Dignity was the first quality to be abandoned when the heart took over the running of human affairs. — William Boyd Copy Share Image
“Take a look at anyone’s life. Take a look at your own. In the long fold catastrophe that makes up your three-score… — William Boyd Catastrophes Copy Share Image
“Curious how these early linguistic abilities are so fragile, how unthinkingly and easily the brain lets them go.” — William Boyd Language Copy Share Image
“This was an adventure, I told myself, an intriguing quest, and one that I would regret not seeing through at least a… — William Boyd Adventure Copy Share Image
“There were three PROs looking after us – a measure of how the army and the mass media were now coexisting and… — William Boyd Army Copy Share Image
“Feelings of depression; feelings of frustration; feelings of emptiness in the face of all this randomness - done down by the haphazard,… — William Boyd Depression Copy Share Image
“The view backward showed you all the twists and turns your life had taken, all the contingencies and chances, the random elements… — William Boyd Copy Share Image
“I felt shocked and then saddened. life does this to you sometimes - leads you up a path and then drops you… — William Boyd Life Copy Share Image
“It was pleasant - and the sense of otherness was nice, that there were two people involved in this process, that we… — William Boyd Kissing Copy Share Image
“Looking over the beach and the ocean as the sun begins to drop down in the west, a strange sense of pride:… — William Boyd Pride Copy Share Image
“Loss adjusters are noble men who frustrate and negate the bland promises of insurance. We act out of the great unbending principles… — William Boyd Copy Share Image
“what is the opposite of a mistake? And I realised there wasn’t a word, in fact, precisely because a mistake always arises… — William Boyd Best intentions Copy Share Image
I stood there in the kitchen, watching her staring across the meadow still searching for her nemesis and I thought, suddenly, that… — William Boyd Copy Share Image
“Wouldn’t it be wiser to experience the day ahead and savour it, as if it were my last, and postpone for a… — William Boyd Copy Share Image
It's amazing how sudden the effect is - it must be the result of a deep atavistic mating urge buried inside us.… — William Boyd Body Copy Share Image
“So much for my great vendetta, so much for the tireless hunt for my betrayer. Isn't this how life turns out, more… — William Boyd Life Copy Share Image
“They are all about romance, about life's excitement and adventure and it's essential sadness and transience. They savour everything both fine and… — William Boyd Adventure Copy Share Image
“the key factor in our mutual pleasure was that we enjoyed each other’s company, which, banal though it may seem, is the… — William Boyd Pleasure Copy Share Image
“Here at its extremities the terrified transients gathered, gazing out at the vast refulgent ocean for some sign of security.” — William Boyd Copy Share Image
I have teken refuge in the doctrine that advises one not to seek tranquility in certainty but in permanently suspended judgement. — William Boyd Copy Share Image
Film is a medium of clear lines and broad strikes - which can be fantastic - but compared to the subtleties and… — William Boyd Books Copy Share Image
“It’s funny how, sometimes, one can be so convinced, so utterly certain, about something as entirely fickle as strong emotion” — William Boyd Copy Share Image
In some ways, you could argue, television is doing far more interesting work than the movies. It's more fulfilling. — William Boyd Copy Share Image
“Are there aspects of our lives - things we do, feel and think - that we daren't confess, even to ourselves, even… — William Boyd Copy Share Image
“I wasn't feeling grief: that hellish chest-crammed agony you feel - but some portion of my brain activated by the memory decided… — William Boyd Death Copy Share Image
“Is it possible to live reasonably without lying? Do lies form the natural foundation of all human relationships, the thread that stitches… — William Boyd Human relationship Copy Share Image
“David Gascoyne once told me that the only point of keeping a journal was to concentrate of the personal, the diurnal minutiae,… — William Boyd Keeping a journal Copy Share Image
“I love to use these phrases - 'with the greatest respect', 'in all modest', 'I humbly submit' - which in fact always… — William Boyd Humble Copy Share Image
“I know part of my sorrow is just disguised self-pity, I needed that exchange and I worry how I'll cope without it… — William Boyd Grief Copy Share Image
“The idea of a priori moral judgements ('It is morally wrong to inflict gratuitous pain') is completely acceptable to the vast majority… — William Boyd Character Copy Share Image
It's strange; when I was younger and people would ask, 'Where are you from?', I'd say, 'West Africa', which was odd because… — William Boyd Africa Copy Share Image
“That's ally our life amounts to in the end: the aggregate of all the good luck and the bad luck you experience.… — William Boyd Bad luck Copy Share Image
“Love is not a feeling. It does not belong to that category of bodily experience which would include, for instance, pain.” — William Boyd Copy Share Image
“We're not ready for it - for people our age to die. We think we're safe for a while, but it's a… — William Boyd Dreams Copy Share Image
“any man over forty who deliberately combs his hair forward in a child’s fringe has something suspect about him,” — William Boyd Children Copy Share Image
I have always thought if you are going to make a film, it's much better to have an original script that will… — William Boyd Copy Share Image
“True learning only occurs when you love the subject you are studying and then the acquiring of knowledge is effortless because it… — William Boyd Education Copy Share Image
“Why does the sea induce these feelings of transcendence in us? Is it because an unobstructed view of overarching sky meeting endlessly… — William Boyd Transcendence Copy Share Image
I can bore for England on the subject of James Bond. But I knew I couldn't do it frivolously; I had to… — William Boyd Copy Share Image
As a novelist, where do you go to tap into memories, and impressions, and sensations? It's usually, in my experience, your early… — William Boyd Copy Share Image
