Quotes from On the Beach

Nevil Shute ·  296 pages

Rating: (29.3K votes)


“It's not the end of the world at all," he said. "It's only the end for us. The world will go on just the same, only we shan't be in it. I dare say it will get along all right without us.”
― Nevil Shute, quote from On the Beach


“No, it wasn't an accident, I didn't say that. It was carefully planned, down to the tiniest mechanical and emotional detail. But it was a mistake.”
― Nevil Shute, quote from On the Beach


“I'm glad we haven't got newspapers now. It's been much nicer without them.”
― Nevil Shute, quote from On the Beach


“Some games are fun even when you lose. Even when you know you're going to lose before you start. It's fun just playing them.”
― Nevil Shute, quote from On the Beach


“Maybe we've been too silly to deserve a world like this.”
― Nevil Shute, quote from On the Beach



“You know," he said, "now that I've got used to the idea, I think I'd rather have it this way. We've all got to die one day, some sooner and some later. The trouble always has been that you're never ready, because you don't know when it's coming. Well, now we do know, and there's nothing to be done about it. I kind of like that. I kind of like the thought that I'll be fit and well up till the end of August and then - home. I'd rather have it that way than go on as a sick manfrom when I'm seventy to when I'm ninety.”
― Nevil Shute, quote from On the Beach


“If what they say is right we're none of us going to have time to do all that we planned to do. But we can keep on doing it as long as we can.”
― Nevil Shute, quote from On the Beach


“Security was now a thing of the past though it took a conscious effort to remember it; with no enemy in all the world there was little but the force of habit in it.”
― Nevil Shute, quote from On the Beach


“The news did not trouble her particularly; all news was bad, like wage demands, strikes, or war, and the wise person paid no attention to it. What was important was that it was a bright, sunny day; her first narcissi were in bloom, and the daffodils behind them were already showing flower buds.”
― Nevil Shute, quote from On the Beach


“You could have done something with newspapers. We didn't do it. No nation did, because we were all too silly. We liked our newspapers with pictures of beach girls and headlines about cases of indecent assault, and no Government was wise enough to stop us having them that way. But something might have been done with newspapers, if we'd been wise enough.”
― Nevil Shute, quote from On the Beach



“The news did not trouble her particularly; all news was bad, like wage demands, strikes, or war, and the wise person paid no attention to it.”
― Nevil Shute, quote from On the Beach


“All those cities, all those fields and farms, with nobody, and nothing left alive. Just nothing there. I simply can't take it in.”
― Nevil Shute, quote from On the Beach


“Into the world of romance, of make-belief and double brandies!”
― Nevil Shute, quote from On the Beach


About the author

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

“The boats were filled mostly with steerage passengers who lived in Trebizond or were visiting relations there, and the women carried great bundles and sacks full of things, but the men carried suit-cases with sharp, square corners, which helped them very much in the struggle to get on and stay on the boats, for this was very violent and intense. More than one woman got shoved overboard into the sea during the struggle, and had to be dragged out by husbands and acquaintances, but one sank too deep and had to be left, for the boat-hooks could not reach her; all we saw were the apples out of her basket bobbing on the waves. I thought that women would not stand much chance in a shipwreck, and in the struggle for the boats many might fall in the sea and be forgotten, but the children would be saved all right, for Turks love their children, even the girls.”
― Rose Macaulay, quote from The Towers of Trebizond


“It's only life. We all get through it.”
― Dean Koontz, quote from Odd Hours


“I love you, and I would choose to be with you whether in a slum or a cave or a palace.”
― Jacqueline Carey, quote from Naamah's Blessing


“At the sight of him, I was clutched by a feeling like that precarious moment just past the top of a roller coaster's highest hill when gravity takes hold and the car barrels downward.”
― April Lindner, quote from Jane


“The main difficulty encountered is to define the relationship between God’s sovereignty and man’s responsibility. Many have summarily disposed of the difficulty by denying its existence. A certain class of theologians, in their anxiety to maintain man’s responsibility, have magnified it beyond all due proportions, until God’s sovereignty has been lost sight of, and in not a few instances flatly denied. Others have acknowledged that the Scriptures present both the sovereignty of God and the responsibility of man, but affirm that in our present finite condition and with our limited knowledge it is impossible to reconcile the two truths, though it is the bounden duty of the believer to receive both. The present writer believes that it has been too readily assumed that the Scriptures themselves do not reveal the several points which show the conciliation of God’s sovereignty and man’s responsibility. While perhaps the Word of God does not clear up all the mystery (and this is said with reserve), it does throw much light upon the problem, and it seems to us more honoring to God and His Word to prayerfully search the Scriptures for the complete solution of the difficulty, and even though others have thus far searched in vain, that ought only to drive us more and more to our knees.”
― Arthur W. Pink, quote from The Sovereignty of God


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