Quotes about lad (124 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

“In youth, it was a way I had,
To do my best to please.
And change, with every passing lad
To suit his theories.

But now I know the things I know
And do the things I do,
And if you do not like me so,
To hell, my love, with you.”

Dorothy Parker (1893–1967) American poet, short story writer, critic and satirist

Source: The Complete Poems of Dorothy Parker

Love , Youth , Way , Hell

“Here, lads, we live by the law of the taiga. But even here people manage to live.”

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn book One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich

Kuziomin, in the Ralph Parker translation (1963).
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (1962)
Context: Here, lads, we live by the law of the taiga. But even here people manage to live. D’you know who are the ones the camps finish off? Those who lick other men’s left-overs, those who set store by the doctors, and those who peach on their mates.

People , Law

“Yet but three come one more.
Two of both kinds make up four.
Ere she comes curst and sad.
Cupid is a knavish lad.
Thus to make poor females mad.”

William Shakespeare A Midsummer Night's Dream

Source: A Midsummer Night's Dream

Sadness , Madness

“So, open your mouth, lad! For every voice counts!”

Dr. Seuss book One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish

Horton Hears a Who! (1954)
Source: One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish
Context: "This", cried the Mayor, "is your town's darkest hour!
The time for all Whos who have blood that is red
To come to the aid of their country!", he said.
"We've GOT to make noises in greater amounts!
So, open your mouth, lad! For every voice counts!"

“One day I'll work out what it is you are saying, my lad, and then you'll be in trouble.”

Terry Pratchett book I Shall Wear Midnight

Source: I Shall Wear Midnight

“A mermaid found a swimming lad,
Picked him up for her own,
Pressed her body to his body,
Laughed; and plunging down
Forgot in cruel happiness
That even lovers drown.”

W.B. Yeats (1865–1939) Irish poet and playwright

Lovers , Happiness

“A line comes back to Marie-Laure from Jules Verne: Science, my lad, is made up of mistakes, but they are mistakes which it is useful to make, because they lead little by little to the truth.”

Anthony Doerr book All the Light We Cannot See

Source: All the Light We Cannot See

Truth , Science

“For us lads of eighteen they ought to have been mediators and guides to the world of maturity, the world of work, of duty, of culture, of progress -- to the future.”

Erich Maria Remarque book All Quiet on the Western Front

Source: All Quiet on the Western Front

World , Future

“Whut's the plan, Rob?" said one of them.
"Okay, lads, this is what we'll do. As soon as we see somethin', we'll attack it. Right?"
This caused a cheer.
"Ach, 'tis a good plan," said Daft Wullie.”

Terry Pratchett book The Wee Free Men

Source: The Wee Free Men

“What you want, my lad, and what you're going to get are two very
different things.”

P.G. Wodehouse book Right Ho, Jeeves

Source: Right Ho, Jeeves

“That, lad," he said proudly, "was some of the worst poetry I have heard for a long time. It was offensive to the ear and a torrrture to the soul…. We'll make a gonnagle out of ye yet!”

Terry Pratchett book The Wee Free Men

Source: The Wee Free Men

Soul , Time

“A lady who sets her heart upon a lad in uniform must prepare to change lovers pretty quickly, or her life will be but a sad one.”

William Makepeace Thackeray (1811–1863) novelist

Source: The Memoirs of Barry Lyndon, Esq. written by himself

Life , Sadness , Lovers , Change

“Then proudly smiled that old man
To see the eager lad
Rush madly for his pen and ink
And for his blotting-pad –
But, when he thought of publishing,
His face grew stern and sad.”

Lewis Carroll (1832–1898) English writer, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer

Poeta Fit, Non Nascitur, last stanza
Rhyme? and Reason? (1883)

Sadness , Smile

“You must not fear death, my lads; defy him, and you drive him into the enemy's ranks.”

Napoleon I of France (1769–1821) French general, First Consul and later Emperor of the French

As quoted in Dictionary of Quotations from Ancient and Modern English and Foreign Sources (1899) by Rev. James Wood, p. 567
Attributed

Death , Fear

“How dispiriting I find it, even after all my personal triumphs, that we must grow up and grow sad, that we must age, weaken, and in time go home to our long home in the ground, and that even golden lads and girls all must, as chimney sweepers, come to dust.”

