Quotes from Nevil Shute

When I was first sent from H.M.S. King Alfred to be interviewed by Goodeve in the Admiralty, I was furious. The War seemed to me, in June of 1940, to be desperately serious, and England in imminent peril of invasion.

After two wars, I have been in danger too often to bother very much about being killed, and when it comes, I would prefer that it should happen in an aeroplane, since aeroplanes have been the best part of my life.

The thing most worth doing in this modern world [is to] create jobs that men can work at, and be proud of, and make money by their work.

It's no good going on living in the ashes of a dead happiness.

Everybody pays lip service to the safety of the aeroplane, but nobody is prepared to pay for it.

To put your life in danger from time to time... breeds a saneness in dealing with day-to-day trivialities.

Aircraft do not crash of themselves. They come to grief because men are foolish, or vain, or lazy, or irresolute or reckless. One crash in a thousand may be unavoidable because God wills it so - not more than that.

You can only do a thing for the first time once, and that goes for falling in love.

Like some infernal monster, still venomous in death, a war can go on killing people for a long time after it's all over.

I didn't wait to see her ship go off, because partings are stupid things and best got over quickly

It has been said that an engineer is a man who can do for ten shillings what any fool can do for a pound; if that be so, we were certainly engineers.

There are some things about oneself that it's not very nice to wake up to.

doubt if he'd have made the grade for the rabbit pack, though. He wasn't fierce enough; he was one of those bumbling, good humoured, rather incompetent dogs, good for a lonely man or girl to look after.

one has to make an effort at a time like that, and a clean break. It's no good going on living in the ashes of a dead happiness.

In the quiet serenity of the night that did not seem very important; it was only important that she should shut up and not spoil his evening. "Now you get on and start her up, and shut up talking." She opened her mouth to give as good as she got, but said nothing. What he had told her was incredible; and yet it was what she had secretly feared for some time.

Men's souls are naturally inclined to covetousness; but if ye be kind towards women and fear to wrong them, God is well acquainted with what ye do.

Here they go cruising for a fortnight up in parts where everyone is dead of radiation, and all that they can catch is measles!

It was so beautiful', he said. 'the Three Pagodas Pass must be one of the loveliest places in the world. you've got this broad valley with the river running down it, and the jungle forest, and the mountains....we used to sit by the river and watch the sun setting behind the mountains, sometimes, and say what a marvellous place it would be to come to for a holiday. however terrible a prison camp may be, it makes a difference if its beautiful.

Maybe we've been too silly to deserve a world like this, he said. The scientist said, That's absolutely and precisely right.

I have been asked sometimes what led me to the Persian Gulf, what instinct told me that I could build up a business there. It's really perfectly simple. If you go to the hottest and most uncomfortable place on the map you'll find there's not a lot of competition;

The Negro said, "I don't feel so good right now. Say, if I'd known that cutting your throat gave you septicaemia, I sure would have made a job of it." "Or else not done it at all," said Turner. The Negro paused for a moment in abstraction. "Well," he said at last, "that would have been another way.

I had travelled the world and I had come to realise, in faint surprise, that I had seen no countryside that could compare in pastoral beauty with that of my own home. It takes a long time for an Australian to accept the fact that the wide, bustling, sophisticated world of the northern hemisphere cannot compare with his own land in certain ways;

Everything had come good at last, after so many years. I had reached the happy ending of the story, and I was quietly, serenely happy. In the soft, velvety darkness I lay utterly at peace for I had finished with all heartaches, with all pains and worries; nothing could touch me now. I had finished the book but I could take it up and read it over and over again, and I would do so, secure in the knowledge of the happiness in the last chapter.

the cornmeal fritters were very good if you could forget about the maggots