63 Quotes by Josephine Tey

Most people's first books are their best anyways. It's the one they wanted most to write.

He knew by heart every last minute crack on its surface. He had made maps of the ceiling and gone exploring on them; rivers, islands, and continents. He had made guessing games of it and discovered hidden objects; faces, birds, and fishes. He made mathematical calculations of it and rediscovered his childhood; theorems, angles, and triangles. There was practically nothing else he could do but look at it. He hated the sight of it.

It would do her good to have some demons to fight, to be swung out in space and held over some bottomless pit now and then.

Ever seen the old conjurer's trick of a lady sawn in half? There's a strong aroma of sawn lady about this...don't you smell it?

Wee Archie was wielding a shepherd's crook that, as Tommy remarked later, no shepherd would be found dead with, and he was wearing a kilt that no Highlander would dream of being found alive in.

One would expect boredom to be a great yawning emotion, but it isn't, of course. It's a small niggling thing.

She put her cup down and sighed again with pleasure. "I can't think how the Nonconformists have failed to discover coffee." "Discover it?""Yes. As a snare. It does far more for one than drink. And yet no one preaches about it, or signs pledges about it. Five mouthfuls and the world looks rosy.

Grant had dealt too long with the human intelligence to accept as truth someone's report of someone's report of what that someone remembered to have seen or been told.

Alan Grant: "There are... far too many words written. Millions and millions of them pouring from the presses every minute. It's a horrible thought." The Midget (his nurse): "You sound constipated.