27 T. H. (Terence Hanbury) White Quotes

T. H. (Terence Hanbury) White quotes

1. God is love, the parson whined. Yes, and is he also blind?

2. God is love, the bishops tell. Yes, I know, But love is hell.

3. Helen whose face was fatal must have wept Many salt tears to keep her eyes so bright Many long nights alone: and every night Men died, she cried, and happy Paris kept Sweet Helen.

4. Be kind, Helen, I am so tired of thinking; There are so many difficult corridors of thought, With equal iron banisters leading back again: So many stone stairs, Helen, up which I sought To rediscover the windy sky, and stand, blinking, In the lost sunlight: as bright as pain, Helen. I would give almost anything now Even for pain.

5. Little child Who was me once, My pity on you- And reverence. If we could meet Where I once strayed, The betrayer And the betrayed. If we could win back In Time's defiance, Would you be afeared of me, Ten-year-old Terence? No, you would not fear. You would love, trust, Cherish, admire This tedious dust. For oh! we were all brimming once With the sun-sparkled dew. One heart could have loved this hulk- The ignorant heart of you.

6. The most difficult thing in the world is to know how to do a thing and to watch somebody else doing it wrong, without comment.

7. The fisherman fishes as the urchin eats cream buns, from lust.

8. Dogs, like very small children, are quite mad.

9. Aviators live by hours, not by days.

10. I would recommend a solo flight to all prospective suicides. It tends to make clear the issue of whether one enjoys being alive or not.

11. Ther days may come,/Ther days may go,/But still the light of Mem'ry weaves/Those gentle dreams/Of long ago

12. Perhaps we all give the best of our hearts uncritically -- to those who hardly think about us in return.

13. 'The best thing for being sad,' replied Merlin, beginning to puff and blow, 'is to learn something. That's the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then - to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. Learning is the only thing for you. Look what a lot of things there are to learn.'

14. 'Is there anything more terrible than perpetual motion, than doing and doing and doing, without a reason, without a consciousness, without a change, without an end?'

15. 'Yes, that is the equality of man. Slaughter anybody who is better than you are, and then we shall be equal soon enough. All equally dead.'

1. “Gawaine and Gareth took turns with the fat ass, one of them whacking it while the other rode bareback.”

2. “No. There is one fairly good reason for fighting--and that is, if the other man starts it. You see, wars are a wickedness, perhaps the greatest wickedness of a wicked species. They are so wicked that they must not be allowed. When you can be perfectly certain that the other man started them, then is time when you might have a sort of duty to stop him.”

3. “It is generally the trustful and optimistic people who can afford to retreat. The loveless and faithless ones are compelled by their pessimism to attack.”

4. “The mustard—pot got up and walked over to his plate on thin silver legs that waddled like the owl’s. Then it uncurled its handles and one handle lifted its lid with exaggerated courtesy while the other helped him to a generous spoonful. ‘Oh, I love the mustard—pot!’ cried the Wart. ‘Wherever did you get it?’ At this the pot beamed all over its face and began to strut a bit, but Merlyn rapped it on the head with a teaspoon, so that it sat down and shut up at once. ‘It is not a bad pot,’ he said grudgingly. ‘Only it is inclined to give itself airs.”

5. “It was Christmas night, the eve of the Boxing Day Meet. You must remember that this was in the old Merry England of Gramarye, when the rosy barons ate with their fingers, and had peacocks served before them with all their tail feathers streaming, or boars' heads with the tusks stuck in again—when there was no unemployment because there were too few people to be unemployed—when the forests rang with knights walloping each other on the helm, and the unicorns in the wintry moonlight stamped with their silver feet and snorted their noble breaths of blue upon the frozen air. Such marvels were great and comfortable ones. But in the Old England there was a greater marvel still. The weather behaved itself.”

6. “I see what you think you mean," said the magician, "but you are wrong. There is no excuse for war, none whatever, and whatever wrong which your nation might be doing to mine-short of war-my nation would be in the wrong if I started a war so as to redress it. A murderer, for instance, is not allowed to plead that his victim was rich and oppresing him, so why should a nation be allowed to? Wrongs have to be redressed by reason, not force.”

7. “I suppose the best way to tell the story is simply to narrate it, without an effort to carry belief. The thing did not require belief. It was not a feeling of horror in one's bones, or a misty outline, or anything that needed to be given actuality by an act of faith. It was as solid as a wardrobe. You don't have to believe in wardrobes. They are there, with corners. (The Troll)”

8. “It is only the people who are lacking, or bad, or inferior, who have to be good at things.”

9. “The fortress was entered by tunnels in the rock, and, over the entrance to each tunnel, there was a notice which said: EVERYTHING NOT FORBIDDEN IS COMPULSORY”

10. “I incline my agreement with Toirdealbhach,' said Gareth. 'After all, what is the good of killing poor kerns who do not know anything? It would be much better for the people who are angry to fight each other themselves, knight against knight.' 'But you could not have any wars at all, like that,' exclaimed Gaheris. 'It would be absurd,' said Gawaine. 'You must have people, galore of people, in a war.' 'Otherwise you could not kill them,' explained Agravaine.”

11. “I know hardly anything about Galahad except that everybody dislikes him." "Dislikes him?" "They complain about him being inhuman." Lancelot considered his cup. "He is inhuman," he said at last. "But why should he be human? Are angels supposed to be human?”

12. “Their mother is Athene, the goddess of wisdom, and, although they are often ready to play the buffoon to amuse you, such conduct is the prerogative of the truly wise.”