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London Quotes

Browse 1792 quotes about London.

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London Quotes

“Song in the Manner of Housman" O woe, woe, People are born and die, We also shall be dead pretty soon Therefore let us act as if we were dead already. The bird sits on the hawthorn tree But he dies also, presently. Some lads get hung, and some get shot. Woeful is this human lot. Woe! woe, etcetera.... London is a woeful place, Shropshire is much pleasanter. Then let us smile a little space Upon fond nature's morbid grace. Oh, Woe, woe, woe, etcetera.”

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Author:Ezra Pound
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“Note for Americans and other aliens: Milton Keynes is a new city approximately halfway between London and Birmingham. It was built to be modern, efficient, healthy, and, all in all, a pleasant place to live. Many Britons find this amusing.”

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Book:Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch
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“The explanations for the things we do in life are many and complex. Supposedly mature adults should live by logic, listen to their reason. Think things out before they act. But maybe they never heard what Dr. London told me one, Freud said that for the little things in life we should react according to our reason. But for really big decisions, we should heed what our unconscious tells us.”

ThinkingShouldLittlesSaidReasonBigsDecisionHeardAdultsLogicComplexesLondonExplanationUnconsciousLive ByMatureLittle ThingsThings In LifeDrsHeedBig DecisionsLittle Things In Life
Book:Oliver's Story
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“In a public dialogue with Salman in London he [Edward Said] had once described the Palestinian plight as one where his people, expelled and dispossessed by Jewish victors, were in the unique historical position of being 'the victims of the victims': there was something quasi-Christian, I thought, in the apparent humility of that statement.”

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Author:Christopher Hitchens
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“I am excessively fond of a cottage; there is always so much comfort, so much elegance about them. And I protest, if I had any money to spare, I should buy a little land and build one myself, within a short distance of London, where I might drive myself down at any time, and collect a few friends about me and be happy. I advise everybody who is going to build, to build a cottage.”

IfsShouldLittlesMightLandComfortDistanceLondonProtestSparesEleganceAdviseCottagesFew Friends
Book:Jane Austen Complete Collection Deluxe Unabridged (annotated): [All 18 Works - Novels -Short Stories–Letters –Unfinished Works - Scraps]]
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“When I moved to Brighton from London in 1995, I was struck by what I thought of as its townliness. A town, it seemed to me, was that perfect place to live, neither city nor country, both of which like to think they are light years apart but actually have a great deal in common.”

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Book:Made in Brighton: From the Grand to the Gutter: Modern Britain as Seen from Beside the Sea
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“I have mastered many things in my life. Navigating the streets of London, speaking French without an accent, dancing the quadrille, the Japanese art of flower arranging, lying at charades, concealing a highly intoxicated state, delighting young women with my charms..." Tessa stared. "Alas," he went on, "no one has ever actually referred to me as 'the master,' or 'the magister,' either. More's the pity.”

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Author:Cassandra Clare
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“On a cold, fretful afternoon in early October, 1872, a hansom cab drew up outside the offices of Lockhart and Selby, Shipping Agents, in the financial heart of London, and a young girl got out and paid the driver. She was a person of sixteen or so--alone, and uncommonly pretty. She was slender and pale, and dressed in mourning, with a black bonnet under which she tucked back a straying twist of blond hair that the wind had teased loose. She had unusually dark brown eyes for one so fair. Her name was Sally Lockhart; and within fifteen minutes, she was going to kill a man.”

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Book:The Ruby in the Smoke: A Sally Lockhart Mystery
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“You’re not the only one who calls them that; the other Downworlders do the same,” said Will. “I discovered that fact while investigating the symbol. I must have carried that knife through a hundred Downworld haunts, searching for someone who might recognize it. I offered a reward for information. Eventually the name of the Dark Sisters came to my ears.” “Downworld?” Tessa echoed, puzzled. “Is that a place in London?” “Never mind that,” said Will. “I’m boasting of my investigative skills, and I would prefer to do it without interruption. Where was I?”

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Book:The Infernal Devices: Clockwork Angel; Clockwork Prince; Clockwork Princess
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“But I'll never see any of those fish," said Maxie."Or those whales. Or any lions or tigers. I'm never going to set foot in a rain forest now, am I? I won't even be able to watch old DVD's about them without electricity. What does the future hold? It's like going back to the middle ages. Nobody knowing what was going on beyond their front doorstep. All I'll ever know is this. This little bit of London.”

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Author:Charlie Higson
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“How sweet the morning air is! See how that one little cloud floats like a pink feather from some gigantic flamingo. Now the red rim of the sun pushes itself over the London cloud-bank. It shines on a good many folk, but on none, I dare bet, who are on a stranger errand than you and I. How small we feel with our petty ambitions and strivings in the presence of the great elemental forces of Nature!”

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Book:The Complete Sherlock Holmes
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“I was suddenly struck by how dissimilar we were. It occurred to me that if Grace and I were objects, she would be an elaborate digital clock, synced up with the World Clock in London with technical perfection, and I’d be a snow globe – shaken memories in a glass ball.”