Joseph Heller book God Knows

God Knows (1984)

Age , Sadness , Home , Girl

“Sam, Sam, pick oop tha' musket'
The Duke said as quiet as could be,
'Sam, Sam Sam Sam, pick oop tha' musket,
Coom on lad, just to please me”

Stanley Holloway (1890–1982) English stage and film actor, comedian, singer, poet and monologist

Sam, Sam, Pick Oop Tha' Musket

“In the days when we went gypsying
A long time ago;
The lads and lassies in their best
Were drest from top to toe.”

Edwin Ransford (1805–1876) British opera singer

In the Days when we went Gypsying.

Time

“I have warned you over and over that for every physical effect there is a psychic cause. You see the effect — the cause is just as visible. Can you imagine that Man is here made in the image of his Almighty, when he pollutes that which the Almighty, as it is said, has given to him when he pollutes even himself? This is not democracy, my lad, it is modern American inhumanity. This is not civilization, it is CALIBAN!”

Louis Sullivan (1856–1924) American architect

Source: Kindergarten Chats (1918), Ch. 36 : Another City

Democracy , Imagination

“Science, my lad, has been built upon many errors; but they are errors which it was good to fall into, for they led to the truth.”

Jules Verne book A Journey to the Center of the Earth

La science, mon garçon, est faite d’erreurs, mais d’erreurs qu’il est bon de commettre, car elles mènent peu à peu à la vérité.
Source: Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864), Ch. XXXI: Preparations for a voyage of discovery

Truth , Error , Science

“Golden lads and girls all must,
As chimney-sweepers, come to dust.”

William Shakespeare Cymbeline

Guiderius, Act IV, scene ii.
Cymbeline (1610)

Girl

“All people are brought up by cultures and every culture says 'You live in the greatest country in the world' 'I'm American and proud of it', 'I'm Canadian. I'm proud of it' That separates people. Now, if you were brought up in Ireland, you'd say, 'The Irish people are fine, there's a fine Irish lad sitting there'. Well, even your dialect, your facial expressions, you pick up from your country or the area you come from. If you still don't understand that, if you were brought up in Australia, you'd say, 'How are ya, Mate? Yeah Yeah Yeah'. That's normal in Australia. If a Filipino baby was brought up in Australia, that's the way it speaks.”

Jacque Fresco (1916–2017) American futurist and self-described social engineer

Baby , Understanding , Country , People

“You convinced yourselves we're just a bunch of regular lads who got a bad break in life. Anything else would have cracked your dream open and made you face reality. Illusion is easy. Illusion is the loser's way out. Your way.”

Peter F. Hamilton book The Reality Dysfunction

Source: The Reality Dysfunction

Life , Dreams , Way , Reality

“Be you wise and never sad,
You will get your lovely lad.
Never serious be, nor true,
And your wish will come to you--
And if that makes you happy, kid,
You'll be the first it ever did.”

Dorothy Parker (1893–1967) American poet, short story writer, critic and satirist

Love , Sadness , Happiness

“Ambition is all very well, my lad, but you must cloak it.”

Jonathan Stroud book The Amulet of Samarkand

Source: The Amulet of Samarkand

“So remember it, lad. If your head thinks up mischief, your backside's going to pay for it. Brian Fraser to young Jamie”

Diana Gabaldon book Outlander

Source: Outlander

Thinking

“Joel, lad, school is about learning to learn. If you don't practice studying things you don't like, then you'll have a very hard time in life.”

Brandon Sanderson (1975) American fantasy writer

Source: The Rithmatist

Life , School , Study , Learning

“We're not punished for our sins, lad. We're punished by them.”

Jennifer Donnelly book The Tea Rose

Source: The Tea Rose

“So up I got in anger,
And took a book I had,
And put a ribbon on my hair
To please a passing lad.
And, "One thing there's no getting by --
I've been a wicked girl," said I;
But if I can't be sorry, why,
I might as well be glad!”

Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892–1950) American poet

Books , Girl , Anger

“But you didn't die."
"Clever lad, to deduce that from such slender evidence after living with me for just three years.”

Scott Lynch The Lies of Locke Lamora

Source: The Lies of Locke Lamora

“Where you tend a rose my lad, a thistle cannot grow.”

Frances Hodgson Burnett The Secret Garden

Variant: Two things cannot be in one place. Where you tend a rose, my lad, a thistle cannot grow.
Source: The Secret Garden

“King Lear: What is your name?
Kent / Caius: Caius.
King Lear: And whence do you hale?
Kent / Caius: From Bonking, Sire.
King Lear: Well, yes, lad as do we all.”

