Quote

I'm at that age where I watch such things with two minds, one that cackles at these capers and another that never gets much beyond a rather jaded and self-conscious smile, like the Mona Lisa.

Alan Bradley

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Alan Bradley
Age: 86
Born: 1938
Born: October 10
Novelist
Writer
City of Toronto
Much
Laughing
Mona
Mind
Gets
Lisa
Things
Beyond
Jaded
Never
Age
Smile
Like
Rather
Minds
Another
Conscious
Two
Watches
Self
Watch
Capers

More quotes by Alan Bradley

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My grandmother flew only once in her life, and that was the day she and her new husband ascended into the skies of Victorian London in the wicker basket of a hot-air balloon. They were soon to emigrate to Canada, and the aerial ride was meant to be a last view of their beloved England.
Alan Bradley
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What intrigued me more than anything else was finding out the way in which everything, all of creation - all of it! - was held together by invisible chemical bonds, and I found a strange, inexplicable comfort in knowing that somewhere, even though we couldn't see it in our own world, there was a real stability.
Alan Bradley
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Whenever I'm out-of-doors and find myself wanting to have a first-rate think, I fling myself down on my back, throw my arms and legs out so that I look like an asterisk, and gaze at the sky.
Alan Bradley
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I was an early reader, and my grandmother, who as a child had been forbidden to read by a father who believed books to be frivolous time-wasters, delighted in putting her favorite volumes into her grandchildren's hands.
Alan Bradley
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The very best people are like that. They don't entangle you like flypaper.
Alan Bradley
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To be most effective, flattery is always best applied with a trowel.
Alan Bradley
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I was learning that among friends, a smile can be better than a belly laugh.
Alan Bradley
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Liberals have always been the most fervent Imperialists.
Alan Bradley
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One of the marks of a truly great mind, I had discovered, is the ability to feign stupidity on demand.
Alan Bradley
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I am often thought of as being remarkably bright, and yet my brains, more often than not, are busily devising new and interesting ways of bringing my enemies to sudden, gagging, writhing, agonizing death.
Alan Bradley
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If you remember nothing else, remember this: Inspiration from outside one's self is like the heat in an oven. It makes passable Bath buns. But inspiration from within is like a volcano: It changes the face of the world.
Alan Bradley
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Not very good with death? Father was a military man, and military men lived with death lived for death lived on death. To a professional soldier, oddly enough, death was life.
Alan Bradley
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Whenever I'm with other people, part of me shrinks a little. Only when I am alone can I fully enjoy my own company.
Alan Bradley
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During a long career in TV broadcasting, I spent a lot of time contributing to other people's creations.
Alan Bradley
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Although it is pleasant to think about poison at any season, there is something special about Christmas, and I found myself grinning.
Alan Bradley
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The spectrum on the list is very broad. It includes leftists who think that whiny liberals should be stuffed in a sack and drowned.
Alan Bradley
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Growing up in a Canadian household that was more British than Big Ben, I dreamed of flying to England myself and visiting the places my family never tired of talking about. I always woke up before the plane landed.
Alan Bradley
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I grew up in a very British family who had been transplanted to Canada, and my grandmother's house was filled with English books. I was a very early reader, so I was really brought up being surrounded with piles of British books and British newspapers, British magazines. I developed a really great love of England.
Alan Bradley
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Compared with my life Cinderella was a spoiled brat.
Alan Bradley
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Chicken fizz! O Lord, protect all of us who toil in the vineyards of experimental chemistry!
Alan Bradley