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Book:Shiver Series (Shiver, Linger, Forever, Sinner)
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“I think the most joyous thing in life is to loaf around and watch another bloke do a job of work. Look how popular are the men who dig up London with electric drills. Duke's son, cook's son, son of a hundred kings, people will stand there for hours on end, ear drums splitting. Why? Simply for the pleasure of being idle while watching other people work.”

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Author:Dorothy L. Sayers
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“I sat, a solitary man, In a crowded London shop, An open book and empty cup On the marble table-top. While on the shop and street I gazed My body of a sudden blazed; And twenty minutes more or less It seemed, so great my happiness, That I was blessed and could bless.”

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Book:The Collected Works of W. B. Yeats: Volume I: The Poems, 2nd Edition
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“Looking at her, he was in London again. He saw the gaslight and smelled the smoke and dirt and horses, the metallic tang of fog, the flowers in Kew Gardens. He saw a boy with black hair and blue eyes like Alec's. A girl with long brown curls and a serious face. In a world where everything went away from him eventually, she was one of the few remaining constants.”

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Book:City of Fallen Angels
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“Ah walk doon Hammersmith Broadway, London seeming strange and alien, after only a three-month absence, as familiar places do when you’ve been away. It’s as if everything is a copy of what you knew before, similar, yet somehow lacking in its usual qualities, a bit like the wey things are in a dream. They say you have to live in a place to know it, but you have to come fresh tae really see it.”

IfsKnowsDreamThreeBitsWalksQualityStrangeMonthsLondonAbsenceFamiliarAliensCopiesUsualLackingBroadwaySeemingThree MonthsFamiliar Places
Author:Irvine Welsh
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“A man bumps me on his busy way without so much as an apology. But that is all right. I forgive you, busy man about town with the sharp elbows. Hail and farewell to you! For I, Gemma Doyle, am to have a splendid Christmas in London town. All shall be well. God rest us merry gentlemen. And gentlewomen.”

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Book:The Gemma Doyle Trilogy
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“She knows, now, absolutely, hearing the white noise that is London, that Damien's theory of jet lag is correct: that her mortal soul is leagues behind her, being reeled in on some ghostly umbilical down the vanished wake of the plane that brought her here, hundreds of thousands of feet above the Atlantic. Souls can't move that quickly, and are left behind, and must be awaited, upon arrival, like lost luggage.”

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Book:Pattern Recognition
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“The computer beeped as the upload completed. A moment later, Ian Kabra appeared on the screen. Dan was surprised. "Hey, Ian, isn't it, like, two in the morning back there?" "It's called jet lag," Ian informed him. "I'm still on London time. I don't suppose you savages have any tea in this mausoleum." "There's a diet Snapple in the fridge." Ian shuddered. "I thought not.”

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Book:The Medusa Plot
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“Women beg me for it, and not the other way around." "Then you should go to one of them." "Oh, I will. When we return to London, I'm going to embark on a spree of orgiastic debauchery that won't end until someone is arrested for it. But in the meanwhile...do you truly expect that the two of us are going to share a bed tonight-and tomorrow night-as chastely as a pair of nuns on holiday?”

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Author:Lisa Kleypas
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“They say no land remains to be discovered, no continent is left unexplored. But the whole world is out there, waiting, just waiting for me. I want to do things-- I want to walk the rain-soaked streets of London, and drink mint tea in Casablanca. I want to wander the wastelands of the Gobi desert and see a yak. I think my life's ambition is to see a yak. I want to bargain for trinkets in an Arab market in some distant, dusty land. There's so much. But, most of all, I want to do things that will mean something.”

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Author:Lisa Ann Sandell
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“It's a very cheery thing to come into London by any of these lines which run high and allow you to look down upon the houses like this." I thought he was joking, for the view was sordid enough, but he soon explained himself. "Look at those big, isolated clumps of buildings rising up above the slates, like brick islands in a lead-coloured sea." "The board-schools." "Light-houses, my boy! Beacons of the future! Capsules with hundreds of bright little seeds in each, out of which will spring the wiser, better England of the future.”

LooksLittlesEnoughBigsLightRunningSchoolHouseLinesViewsBoysSeaBuildingSpringEnglandSeedsLondonBoardsIslandsRisingIsolatedWiserBricksSlateBeaconsMy BoysRising UpBeacons Of Light
Book:The Complete Sherlock Holmes: All 56 Stories & 4 Novels
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“No its you," she said. How far away her voice sounded, as though it had traveled to London already, ahead of her. "Your ducal self assurance. Everything will give way to you. Even Satan's own storm." "You are definitely improving," he said. "Full mocking sentences.”

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Book:Regency Rogues and Rakes: Silk is for Seduction / Scandal Wears Satin / Vixen in Velvet / Seven Nights in a Rogue's Bed / A Rake's Midnight Kiss / What a Duke Dares (Mills & Boon e-Book Collections)
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“Past persons of Scottishness in contact with mastermind of supernatural persuasion in London, aka Agent Doom.’ Floote moved on to the third bit of paper. “ ‘Lady K says Agent Doom assisted depraved Plan of Action. May have all been his idea.’ Moving on to the last one, he read out, "Summer permits Scots to expose more knee than lady of refinement should have to withstand. Hairmuffs much admired. Yours etc., Puff Bonnet.”

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Author:Gail Carriger
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