Fortnight Quotes

• When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.

  Samuel Johnson

  Carpe Diem, Men, Focus

  Quoted in James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson (1791) (entry for 19 Sept. 1777)

  98 Copy quote

  Show source

• One cannot know what a man really is by the end of a fortnight.

  Jane Austen

  Men, Ends, Knows

  Jane Austen (2014). “Jane Austen Collection: illustrated - 6 eBooks and 140+ illustrations”, p.284, Ageless Reads

  24 Copy quote

  Show source

• In politics, there is no use looking beyond the next fortnight.

  Joseph Chamberlain

  Use, Next

  In letter from A. J. Balfour to 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, 24 March 1886, in A. J. Balfour 'Chapters of Autobiography' (1930) ch. 16

  30 Copy quote

  Show source

• In my opinion, what changed the situation eventually - and, of course, it took a lot of time to change it, things like that don't change in a week or a fortnight - was the new educational system.

  John Hume

  Educational, Opinion, Week

  "Ireland's Champion of Civil Rights". The Academy of Achievement Interview, www.achievement.org. June 8, 2002.

  32 Copy quote

  Show source

• Sometimes, when something really great happens to me, I like to wait two weeks before I tell anyone about it, because I like to use the word 'fortnight'.

  Demetri Martin

  Two, Waiting, Use

  17 Copy quote

• Honeymoon lasts not nowadays above a fortnight.

  Samuel Richardson

  Lasts, Honeymoon

  Samuel Richardson (2015). “Clarissa Harlowe V1: the history of a young lady”, p.168, 谷月社

  28 Copy quote

  Show source

• Since this war began our sympathy has gone out to all the suffering people who have been dragged into it. Further hundreds of millions have become involved since I spoke at Limerick fortnight ago.

  Eamon de Valera

  Sympathy, War, People

  26 Copy quote

• I review novels to make money, because it is easier for a sluggard to write an article a fortnight than a book a year, because the writer is soothed by the opiate of action, the crank by posing as a good journalist, and having an air hole. I dislike it. I do it and I am always resolving to give it up.

  Cyril Connolly

  Book, Writing, Air

  27 Copy quote

• An institute run with such knavish imbecility that if it were not the work of God it would not last a fortnight.

  Hilaire Belloc

  Running, Lasts, Institute

  26 Copy quote

• It is all a question of sensitiveness. Brute force and overbearing may make a terrific effect. But in the end, that which lives by delicate sensitiveness. If it were a question of brute force, not a single human baby would survive for a fortnight. It is the grass of the field, most frail of all things, that supports all life all the time. But for the green grass, no empire would rise, no man would eat bread: for grain is grass; and Hercules or Napoleon or Henry Ford would alike be denied existence.

  D. H. Lawrence

  Baby, Men, Support

  D. H. Lawrence (2013). “Etruscan Places”, p.31, Read Books Ltd

  25 Copy quote

  Show source

• For a fortnight nobody at all emailed me, or posted a follow-up. Doesn't anyone care, I thought? It turned out my newsreader was broken, and hadn't posted at all.

  Graham Nelson

  Broken Heart, Care, Follow Up

  52 Copy quote

• We fetch fire and water, run about all day among the shops and markets, and get our clothes and shoes made and mended, and are thevictims of these details, and once in a fortnight we arrive perhaps at a rational moment.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Running, Fire, Shoes

  Ralph Waldo Emerson, Alfred Riggs Ferguson, Jean Ferguson Carr (1987). “The Essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson”, p.357, Harvard University Press

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• You're much better than fireworks. They're all over in a moment, and you're going to stay for a fortnight. Besides, fireworks are noisy, and they make too much smoke.

  Kate Ross

  Too Much, Moments, Fireworks

  Kate Ross (2012). “Cut to the Quick: Julian Kestrel #1”, p.19, Felony & Mayhem Press

  50 Copy quote

  Show source

• Ah," said the jailer, "do not always brood over what is impossible, or you will be mad in a fortnight.

