“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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“Defenestration,” I said. “‘The act of throwing someone through a window.”
― Scott Heim, quote from Mysterious Skin
“Ó glória de mandar! Ó vã cobiça
Desta vaidade, a quem chamamos Fama!
Ó fraudulento gosto, que se atiça
Cua aura popular, que honra se chama!
Que castigo tamanho e que justiça
Fazes no peito vão que muito te ama!
Que mortes, que perigos, que tormentas,
Que crueldades neles esprimentas!”
― Luís de Camões, quote from The Lusiads
“There are monsters in the sea.”
― Francesca Zappia, quote from Eliza and Her Monsters
“He had many formal qualifications. He was rated expert on all small arms. He had won an inter-service thousand-yard rifle competition with a record score. Anecdotally his fitness reports rated him well above average in the classroom, excellent in the field, fluently bilingual in English and French, passable in Spanish, outstanding on all man-portable weaponry, and beyond outstanding at hand-to-hand combat. Susan knew what that last rating meant. Like having a running chain saw thrown at you.”
― Lee Child, quote from 61 Hours
“This gentleman is cactus,” said Doul.”
― China Miéville, quote from The Scar
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