Christopher Moore book Fool

Source: Fool (2009)

“He leaned close, rubbing his bearded cheek against my ear. 'And how about a sweet kiss, now, for the brave lads of the clan MacKenzie? Tulach Ard!'
Erin go bragh,' I said rudely, and pushed with all my strength.”

Diana Gabaldon book Outlander

Source: Outlander

Kiss

“There was no last animal I treated. When young farm lads started to help me over the gate into a field or a pigpen, to make sure the old fellow wouldn't fall, I started to consider retiring. The great moment was one day when I was stitching up a cow's teats--they often get cut, you know--and my glasses were sliding down my nose. Suddenly I thought, Wight, you're too old for this. But it was a gradual transition. I just did less and less. It must be terrible to have a job you very much love chopped off.”

James Herriot (1916–1995) veterinary surgeon and writer

Love , Help , Animals

“If thou weren't more a lass than a lad, I'd fell thee this minute, I would; pitiful lath of a crater!”

Emily Brontë book Wuthering Heights

Hareton Earnshaw to Linton Heathcliff (Ch. XXI).
Wuthering Heights (1847)

“They carry back bright to the coiner the mintage of man,
The lads that will die in their glory and never be old.”

A.E. Housman book A Shropshire Lad

No. 23, st. 4.
A Shropshire Lad (1896)

“Sharp it away, lad, sharp it away,” the burly guardsman said, making the blade skitter across the whetstone, “lest otherways ye’ll be a girl afore ye’re a man.”

Tad Williams (1957) novelist

Source: Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, The Dragonbone Chair (1988), Chapter 31, “The Councils of the Prince” (p. 502).

Girl

“Easier, lad, with those soft small bodies…. Nothing to it. They're just soft squashy things.”

Anthony Burgess (1917–1993) English writer

Fiction, Man of Nazareth (1979)

“Lady: How do's it fit? wilt come together? Prudence: Hardly. Lad: Thou must make shift with it. Pride feels no Pain.”

Ben Jonson The New Inn

Act II, Scene I
The New Inn, or The Light Heart (licensed 19 January 1629; printed 1631)

Pain , Feeling

“…but he distinctly remembered standing at the house door one summer morning in a passionate outburst of rebellion against going to school. Naturally his mother was the immediate victim of his rage; that is what mothers are for, and boys also; but in this case the boy had his mother at unfair disadvantage, for she was a guest, and had no means of enforcing obedience. Henry showed a certain tactical ability by refusing to start, and he met all efforts at compulsion by successful, though too vehement protest. He was in fair way to win, and was holding his own, with sufficient energy, at the bottom of the long staircase which led up to the door of the President's library, when the door opened, and the old man slowly came down. Putting on his hat, he took the boy's hand without a word, and walked with him, paralyzed by awe, up the road to the town. After the first moments of consternation at this interference in a domestic dispute, the boy reflected that an old gentleman close on eighty would never trouble himself to walk near a mile on a hot summer morning over a shadeless road to take a boy to school, and that it would be strange if a lad imbued with the passion of freedom could not find a corner to dodge around, somewhere before reaching the school door. Then and always, the boy insisted that this reasoning justified his apparent submission; but the old man did not stop, and the boy saw all his strategical points turned, one after another, until he found himself seated inside the school, and obviously the centre of curious if not malevolent criticism. Not till then did the President release his hand and depart.”

Henry Adams (1838–1918) journalist, historian, academic, novelist

The Education of Henry Adams (1907)

School , Way , Boy , Nature

“The wages of courage is death, lad, but it’s the wages of everything else, too.”

Tim Powers book The Drawing of the Dark

Source: The Drawing of the Dark (1979), Chapter 10 (p. 140)

Death , Courage

“She died with her telly on, 87 and confused,
With not enough hospital beds 'cos all the money’s been used,
On the end of the century party preparations,
And they reckon that the last thing she saw in her life,
Was Sting, singing on the roof of the Barbican.
A Country Practice, Four Lads Who Shook the Wirral”

Nigel Blackwell

1998
Lyrics

Life , Money , Singing , Country

“"Much knowledge of the right sort is a dangerous thing for the poor," might have been the motto put up over the door of the village school in my day. The less book-learning the labourer's lad got stuffed into him, the better for him and the safer for those above him, was what those in authority believed and acted up to. I daresay they made themselves think somehow or other—perhaps by not thinking—that they were doing their duty in that state of life to which it had pleased God to call them, when they tried to numb his brain, as a preliminary to stunting his body later on, as stunt it they did, by forcing him to work like a beast of burden for a pittance.”

