Quotes from A Town Like Alice

Nevil Shute ·  359 pages

Rating: (42.1K votes)


“I know you've taken risks to do these things. Do Please be careful."
"Don't worry about me," he said. "You've got enough troubles on your own plate, my word. But we'll come out all right, so long as we just keep alive, that's all we got to do. Just keep alive another two years, till the war's over.”
― Nevil Shute, quote from A Town Like Alice


“She looked at him in wonder. "Do people think of me like that? I only did what anybody could have done."
"That's as it may be," he replied. "The fact is, that you did it.”
― Nevil Shute, quote from A Town Like Alice


“It's no good going on living in the ashes of a dead happiness.”
― Nevil Shute, quote from A Town Like Alice


“It’s no good going on living in the ashes of a dead happiness.”
― Nevil Shute, quote from A Town Like Alice


“Men' s souls are naturally inclined to covetousness; but if ye be kind towards women and fear to wrong tgem, God is well acquainted with what ye do.”
― Nevil Shute, quote from A Town Like Alice



“People who spent the war in prison camps have written a lot of books about what a bad time they had, she said quietly, staring into the embers. they don't know what it was like, not being in a camp.”
― Nevil Shute, quote from A Town Like Alice


“it was so beautiful', he said. 'the Three Pagodas Pass must be one of the loveliest places in the world. you've got this broad valley with the river running down it, and the jungle forest, and the mountains....we used to sit by the river and watch the sun setting behind the mountains, sometimes, and say what a marvellous place it would be to come to for a holiday. however terrible a prison camp may be, it makes a difference if its beautiful.”
― Nevil Shute, quote from A Town Like Alice


“It was a gambler's action, but his whole life had probably been made up of gambles; it could hardly be otherwise in the outback.”
― Nevil Shute, quote from A Town Like Alice


“He said, "The spring was good enough for their mothers and their grandmothers before them. They will get ideas above their station in life if they have a well." She”
― Nevil Shute, quote from A Town Like Alice


“Leave-takings are stupid things, and best forgotten about as quickly as possible.”
― Nevil Shute, quote from A Town Like Alice



About the author

Nevil Shute
Born place: in London, England, The United Kingdom
Born date January 17, 1899
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Popular quotes

“Y en aquel reducto solitario me ponía a escribir cuentos. Ahora advierto que escribía cada vez que era infeliz, que me sentía solo o desajustado con el mundo en que me había cado nacer. Y pienso si no será siempre así, que el arte de nuestro tiempo, ese arte tenso y desgarrado, nazca invariablemente de nuestro desajusdte, de nuestra ansiedad y nuestro descontento.”
― Ernesto Sabato, quote from On Heroes and Tombs


“The path to accepting your sexuality has to start somewhere. For those identify as heterosexual, the childhood bliss of an early crush is typically encouraged and praised. Milestones such as your first date and the prom are celebrated by parents and friends.
But when you’re anything other than straight, it’s more complicated; your growth gets shrouded and stunted. That’s why a lot of queer people, when they fall in love and get into a relationship for the first time, revert to a kind of prepubescent puppy love: spontaneous, impulsive, obsessive, and ecstatic. I’ve heard many people express annoyance at friends who “just came out and it’s totally cool and whatever, but do they have to talk about it all the time?” My answer to that is “Yes. Yes, they do. Don’t you remember puppy love? Well, imagine if you had to hide it for twenty years. So yeah, if they wanna gush about it, let them gush. There’s a first time for everything.”
― Hannah Hart, quote from Buffering: Unshared Tales of a Life Fully Loaded


“Like so many Americans, she was trying to construct a life that made sense from things she found in gift shops.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, quote from Slaughterhouse-five: The Children's Crusade, A Duty-dance with Death


“Someone came in all Starfleet badges today. Not on my shift, sadly.'

'Fascist,' Leon had said. 'Why are you so prejudiced against nerds?'

'Please,' Billy said. 'That would be a bit self-hating, wouldn't it?'

'Yeah, but you pass. You're like, you're in deep cover,' Leon said. 'You can sneak out of the nerd ghetto and hide the badge and bring back food and clothes and word of the outside world.”
― China Miéville, quote from Kraken


“Dropping an f-bomb wouldn’t make me an idiot any more than saying “sesquipedalian” makes someone intelligent.”
― Brigid Kemmerer, quote from Letters to the Lost


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