you know us, Henry? We know you.’ There are places in the realm where battles have been fought, places where, the wind in a certain direction, the moon waning, the night obscure, you can hear the thunder of hooves and the creak of harness and the screams of the slain; and if you creep close — if you were thin air, suppose you were a spirit who could slide between blades of grass — then you would hear the aspirations of the dying, you would hear them cry to God for mercy. And all these, the souls of England, cry to me, the king tells him, to me and every king: each king carries the crimes of other kings, and the need for restitution rolls forward down the years.”
Source: The Mirror & the Light
“He had once tasted the rare delight of a match forged in shared wit, intelligence, and a generous heart. After that, even the most mercenary arrangements felt unbearably hollow.”
Source: Sense and Suitability
“He had once thought it was strange to have a friend you'd never met. Now it was even stranger, losing a friend you'd never really had”
“He had once thought that only money mattered. But he has since discovered that money matters only because it can buy power, and power matters only if it is exercised with imagination and without conscience.”
Source: The Darkest Evening of the Year
“He had one illusion - France; and one disillusion - mankind, including Frenchmen.”
“He had one more glimpse of them as he pulled the Jeep out: three figures captured in the headlights, a child clinging to a woman, a man with his arms around the woman’s shoulders, the snow coming down on them, man, woman, and child, like figures in a Christmas globe.”
Source: When Christmas Comes
“He had only began to process his confusion when Captain al-Khoury seized him by the arm.
Tariq knocked away the arrogant boy's hand. "What - "
"Do you still love her?" He spoke in a urgent whisper.
"That's none of your business."
"Answer me, you fool. Do you?"
Tariq clenched his teeth, returning the captain of the Royal Guard's fierce glare.
"Always."
"Then make sure she never comes back.”
Source: The Wrath and the Dawn
“He had only one thing to do and that was what he should think about and he must think it out clearly and take everything as it came along, and not worry. To worry was a bad as to be afraid. It simply made things more difficult.”
Source: For Whom the Bell Tolls
“He had only one vanity; he thought he could give advice better than any other person.”
Source: The Mysterious Stranger and Other Stories
“He had only to touch me to turn my tears into sighs and my anger to desire. How accomodating love is; it forgives everything.”
“He had opened his heart to the sublime indifference of the universe”
“He had opened the book at random several times, seeking a sortes Virgilianae, before he chose the sentences on which his code was to be based. 'You say: I am not free. But I have lifted my hand and let it fall.' It was as if in choosing that passage, he were transmitting a signal of defiance to both the services. The last word of the message, when it was decoded by Boris or another, would read 'goodbye.”
Source: The Human Factor
“He had paid for her body, but he'd valued her mind. More important, he's made her value it, when it would have been so much easier otherwise believe that she was worth only the pleasure her flesh could bring a man. He was not a father figure and not a lover but something in between. And he had been kind.”
Source: By Any Other Name
“He had panicked.
Tessier cursed his own stupidity. He should have remained in the column where he would have been protected. Instead, he saw an enemy coming for him like a revenant rising from a dark tomb, and had run first instead of thinking.
Except this was no longer a French stronghold. The forts had all been captured and surrendered and the glorious revolutionary soldiers had been defeated. If the supply ships had made it through the blockade, Vaubois might still have been able to defend the city, but with no food, limited ammunition and disease rampant, defeat was inevitable.
Tessier remembered the gut-wrenching escape from Fort Dominance where villagers spat at him and threw rocks. One man had brought out a pistol and the ball had slapped the air as it passed his face. Another man had chased him with an ancient boar spear and Tessier, exhausted from the fight, had jumped into the water. He had nearly drowned in that cold grey sea, only just managing to cling to a rock whilst the enemy searched the shoreline. The British warship was anchored outside the village, and although Tessier could see men on-board, no one had spotted him. Hours passed by. Then, when he considered it was clear, he swam ashore to hide in the malodorous marshland outside Mġarr. His body shivered violently and his skin was blue and wrinkled like withered fruit, but in the night-dark light he lived. He had crept to a fishing boat, donned a salt-stained boat cloak and rowed out to Malta's monochrome coastline. He had somehow managed to escape capture by abandoning the boat to swim into the harbour. From there it had been easy to climb the city walls and to safety.