Joseph Arch (1826–1919) British politician

Source: The Story of his Life Told by Himself (1898), p. 25

Life , God , Books , School

“I know this goes without saying, but Stonehenge really was the most incredible accomplishment. It took five hundred men just to pull each sarsen, plus a hundred more to dash around positioning the rollers. Just think about it for a minute. Can you imagine trying to talk six hundred people into helping you drag a fifty-ton stone eighteen miles across the countryside and muscle it into an upright position, and then saying, "Right, lads! Another twenty like that, plus some lintels and maybe a couple of dozen nice bluestones from Wales, and we can party!"”

Bill Bryson book Notes from a Small Island

Whoever was the person behind Stonehenge was one dickens of a motivator, I'll tell you that.
Notes from a Small Island (1995)

Men , People , Imagination , Motivation

“Syntax, my lad. It has been restored to the highest place in the republic.”

John Steinbeck (1902–1968) American writer

When asked his reaction to John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address
Quoted by Atlantic magazine (November 1969)

“It's the soldiers of the King, my lads
Who've been, my lads, who've seen, my lads
In the fight for England's glory lads
When we've had to show them what we mean.”

Leslie Stuart (1863–1928) British composer

Song Soldiers of the King.

Fight

“The chestnut casts his flambeaux, and the flowers
Stream from the hawthorn on the wind away,
The doors clap to, the pane is blind with showers.
Pass me the can, lad; there’s an end of May.”

A.E. Housman (1859–1936) English classical scholar and poet

No. 9, st. 1.
Last Poems http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext05/8lspm10.txt (1922)

Flowers

“And Nelly turned to her and laughed a horrible laugh. She startled herself. She paused to light another cigarette, choking, blowing a cloud to hide her face; and when she could, continued in a gentle voice:
"You will do me a favour? Save me from disillusionment. Let the man coming back with you on Wednesday be a sensible man, who admits it all, defeat and hopelessness and the bitterness; but sanity." "But I don't know why I should," said Camilla, seriously.
"Won't you do what I ask, love? I know him, poor lad. I know what's best. I don't want him roaming the countryside, footloose and aimless and perhaps in some pub, on some roadside pick up some other harpy, instead of swallowing the bitter pill and facing the lonely road."”

Christina Stead book Dark Places of the Heart

Dark Places of the Heart (aka Cotters' England) (1966)

Love , Light

“There are two morals to the story. The first is: avoid giving false alarms. The second is: in the end, the wolf came, so do not be misled by previous false alarms into thinking that the latest alarm is false, too. Of these two morals, the second one is more significant. Believing false alarms wastes time, but can lead to some helpful advice for apprentice shepherds; disbelieving all alarms can lead to a local lad being eaten, for starters.”

David Fleming (1940–2010) British activist

Third Annual FEASTA Lecture - The Lean Economy: A Vision of Civility for a World in Trouble (2001) http://www.feasta.org/documents/review2/fleming.htm

Thinking , Wolf , Time , Help

“They're cheering a young lad, the champion playboy of the Western World.”

John Millington Synge The Playboy of the Western World

Act III.
The Playboy of the Western World (1907)

World

“Alright Duke,' said Old Sam, 'just for thee I'll oblige,
And to show thee I meant no offence',
So Sam picked it up, 'Gradely, lad' said the Duke,
'Right-o boys… let battle commence.”

Stanley Holloway (1890–1982) English stage and film actor, comedian, singer, poet and monologist

"Old Sam Small" monologue http://monologues.co.uk/Sam_Small.htm
Sam, Sam, Pick Oop Tha' Musket

Boy

“And how madly we did worship! And how sweet it was to worship! Ah, lad, cherish love's young dream while it lasts! You will know too soon how truly little Tom Moore sang when he said that there was nothing half so sweet in life. Even when it brings misery it is a wild, romantic misery, all unlike the dull, worldly pain of after-sorrows. When you have lost her—when the light is gone out from your life and the world stretches before you a long, dark horror, even then a half-enchantment mingles with your despair.”

Jerome K. Jerome book Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow

Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow (1886)

Love , Life , Pain , World

“We, me and thee and the parson and all the other lads in the village constitute the public, and the politicians are our servants.”

