Eunuchs Quotes

• I detest symbolic protest, as it is an outcry of weak, middle-of-the-road, liberal eunuchs. If an individual feels strongly enough about something to do something about it, then he shouldn't prostitute himself by doing something symbolic. He should get out and do something real.

  William Powell

  Real, Enough, Individual

  "The Anarchist Cookbook". Book by William Powell, Chapter Two: "Electronics, Sabotage, and Surveillance", p. 62, 1971.

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• A critic without a good eye is a eunuch in a harem.

  Walter Darby Bannard

  Eye, Critics, Harem

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• Critics are like eunuchs in a harem; they know how it's done, they've seen it done every day, but they're unable to do it themselves.

  Brendan Behan

  Funny, Editors, Criticism

  "ANDREW LLOYD WEBBER; Breathing Rarefied Air", www.nytimes.com. May 6, 1990.

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• A eunuch is a man who has had his work cut out for him.

  Robert Burns

  Sex, Cutting, Men

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• I've never been quite sure what the point of a eunuch is, if truth be told. It seems to me they're only men with the useful bits cut off.

  George R. R. Martin

  Cutting, Men, Truth Is

  George R. R. Martin (2003). “A Storm of Swords: A Song of Ice and Fire: Book Three”, p.99, Bantam

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• Eunuchs do not take the gout, nor become bald.

  Hippocrates

  Gout

  Hippocrates (1900*). “Aphorisms”, p.46, Library of Alexandria

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• Think of it! A second chamber selected by the Whips. A seraglio of eunuchs.

  Michael Foot

  Thinking, Selected, Chamber

  'Hansard' 3 February 1969, col. 88

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• The House of Lords, an illusion to which I have never been able to subscribe - responsibility without power, the prerogative of the eunuch throughout the ages.

  Tom Stoppard

  Responsibility, House, Age

  Lord Malquist and Mr Moon (1966) pt. 6. Cf. Rudyard Kipling

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• Critics are like eunuchs; they can tell you what to do, but they can't do it themselves!

  Brendan Behan

  Critics

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• These are the three main diseases of this country, sir: typhoid, cholera, and election fever. This last one is the worst; it makes people talk and talk about things that they have no say in ... Would they do it this time? Would they beat the Great Socialist and win the elections? Had they raised enough money of their own, and bribed enough policemen, and bought enough fingerprints of their own, to win? Like eunuchs discussing the Kama Sutra, the voters discuss the elections in Laxmangarh.

  Aravind Adiga

  Country, Winning, People

  Aravind Adiga (2008). “The White Tiger: A Novel”, p.82, Simon and Schuster

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• The imagination of a eunuch dwells more and longer upon the material of love than that of man or woman ... supplying, so far as he can, by speculation, the place of pleasures he can no longer enjoy.

  John Quincy Adams

  Love, Men, Imagination

  John Quincy Adams (1876). “Memoirs of John Quincy Adams: Comprising Portions of His Diary from 1795 to 1848”, p.353

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• Unlearned men of books assume the care,
  As eunuchs are the guardians of the fair.

  Edward Young

  Book, Men, Library

  Edward Young, John Doran, James Nichols (1854). “The Complete Works, Poetry and Prose of the Rev. Edward Young, LL.D.: Revised and Collated with the Earliest Editions. To which is Prefixed A Life of the Author”, p.357

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• In the move The Last Emperor, the young child anointed as the last emperor of China lives a magical life of luxury with a thousand eunuch servants at his command. "What happens when you do wrong?" his brother asks. "When I do wrong, someone else is punished," the boy emperor replies. To demonstrate, he breaks a jar, and one of the servants is beaten. In Christian theology, Jesus reversed that ancient pattern: when the servants erred, the King was punished. Grace is free only because the giver himself has borned the cost.

  Philip Yancey

  Christian, Religious, Brother

  Philip Yancey (1997). “What's So Amazing about Grace?”, p.67, Harper Collins

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• Well, well, well, well. If it isn't fat, stinking billygoat Billy-Boy in poison. How art thou, thou globby bottle of cheap, stinking chip-oil? Come and get one in the yarbles, if you have any yarbles, you eunuch jelly thou.

  Anthony Burgess

  Art, Boys, Oil

  "A Clockwork Orange". Book by Anthony Burgess, 1962.

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• It kills me to be time's eunuch and never to beget.

  Gerard Manley Hopkins

  Kill Me, Begets

  1885 Letter to Robert Bridges, 1 Sep. Collected in C C Abbott (ed) The Correspondence of Gerard Manley Hopkins and Robert Bridges (1935).

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• I remember the average curate at home as something between a eunuch and a snigger.

  Ronald Firbank

  Home, Average, Remember

  'The Flower Beneath the Foot' (1923) ch. 4

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• Critics are eunuchs at a gang bang.

  George Burns

  Bangs, Gang, Critics

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• Women are made to be led, and counseled, and directed....And if I am not a good man, I have no just right in this Church to a wife or wives, or the power to propagate my species. What then should be done with me? Make a eunuch of me, and stop my propagation.

  Heber C. Kimball

  Men, Wife, Good Man

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• The eunuch had looked death in the face, so near he might have kissed her on the lips.

  George R. R. Martin

  Might, Faces, Lips

  George R. R. Martin (2011). “A Dance with Dragons: A Song of Ice and Fire: Book Five”, p.1046, Bantam

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• God knows, people who are paid to have attitudes toward things, professional critics, make me sick; camp-following eunuchs of literature.

  Ernest Hemingway

  Attitude, Sick, People

  Ernest Hemingway (2008). “The Good Life According to Hemingway”, Ecco

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• Clever is the eunuch version of funny.

  George Meyer

  Clever, Versions

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• Being a writer in a library is rather like being a eunuch in a harem.

  John Braine

  Book, Reading, Thought Provoking

  "The New York Times", October 7, 1962.

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• Critics are the eunuchs of literature. They stand by in envious awe while the whole man and his partner demonstrate the art of living.

  John Steinbeck

  Art, Men, Literature

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• Being a screenwriter in Hollywood is like being a eunuch at an orgy. Worse, actually, at least the eunuch is allowed to watch.

  Albert Brooks

  Hollywood, Watches, Screenwriters

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• I managed to get my copy of Ulysses through safely this time. I rather wish I had never read it. It gives me an inferiority complex. When I read a book like that and then come back to my own work, I feel like a eunuch who has taken a course in voice production.

  George Orwell

  Book, Taken, Voice

  George Orwell (1998). “The complete works of George Orwell”

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