R.S. Thomas Quotes

A garden is mainly ...a space around which interests can be accumulated.

Life is too short to drink the house wine.

I never thought about heaven per se. I think when you're dead, you're dead. If anything happens after that, you just hope you don't go to hell.

I love my work, and I think that I was so lucky to pick a profession where it's a joy to go to work every day.

I'm of Arab background.

American journalism's crazy old aunt in the attic.

I censored myself for 50 years when I was a reporter. Now I wake up and ask myself, 'Who do I hate today?'

We've got to break through the wall of secrecy. It's America's fate.

The White House used to belong to the American people. At least that's what I learned from history books and from covering every president starting with John F. Kennedy.

We began to see the renovation of our offices as a subtle part of the Nixon war against the press.

As a reporter having covered him for eight years in the White House, I am sure the media could have done a better job if we had known the real Ronald Reagan.

I covered Kennedy when she was three years old and the darling daughter of President Kennedy who doted on her and whose mother did everything to protect her from the prying press.

I wrote that President Bush is passing on to President-elect Obama two wars and an economic debacle. I call it a depression. And he is arming Israel against the Palestinians in every way in Gaza.

Maybe the Jefferson case will give members of Congress second thoughts the next time they get ready to legislate away the rights of ordinary Americans.

It's time for women to make their voices heard. Their silence on the subject of war and peace is deafening.

I have a background and an understanding of what's happened in the Middle East that a lot of people don't have, because there's been no interest.

I think Obama is handling his image very well, but I think he lacks boldness.

Every President hates the Press.

I'm a liberal, I was born a liberal, and I will be a liberal 'til the day I die.

If you want to be President, decide it at the age of five, and then live accordingly.

We got the vote, which we should've been born with, in 1920. Everything we've had to struggle for - it's ridiculous.

I've always felt privileged to cover the White House and to have that ringside seat to history

The presidential news conference is indispensable because it is the only forum in our society where you can be questioned on a regular basis and held accountable.

When the interval between the intellectual classes and the practical classes is too great, the former will possess no influence, the latter will reap no benefit.

Whenever a man boasts much about [his common sense], you may be pretty sure that he has very little sense, either common or uncommon.

Protestant women may take the pill. Roman Catholic women must keep taking The Tablet.

The cello is not one of my favourite instruments. It has such a lugubrious sound, like someone reading a will.

Just then, with a wink and a sly normal lurch, The owl very gravely got down from his perch, Walked round, and regarded his fault-finding critic (Who thought he was stuffed) with a glance analytic.

Let heaven-eyed Prudence battle with Desire.

Be my wife, all my life.

Whatever I'm reading at the moment seems to influence whatever I'm writing.

The problem and privilege we all have is being alive in this century and able to read this language. It makes any list meaningless except the list of an illiterate.

People have laughed at all great inventors and discoverers.

Most publishers seem very reluctant to publish short story collections at all; they bring them out in paperback, often disguised as novels.

I usually like whatever I've recently finished best.

I started writing, or rather, thinking, stories as a child, and at that time the reason was very clear.

Today's robots are very primitive, capable of understanding only a few simple instructions such as 'go left', 'go right', and 'build car'.

I think at this point, I'd eventually like to work behind the camera. That's not to say I would never act again, I'm not quite sure to be honest.

I am sure that, had I grown up with both parents, had I grown up in a safe environment, had I grown up with a feeling of safety rather than danger, I would not be the way I am.

I have a feeling I will work for a long, long time. I like it a lot... and I don't know. I just have a feeling that I'm going to be one of those people who go on for ever.

I think I'm inspired mostly by other artists that aren't actors, like writers or singers or artists, for being so brave.

As an adult, it's a huge shock to be orphaned; as a child it's just hideous, ghastly.

People will now go to films with subtitles, you know. They're not afraid of them. It's one of the upsides of text-messaging and e-mail. Maybe the only good thing to come of it.

When I speak English, I've been told, I have this patrician way of speaking that's very irritating. It's the whole class thing.

I'd love to do some comedy. Particularly French comedy, which I know sounds like a contradiction in terms.

I don't want to have to be pretty. I don't want to have to be adorable.

There's something incredibly sexy about sand and sweat and dunes photographed like women's backs.

Boarding school is a wicked thing.

Seeing The English Patient is wonderfully draining, but imagine acting in it for six months.

I do consider myself as being French, I suppose.