96 Quotes by Mark Forsyth

The Three Musketeers had a cry of ‘All for one and one for all’. The symmetry makes it memorable but also reflects the reciprocity. It is that great human symmetry: the deal.

The ladies towards whom these young champions would be scampering were the camp followers, women of more enterprise than virtue, who would follow the soldiers around and rent their affections by the hour. Camp.

That the West thinks that seven is lucky and the Chinese think eight is shows both that numerology is wrong and that it’s popular across the world. Numbers feel mysterious and significant. So all you need to do to sound mysterious and significant is to pick a number, any number.

Requited love is only a pleasing symmetry, and symmetry is a kind of justice.

Stern people dislike rhetoric, and unfortunately it’s usually stern people who are in charge: solemn fools who believe that truth is more important than beauty.

The glorious insanities of the English language mean that you can do all sorts of odd and demeaning things to a book. You can cook it.

That A Lot More became a mile, and then the inch was dropped because it doesn’t begin with an M, and we were left with ‘A miss is as good as a mile’, which, if you think about it, doesn’t really make sense any more. But who needs sense when you have alliteration?

The point of all this is not so that the copper in question can learn more about your motivations and beliefs. They lack such psychoanalytic curiosity. That’s why they’re traffic policemen. By making you answer a question to which they already know the answer, they are asserting their authority, and belittling yours. That’s also why they’re traffic policemen.

If you’re too overcome to even finish your sentence then you must be sincere, you must really mean what you’re not saying, you must... I’m sorry. I cannot type. My fingers are crying.