“Mathias shrugged. After all, a criminal lawyer is not concerned with facts. He is concerned with probabilities. It is the novelist who is concerned with facts, whose job it is to say what a particular man did do on a particular occasion: the lawyer does not, cannot be expected to go further than show what the ordinary man would be most likely to do under presumed circumstances.”
― Richard Hughes, quote from A High Wind in Jamaica
“Being nearly four years old, she was certainly a child: and children are human (if one allows the term "human" a wide sense): but she had not altogether ceased to be a baby: and babies are of course not human--they are animals, and have a very ancient and ramified culture, as cats have, and fishes, and even snakes: the same in kind as these, but much more complicated and vivid, since babies are, after all, one of the most developed species of the lower vertebrates.
In short, babies have minds which work in terms and categories of their own which cannot be translated into the terms and categories of the human mind.
It is true that they look human--but not so human, to be quite fair, as many monkeys.
Subconsciously, too, every one recognizes they are animals--why else do people always laugh when a baby does some action resembling the human, as they would at a praying mantis? If the baby was only a less-developed man, there would be nothing funny in it, surely.”
― Richard Hughes, quote from A High Wind in Jamaica
“Laura lay on her back in the faint light of the open hatch. She had discarded her blanket; and the vest which did duty for a night-gown was rucked right up under her arms. Jonsen wondered how anything so like a frog could ever conceivably grow into the billowy body of a woman. He bent down and attempted to pull down the vest: but at the first touch Laura rolled violently over onto her stomach, then drew her knees up under her, thrusting her pointed rump up at him; and continued to sleep in that position, breathing noisily.”
― Richard Hughes, quote from A High Wind in Jamaica
“Emily and Rachel had their hair cut short, and were allowed to do everything the boys did - to climb trees, swim, and trap animals and birds: they even had two pockets in their frocks.”
― Richard Hughes, quote from A High Wind in Jamaica
“You can never count on them. They say what they think you want them to say, and then they say what the opposing council wants them to say, too, if they like his face.”
― Richard Hughes, quote from A High Wind in Jamaica
“Life seemed suddenly a little empty, for never again could there happen to her something so dangerous, so sublime.”
― Richard Hughes, quote from A High Wind in Jamaica
“It is a fact that it takes experience before one can realize what is a catastrophe and what is not. Children have little faculty of distinguishing between disaster and the ordinary course of their lives.”
― Richard Hughes, quote from A High Wind in Jamaica
“It would have surprised Mrs. Thornton very much to have been told that hitherto she had meant practically nothing to her children. She took a keen interest in Psychology (the Art Babblative, Southey calls it). She was full of theories about their upbringing which she had not time to put into effect; but nevertheless she thought she had a deep understanding of their temperaments and was the center of their passionate devotion.”
― Richard Hughes, quote from A High Wind in Jamaica
Richard Hughes
Born place: in Weybridge, Surrey, The United Kingdom
Born date April 19, 1900
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“Consider this scenario.
You own shares in Company A. During the past year you considered switching to stock in Company B but decided against it. You now find that you would have been better off by 1200$ if you had switched to the stock of Company B. You also owned shares in Company C. During the past year you switched to stock in Company D. You now find out that you'd have been better off by 1200$, if you kept your stock in Company C.
Which error causes you more regret? Studies show that about
Immune to Reality nine out of ten people expect to feel more regret when they foolishly switch stocks than when they foolishly fail to switch stocks, because most people think they will regret foolish actions more than foolish inactions. But studies also show that nine out of ten people are wrong.
Indeed, in the long run, people of every age and in every walk of life seem to regret "not" having
done things much more than they regret things they "did", which is why the most popular regrets include not going to college, not grasping profitable business opportunities, and not spending enough time with family and friends.”
― Daniel Todd Gilbert, quote from Stumbling on Happiness
“Forgive me, Lord, for the smallness and selfishness of my mind. Amen.”
― Michel Faber, quote from The Book of Strange New Things
“Coop’s sending thundered in my mind.
We come.
I smiled. Felt a surge of adrenaline.
“You made a mistake, Will. You didn’t catch us all.”
He snorted. “You’re gonna stop us, alone?”
Leaves rustled behind me.
Speckman’s gaze flicked over my shoulder.
“Alone?” I barked a laugh. “Guess you haven’t met the extended family.”
― Kathy Reichs, quote from Terminal
“God is a thing I know when I see, and I see It all over, in Megan, in the night sky and the morning sun, and especially in Grandmother.”
― Emily Henry, quote from The Love That Split the World
“Most dads had hobbies that they passed down to their sons; hunting, fishing, auto repair. Dad’s hobby was nuclear war, which meant his sons knew everything about it.”
― S.A. Bodeen, quote from The Compound
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