  Alexandre Dumas

  Mad, Impossible, Said

  Alexandre Dumas (2013). “Delphi Works of Alexandre Dumas (Illustrated)”, p.3117, Delphi Classics

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• I took a fortnight off. But I'm not a great believer in breaks. I don't want to be rattling around inside my own head. I did feel I was spiralling into a Kathy Burke character and tried going out, but I prefer it here. Filming keeps me busy. It absorbs me.

  Nigella Lawson

  Character, Going Out, Want

  "A Woman of Extremes". Interview with Nigel Farndale, www.telegraph.co.uk. May 14, 2001.

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• I think it's great some hotels provide stationery. Because the first thing I like to do when I get to a hotel room is write a letter. "My dearest Gwendolyn, I arrived by nightfall at the Embassy Suites. It will be a fortnight after my return that this letter shall arrive. Allow me to explain the curious charge at the ledger. It is because I miss thee so much, darling, I accidentally ordered Sorrority Sisters 7."

  Jim Gaffigan

  Funny, Writing, Thinking

  39 Copy quote

• She couldn't have found anything nastier to say if she had thought it out with both hands for a fortnight.

  Dorothy L. Sayers

  Hands, Found, Ifs

  1937 'Prothalamion'.

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• The Catholic Church is an institution I am bound to hold divine - but for unbelievers a proof of its divinity might be found in the fact that no merely human institution conducted with such knavish imbecility would have lasted a fortnight.

  Hilaire Belloc

  Catholic, Church, Divinity

  "The Life of Hilaire Belloc". Book by Robert Speaight, 1957.

  71 Copy quote

  Show source

• I've decided to call him Norbert,' said Hagrid, looking at the dragon with misty eyes. 'He really knows me now, watch. Norbert! Norbert! Where's Mummy?' 'He's lost his marbles,' Ron muttered in Harry's ear. 'Hagrid,' said Harry loudly, 'give it a fortnight and Norbert's going to be as big as your house. Malfoy could go to Dumbledore at any moment. Hagrid bit his lip. 'I- I know I can't jus' dump him, I can't.' Harry suddenly turned to Ron. 'Charlie,' he said. 'You're losing it too,' said Ron. 'I'm Ron, remember?

  J. K. Rowling

  Eye, Dragons, Giving

  63 Copy quote

• All tapes left in a car for more than about a fortnight metamorphose into Best of Queen albums.

  Terry Pratchett

  Queens, Car, Albums

  Neil Gaiman, Terry Pratchett (2011). “Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch”, p.16, Harper Collins

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• The whole point of marriage is to stop you getting anywhere near real life. You think it's a great struggle with the mystery of being. It's more like being smothered in warm cocoa. There's sex, but it's not what you think. Marvellous, for the first fortnight. Then every Wednesday. If there isn't a good late-night concert on the Third. Meanwhile you become a biological functionary. An agent of the great female womb, spawning away, dumping its goods in your lap for succour. Daddy, daddy, we're here, and we're expensive.

  Malcolm Bradbury

  Sex, Real, Struggle

  8 Copy quote

• The triumph of hope over experience.

  Samuel Johnson

  Marriage, Funny Love, Hope

  Quoted in James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson (1791) (entry for 1770)

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• You want something, you dwell upon it consciously for a while, you consciously imagine it coming to the forefront of probabilities, closer to your actuality. Then you drop it like a pebble into Framework 2, forget about it as much as possible for a fortnight, and do this in a certain rhythm.

  Seth

  Want Something, Pebbles, Forget

  6 Copy quote

• I met Picasso when I was a kid. I turned one of his drawings down which would be worth £37 million now. My dad wouldn't talk to me for a fortnight.

  Brian Blessed

  Dad, Kids, Drawing

  12 Copy quote

• Every year, in the deep midwinter, there descends upon this world a terrible fortnight. ... every shop is a choked mass of humanity ... nerves are jangled and frayed, purses emptied to no purposes, all amusements and all occupations suspended in favor of frightful businesses with brown paper, string, letters, cards, stamps, and crammed post offices. This period is doubtless a foretaste of whatever purgatory lies in store for human creatures.

  Rose Macaulay

  Christmas, Lying, Years

  6 Copy quote