He had written his account of the marines ambush, the fort’s surrender and his opinion of Chasse, to Vaubois. Tessier wanted Gamble cashiered and Vaubois promised to take his complaint to the senior British officer when he was in a position to. Weeks went past. Months. A burning hunger for revenge changed to a desire for provisions. And until today, Tessier reflected that he would never see Gamble again.
Sunlight twinkled on the water, dazzling like a million diamonds scattered across its surface.
Tessier loaded his pistol in the shadows where the air was still and cool. He had two of them, a knife and a sword, and, although starving and crippled with stomach cramps, he would fight as he had always done so: with everything he had.”
Source: Heart of Oak
“He had Parkinson's disease for about, I'd say diagnosed for about 11 of the last years of his life. And treatment was not as good as it is now, of course. We're still going along and he died in '85 and he was 77.”
“He had passed through an ordeal of wretchedness which had given him more than it had taken away. He had lost all he possessed of worldly property; he had sunk from his modest elevation down to a lower ditch than that from which he had started; but he had now a dignified calm he had never known before and that indifference to fate. And thus the abasement had been an exaltation and the loss gain.”
“He had people in there, people who needed him to show up.
And show up he would.
He realized that was all it really took to be a hero.”
Source: The Paragon
“He had picked up languages the way most sailors pick up diseases; languages were his gonorrhoea, his syphilis, his scurvy, his ague, his plague.”
“He had picked up shrink talk from the women he'd met in Cambridge and understood that once a woman bares her soul there's little else she won't bare...”
Source: Harvard Square
“He had possessed the arrogance of a tall member of a short race, with no obligation save to be tall.”
Source: The Complete Works of F. Scott Fitzgerald: Novels, Short Stories, Poetry, Articles, Letters, Plays & Screenplays: From the author of The Great Gatsby, The Side of Paradise, Tender Is the Night, The Beautiful and Damned, The Love of the Last Tycoon, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and many other notable works
“He had prepared his death much earlier, in his imagination, unaware that his imagination, more creative than he, was planning the reality of that death.”
Source: Foucault's Pendulum
“He had preserved the best part of her and made it his own: the principle of her scent.”
“He had promised to let Julian speak without arguing; the promise was the only thing that kept him steady. There was no revering him anymore. Only love remained, and it was a fragile thing that Paul had been desperate not to see. He couldn't stand to look at the truth, even now. All they were--all they had ever been was a pair of sunflowers who each believed the other was the sun.”
Source: These Violent Delights
“He had put his hand up in class, a declaration of existence, a claim that he knew something. And that was forbidden to him. They could give a number of reasons for why they had to torment him; he was too fat, too ugly, too disgusting. But the real problem was simply that he existed, and every reminder of his existence was a crime.”
Source: Let Me In
“He had quite liked the dwarfs. He often had no idea what they were talking about, but for a group of homicidal, class-obsessed small people, they were really rather good fun.”
Source: The Book of Lost Things: A Novel
“He had rarely seen her so sincere.
And so he kissed her.
It was a mistake. He knew it was. He grabbed her anyway, pulling her into a rough, tight embrace and pressing his mouth to hers, unable to contain himself. She melted against him. He tasted the salt of her tears as they ran down to her lips and met his.
It lasted long. Too long. Wonderfully long. His mind screamed at him, like a prisoner chained in a cell and forced to watch something horrible. But a part of him had wanted this for decades—decades spent watching his brother court, marry, and then hold the only woman that the young Dalinar had ever wanted.
He’d told himself he would never allow this. He had denied himself feelings for Navani the moment Gavilar had won her hand. Dalinar had stepped aside.
But the taste of her—the smell of her, the warmth of her pressed against him—was too sweet. Like a blossoming perfume, it washed away the guilt. For a moment, that touch banished everything. He couldn’t remember his fear at the visions, his worry about Sadeas, his shame at past mistakes.
He could only think of her. Beautiful, insightful, delicate yet strong at once. He clung to her, something he could hold onto as the rest of the world churned around him.
