Quotes from Fancies and Goodnights

John Collier ·  418 pages

Rating: (711 votes)


“Just behind his jaw bones a tiny movement was perceptible, like the movement of gills in a fish.”
― John Collier, quote from Fancies and Goodnights


“How happy I might be, if only she was less greedy, better tempered, not addicted to raking up old grudges, more affectionate, with slightly yellower hair, slimmer, and about twenty years younger! But what is the good of expecting such a woman to reform?”
― John Collier, quote from Fancies and Goodnights


“Their laughter was like the stridulation of the ghosts of grasshoppers.”
― John Collier, quote from Fancies and Goodnights


“Franklin Fletcher dreamed of luxury in the form of tiger-skins and beautiful women. He was prepared, at a pinch, to forgo the tiger-skins. Unfortunately the beautiful women seemed equally rare and inaccessible. At his office and at his boarding-house the girls were mere mice, or cattish, or kittenish, or had insufficiently read the advertisements.”
― John Collier, quote from Fancies and Goodnights


About the author

John Collier
Born place: in London, The United Kingdom
Born date May 3, 1901
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Popular quotes

“The Gospels were written in such temporal and geographical proximity to the events they record that it would have been almost impossible to fabricate events. Anyone who cared to could have checked out the accuracy of what they reported. The fact that the disciples were able to proclaim the resurrection in Jerusalem in the face of their enemies a few weeks after the crucifixion shows that what they proclaimed was true, for they could never have proclaimed the resurrection under such circumstances had it not occurred.

The Gospels could not have been corrupted without a great outcry on the part of orthodox Christians. Against the idea that there could have been a deliberate falsifying of the text, no one could have corrupted all the manuscripts. Moreover, there is no precise time when the falsification could have occurred, since, as we have seen, the New Testament books are cited by the church fathers in regular and close succession. The text could not have been falsified before all external testimony, since then the apostles were still alive and could repudiate any such tampering with the Gospels.

The miracles of Jesus were witnessed by hundreds of people, friends and enemies alike; that the apostles had the ability to testify accurately to what they saw; that the apostles were of such doubtless honesty and sincerity as to place them above suspicion of fraud; that the apostles, though of low estate, nevertheless had comfort and life itself to lose in proclaiming the gospel; and that the events to which they testified took place in the civilized part of the world under the Roman Empire, in Jerusalem, the capital city of the Jewish nation. Thus, there is no reason to doubt the apostles’ testimony concerning the miracles and resurrection of Jesus. It would have been impossible for so many to conspire together to perpetrate such a hoax. And what was there to gain by lying? They could expect neither honor, nor wealth, nor worldly profit, nor fame, nor even the successful propagation of their doctrine. Moreover, they had been raised in a religion that was vastly different from the one they preached. Especially foreign to them was the idea of the death and resurrection of the Jewish Messiah. This militates against their concocting this idea. The Jewish laws against deceit and false testimony were very severe, which fact would act as a deterrent to fraud.

Suppose that no resurrection or miracles occurred: how then could a dozen men, poor, coarse, and apprehensive, turn the world upside down? If Jesus did not rise from the dead, declares Ditton, then either we must believe that a small, unlearned band of deceivers overcame the powers of the world and preached an incredible doctrine over the face of the whole earth, which in turn received this fiction as the sacred truth of God; or else, if they were not deceivers, but enthusiasts, we must believe that these extremists, carried along by the impetus of extravagant fancy, managed to spread a falsity that not only common folk, but statesmen and philosophers as well, embraced as the sober truth. Because such a scenario is simply unbelievable, the message of the apostles, which gave birth to Christianity, must be true.

Belief in Jesus’ resurrection flourished in the very city where Jesus had been publicly crucified. If the people of Jerusalem thought that Jesus’ body was in the tomb, few would have been prepared to believe such nonsense as that Jesus had been raised from the dead. And, even if they had so believed, the Jewish authorities would have exposed the whole affair simply by pointing to Jesus’ tomb or perhaps even exhuming the body as decisive proof that Jesus had not been raised.

Three great, independently established facts—the empty tomb, the resurrection appearances, and the origin of the Christian faith—all point to the same marvelous conclusion: that God raised Jesus from the dead.”
― William Lane Craig, quote from Reasonable Faith


“L-am cunoscut pe Ruletist. De acest lucru nu mă pot îndoi. În ciuda faptului că era imposibil ca el să existe, totuşi el a existat. Dar există un loc în lume unde imposibilul e posibil, şi anume în ficţiune, adică în literatură. Acolo legile statisticii pot fi încălcate, acolo poate apărea un om mai puternic decât hazardul. Ruletistul nu putea trăi în lume, ceea ce e un fel de a spune că lumea în care el a trăit este fictivă, este literatură. Nu am nici o îndoială, Ruletistul este un personaj. Dar atunci şi eu sunt un personaj, şi aici nu mă pot opri să nu exult de bucurie. Căci personajele nu mor niciodată, ele trăiesc de câte ori lumea lor e "citită". Dacă nu îşi va săruta niciodată iubita, păstorul pictat pe urna greacă ştie măcar că o va privi veşnic. Iată pariul şi nădejdea mea.”
― Mircea Cărtărescu, quote from Nostalgia


“She shuddered, convulsing beneath the whiplash of his tongue as the world dissolved around her.
“Now.” He moved before the last violent pulses stilled.
He came over her body, catching his weight on his elbows, staring down at her with savage intensity as the bulbous head of his c#ck nudged against the sensitive opening of her pussy.
“Now,” he whispered again. “I make you my woman, Elizabeth. Now.”
― Lora Leigh, quote from Elizabeth's Wolf


“At my worst, I even resented Nic because an addict, at least when high, has a momentary respite from his suffering. There is no similar relief for parents or children or husbands or wives or others who love them.   Nic”
― David Sheff, quote from Beautiful Boy: A Father's Journey Through His Son's Addiction


“I’ve noticed that women often have a desire to change men, even the ones they love.”
“I’ve noticed that, too.” Dougal frowned. “Which is odd, when you think about it. Because if you didn’t
like the way a man is, why would you attach yourself to him to begin with?”
― Karen Hawkins, quote from How to Abduct a Highland Lord


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BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

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