Quotes from Clifford Thurlow

I was a stranger in the strange land of the rich and was coming to see that they do things differently there.

Belief is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

When friends say we'll see you again soon, keep in touch, it means you will never see them again. Friendship is like fire. You have to keep feeding it or the fire goes out.

The past is dust. It disappears behind us. There is no way back.

The incurious eye misses the obvious, the subtle, the subtext. The incurious eye is glazed in a cataract of ignorance and indifference. The incurious eye is neither blind nor myopic. It is empty.

There is nothing more terrifying than those who are certain that what they believe is undeniably true.

You have your dreams, you look round and everything's broken, hearts, windows, walls, telephone boxes. Everything breaks and disappears.

Curiosity is the light in the darkness.

Curiosity didn't kill the cat. It emboldened the cat.

No one knows why we do it and when we've done it rarely does anyone want it. Yet still we do it. That's what being a writer is.

Beyond a certain point we reach repetition and discover we are on the way back. Thus, life has no purpose beyond what it is at this moment.

Still getting nowhere but it's the journey that matters not the hole at the end of the road.

A picture may be worth a thousand words but it needs a thousand words to describe a picture.

Patience isn't a gift. It is learned.

Writing is the enjoyable part of writing. It's all the rest that drives you mad.

It was Salvador Dalí who said the red wine of Cadaqués has the bitter taste of tears.

There is no such thing as fate. We are born, we live, we die. We invent meaning to make life tolerable.

Sixty seconds is a long time on the battlefield.

Each community lives by its own rules in a disconnected, parallel universe. Integration is like a ghost people speak of but no one ever sees.

If you're behind the curve, you're on the crest of a wave.

Success is a cloudy vision at the top of a steep hill and you have to make up your mind if you've got the energy and inclination to climb it.

Two Englishmen meeting for the first time instantly seek the differences between them, the doubts and reservations, the message in the other's accent.

The path of destiny isn't a straight line. It is curved, chaotic, often hidden, and there are endless forks where you make the decisions that lead you to yourself.

Love smells of moonlight and old photographs. Love is the sound of your name being called by your lover.