Eventually, he broke the kiss. She looked up at him, dazed. Passion-spren, like tiny flakes of crystalline snow, floated down in the air around them. Guilt flooded him again. He tried gently to push her away, but she clung to him, holding on tight.
“Navani,” he said.
“Hush.” She pressed her head against his chest.
“We can’t—”
“Hush,” she said, more insistently.
He sighed, but let himself hold her.”
Source: The Way of Kings
“He had reached that moment in life, different for each one of us, when a man abandonds himself to his demon or to his genius, following a mysterious law which bids him either to destroy or outdo himself.”
Source: Hadrian's Memoirs
“He had reached the point where all he wanted on earth was to be alone.”
Source: Lady Chatterley’s Lover
“He had read about evil in Efanor's little book, and how it permeated the doings of Men, but he had never foud such doings evil, rather good and bad...but none without self-interest, none he could not understand even in terms of his own will to have his way.”
Source: Fortress of Dragons
“He had read books, newspapers and magazines. He knew that if you ran away you sometimes met bad people who did bad things to you; but he had also read fairy tales, so he knew that there were kind people out there, side by side with the monsters.”
Source: Fragile Things: Short Fictions and Wonders
“He had read lots of stories where heroes succeeded in spite of long odds, where they accomplished a task that everyone else had failed at. He wondered for the first time about all the people who'd gone before those heroes, about whether they'd been heroic too or whether they'd been at each other's throats, before everything had gone wrong. He wondered if there was a point where they realized they weren't going to make it, weren't going to beat those long odds -- that in the legend that would follow, they were going to be the nameless people that failed.”
Source: Doll Bones
“He had read much, if one considers his long life; but his contemplation was much more than his reading. He was wont to say that if he had read as much as other men he should have known no more than other men.”
“He had realised that most vital of humanities. he had touched lives. And he had raised three boys that no one had wanted into men.”
Source: Sea Swept
“He had regrets, of course, but not so many that he would lose any sleep over them. Life surprised him now and then and he didn't much care for surprises, unless he was passing them out. But - what was to be done? You had to deal with the reality, he had learned that over the years, no matter how much you didn't like it”
“He had relieved whores beyond counting of frocks, stays, chemises, garters, and stockings. He had never before in his life unbuttoned a gently bred maiden's glove. He'd committed salacious acts beyond number. He'd never before felt so depraved as he did now, as the last pearl came free and he drew the soft kid down, baring her wrist, and his dark fingers grazed the delicate skin he'd exposed.”
“He had rested the pistol on the bark between them and had mumbled at her through the bread and cheese. “How would you shoot yourself behind your right ear? Go on, Cordelia—show.”
Source: An Unsuitable Job for a Woman
“He had returned to the source of the river that ran steadily through the galaxy, invigorating and sweeping up the dead as it passed.”
Source: Star Wars: The Force Unleashed
“He had rid my inherited house of a lustful ghost, opened my eyes to a concealed world of strange forces and arcane knowledge, and buggered me twice.”
Source: The Secret Casebook of Simon Feximal
“He had ridden his horse into the saloon on a dare from a whore – his practice was always to accept dares; it spiced life up a little.”
Source: The Last Kind Words Saloon
“He had ridden home through the rain; and had walked up directly after dinner, to see how this sweetest and best of all creatures, faultless in spite of all her faults, bore the discovery.”
Source: Emma
“He had risked his freedom and his pride to buy her this, to acknowledge that part of her that everyone else seemed to want to get rid of.”
Source: The Stupidest Angel: A Heartwarming Tale of Christmas Terror
“He had risked his life and now it was walking away from him, hand-in-hand with a Ruffian prince.”
Source: The Princess Bride
“He had said of me, ‘You are fated to be life’s passive participant,’ but I wrestled fate to the ground and suffocated its’ fortune. And yet, his laughter still mocks me, for though the earth has been my stepping stone, only here at the oceans’ side do I feel at ease. Only in your stillness do I find rest.
I am a waning bird
encased in a glass sphere;
I cannot see my prison,
and my cries no one can hear.”
Source: An owl on the moon: A journal from the edge of darkness