Ken Follett
Author
1949-06-05
Quotes by Ken Follett
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They did not suspect her for a moment. It did not occur to them that a woman could be dangerous. How foolish they were. Women could do most of the things men did. Who was left in charge when the men were fighting wars, or going on crusades? There were women carpenters, dyers, tanners, bakers and brewers.
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If we're all aggressive, obedient solders [sic], who's going to write the poems and play the blues and go on anti-war protest marches?
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Aliena's brother, Richard, sometimes reminded her of her father, with a look or a gesture, and that was when she felt a surge of affection.
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It pleased Aliena that they were all together: she and Jack and their children, and Jack's mother, and Aliena's brother, and Martha. It was quite like an ordinary family, and Aliena could almost forget that her father had died in a dungeon, and she was legally married to Jack's stepbrother, and Ellen was an outlaw, and— She shook her head. It was no use pretending this was a normal family.
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No one's an angel - especially if he's a man
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Hard work should be rewarded by good food.
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you should first follow the plow if you want to dance the harvest jig.
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Jack was too absorbed in his work to hear the bell. He was mesmerized by the challenge of making soft, round shapes of hard rock. The stone had a will of its own, and if he tried to make it do something it did not want to do, it would fight him, and his chisel would slip, or dig in too deeply, spoiling the shapes. But once he had got to know the lump of rock in front of him he could transform it. The more difficult the task, the more fascinated he was. He was beginning to feel that the decorative carving demanded by Tom was too easy. Zigzags, lozenges, dogtooth, spirals and plain roll moldings bored him, and even these leaves were rather stiff and repetitive. He wanted to curve natural-looking foliage, pliable and irregular, and copy the different shapes of real leaves, oak and ash and birch.
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Proportion is the heart of beauty.
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... people always credit prime ministers with more brains than they've got.
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He was nineteen years old, homeless and rootless, with no family and no purpose in life.
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Fear could paralyse. Action was the antidote.
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I think there are two kinds of marriage, Ethel said thoughtfully. One is a comfortable partnership, where two people share the same hopes and fears, raise children as a team, and give each other comfort and help. She was talking about herself and Bernie, Daisy realized. The other is a wild passion, madness and joy and sex, possibly with someone completely unsuitable, maybe someone you don't admire or don't even really like. She was thinking about her affair with Fitz, Daisy felt sure. She held her breath: she knew Ethel was now telling her the raw truth. I've been lucky. I've had both, Ethel said. And here's my advice to you. If you get the chance of the mad kind of love, grab it with both hands, and to hell with the consequences.
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Having faith in God did not mean sitting back and doing nothing. It meant believing you would find success if you did your best honestly and energetically.
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They did not suspect her for a moment. It did not occur to them that a woman could be dangerous. How foolish they were. Women could do most of the things men did. Who was left in charge when the men were fighting wars, or going on crusades? There were women carpenters, dyers, tanners, bakers and brewers.
Read quote -
If we're all aggressive, obedient solders [sic], who's going to write the poems and play the blues and go on anti-war protest marches?
Read quote -
you should first follow the plow if you want to dance the harvest jig.
Read quote -
Jack was too absorbed in his work to hear the bell. He was mesmerized by the challenge of making soft, round shapes of hard rock. The stone had a will of its own, and if he tried to make it do something it did not want to do, it would fight him, and his chisel would slip, or dig in too deeply, spoiling the shapes. But once he had got to know the lump of rock in front of him he could transform it. The more difficult the task, the more fascinated he was. He was beginning to feel that the decorative carving demanded by Tom was too easy. Zigzags, lozenges, dogtooth, spirals and plain roll moldings bored him, and even these leaves were rather stiff and repetitive. He wanted to curve natural-looking foliage, pliable and irregular, and copy the different shapes of real leaves, oak and ash and birch.
Read quote -
Aliena's brother, Richard, sometimes reminded her of her father, with a look or a gesture, and that was when she felt a surge of affection.
Read quote -
Proportion is the heart of beauty.
Read quote