Best 31 quotes of Paul Hoffman on MyQuotes

...Again she did not seem to hear, still looking into Cale’s eyes. Then slowly, hopelessly, she dropped her gaze. “I understand,” she said. It was that, of course, that pierced him as if she had stabbed him through the heart. To him it was the sound of lost faith and it was unendurable. He felt he’d become a kind of god in her eyes, and it was simply impossible to give up her adoration.

...and what is a good weapon but a good idea made murderous flesh?

(Arbell)The ungrateful gorgeous bitch.

Better a live dog than a dead lion.

Do you have any idea how mad you sound?’ ‘Indeed I do. I have in moments of doubt considered the question of my sanity.’ (...) ‘And?’ ‘Then I consider what a piece of work is man. How defective in reason, how mean his facilities, how ugly in form and movement, in action how like a devil, in apprehension how like a cow. The beauty of the world? The paragon of animals? To me the quintessence of dust.

Even for the very clever it can be like breaking bones to stand back from something that’s been in front of you all your life.

Feeling sorry for yourself is a universal solvent of salvation.

Force is as pitiless to the man who possesses it as it is to its victims—the second it crushes, the first it intoxicates.

Full many a flower is born to blush unseen and waste its sweetness on the desert air.

Get on your feet or die.

...his soul (was) ringing like a well-struck bell. But it was a bell that rang with more than joy and adoration — there was the sound there too of anger and resentment. She would not look at him because she did not want to be in his presence. She hated him and he (how could he not?) hated her in return.

How can I know for sure if it's my son speaking and not you?" "You never can, my lord. Just as no man can ever be sure that he alone is a thinking and feeling creature and everyone else a machine that only pretends to feel and think.

Hypocrites,’ replied Cale, ‘I’ve come across a lot of them recently. I mean by that I understand now how many of them there are.

... If the dead can come back to this earth and move unseen around those they loved, I shall always be near you; in the garish day and in the darkest night—amidst your happiest scenes and gloomiest hours—always, always; and if there be a soft breeze upon your cheek, it shall be my breath; or if the cool air fans your throbbing temple, it shall be my spirit passing by.

I have a message for your daughter,” said Cale. “I am bound to her with cables that not even God can break. One day, if there is a soft breeze on her cheek, it may be my breath; one night, if the cool wind plays with her hair, it may be my shadow passing by.” And with this terrible threat he faced forward and the procession started once more. In less than a minute they were gone. In her shady room Arbell Swan-Neck stood white and cold as alabaster.

In such a beast as this..." (he means the army)"...it was the collective power that went, collapsing like a long-exhausted animal, at once falling under its own weight as much as that of its enemy. It was a collective death and not a matter of bravery or even strength, and once it was down it was finished as a battle.

It is not against reason, said the Englishman, to prefer the destruction of the world to a scratch on your finger – how much easier to understand the same price for the gash in your soul.

Many are called, few are chosen.

People treat the present moment as if it is just a stopping point on the way to some great goal that will happen in the future, and then they are surprised that the long day closes; they look back on their life and see that the things they let go by so unregarded, the small pleasures they dismissed so easily were in fact the true significance of their lives- all the time these things were the great and wonderful successes and purpose of their existence.

Self-pity, while it should be accorded due respect, is the greatest of all acids to the human soul.

...the heart of a child can take forty-nine blows before it’s damaged for ever and what’s done can never be undone.

The heart of a man is a small thing but it desires great matters. It is not big enough for a dog’s dinner but the whole world is not big enough for it. Man spares nothing that lives; he kills to feed himself, he kills to clothe himself, he kills to adorn himself, he kills to attack, he kills to defend himself, he kills to instruct himself, he kills to amuse himself, he kills for the sake of killing. From the lamb he tears its guts and makes his harp resound; from the wolf his most deadly tooth to polish his pretty works of art; from the elephant his tusks to make a toy for his child.(...)And who will exterminate him who exterminates all others?

...the older I get, the more I believe that if love is to be judged by most of its visible effects, it looks more like hatred than friendship.

...this refinement and delicacy were what Cale adored; but Cale had been beaten into shape, hammered in dreadful fires of fear and pain. How could she be with him for long? A secret part of Arbell had been searching for some time for a way to leave her lover—although she was unaware of this, it is only fair to record. And so as Cale waited for her to save him while he worked out a way of saving her, she had already chosen the bitter but reasonable path of the good, of the many over the one...

t was once famously said that it is as well that wars are so ruinously expensive, else we would never stop fighting them. However well said, it seems also to be endlessly forgotten that, while there may be just wars and unjust wars, there are never any cheap wars.

Until two days ago what had driven him was the will to survive: deep, animal, full of rage—but always part of him had not cared at all whether he lived or died. Now he did care, and very deeply, and so for the first time in a long time he was afraid. To love life is, of course, a wonderful thing, but not on this day of all days.

We are all cynics now, I suppose, and even a mewling infant knows that to save a life is to make an eternal enemy.

Whatever discoveries have been made in the land of self-delusion, many undiscovered regions remain to be explored.

Where have you come from boy?' He looked at her again. 'From hell, to take you away in the night and eat you.

- Why you? - (...) I’m the best. - Modest of you. - I am the best. Modesty has nothing to say about it.

You're the right colour for the Angel of Death, Mister Cale. But a little short.' 'I could cut your head off and stand on it. Then I'd be taller.