Margery Allingham (1904–1966) English writer of detective fiction

The Oaken Heart

“Ah, fortune and fame shall follow me…and I shall dwell in the world of the chosen for a few moments of fleeting ecstasy; ere the seven burly lads turn into creditors and hustle me off to debtors' prison at last.”

Hunter S. Thompson (1937–2005) American journalist and author

Letter to Porter Bibb III (6 February 1957), p. 44
1990s, The Proud Highway : The Fear and Loathing Letters Volume I (1997)

World

“Y' not charging tuppence for that little lad?"
Said Mother, her eyes flashing wild.
"Per tuppence per person per trip," answered Ted,
"Per woman, per man, or per child.”

Marriott Edgar (1880–1951) British poet

"Runcorn Ferry", line 21.
Albert, 'Arold and Others (1938)

Personality

“"Well lad, this is what you have chosen. Are you pleased with yourself?"
“ I am alive," said Bane.
“ And eight men are dead," said Landis. “ Eight souls cast out of the world. More mothers to grieve, more children to know sorrow. Is this a life you want for yourself?”
“ No it is not," Bane told him. “ But we do what we must.”
“ Not true! We do what we choose. And we face the consequences."”

David Gemmell book Midnight Falcon

Source: Rigante series, Midnight Falcon, Ch. 5

Life , Men , Children , World

“Noah said "Nay; I'll make thee an offer,
The same as I did t'other day.
A penny a foot and a free ride.
Now, come on, lad, what does tha say?"

"Three ha'pence a foot," came the answer.
So Noah 'is sail 'ad to hoist,
And sailed off again in a dudgeon,
While Sam stood determined, but moist.”

Marriott Edgar (1880–1951) British poet

"Three Ha'pence a Foot", line 61.
Albert, 'Arold and Others (1938)

“Clay lies still, but blood's a rover;
Breath's a ware that will not keep.
Up, lad: when the journey's over
There'll be time enough to sleep.”

A.E. Housman book A Shropshire Lad

No. 4 ("Reveille"), st. 6.
A Shropshire Lad (1896)

Sleep , Time

“The troubles of our proud and angry dust
Are from eternity, and shall not fail.
Bear them we can, and if we can we must.
Shoulder the sky, my lad, and drink your ale.”

A.E. Housman (1859–1936) English classical scholar and poet

No. 9, st. 7.
Last Poems http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext05/8lspm10.txt (1922)

Drink

“I returned last week…from visiting the Italian front. I was up with the Eighth Army, that Army which will always seem to me to epitomize the unity of our Commonwealth and Empire. I saw there in Italy Canadians, South Africans, and New Zealanders. I recalled talking with General Alexander the great deeds of the Australians. As I saw our lads from all our countries so fine and gallant, I was thrilled with pride.”

Clement Attlee (1883–1967) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech to the conference of representatives of the British and Dominion Labour parties, Westminster, London (12 September 1944), quoted in The Times (13 September 1944), p. 8.
War Cabinet

Country

“Bring the little ones to Christ. Lord Jesus, we bring them to-day, the children of our Sunday-schools, of our churches, of the streets. Here they are; they wait Thy benediction. The prayer of Jacob for his sons shall be my prayer while I live, and when I die: " The angel which redeemed me from all evil, bless the lads."”

Thomas De Witt Talmage (1832–1902) American Presbyterian preacher, clergyman and reformer during the mid-to late 19th century.

Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 571.
Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895)

Children , School , Angels , Evil

“A grand little lad was young Albert,
All dressed in his best; quite a swell.
With a stick with an 'orse's 'ead 'andle,
The finest that Woolworth's could sell.”

Marriott Edgar (1880–1951) British poet

"The Lion and Albert", line 5.
Albert, 'Arold and Others (1938)

““She chose to reject me!”
That wasn’t a choice, lad—that was an empty gun saying click.””

Tim Powers (1952) American writer

Part 1, Chapter 10 (p. 184)
Hide Me Among the Graves (2012)

“In that regard the Anzac legend – as admirable as it is – has become something of a double-edged sword. Many Australians have an idealised image of the Australian soldier as a rough hewn country lad – invariably white – a larrikin who fights best with a hangover and who never salutes officers, especially the Poms. This is a pantomime caricature. Every soldier is Mel Gibson in Gallipoli and frankly it undermines our recruitment from some segments of society and breeds a dangerous complacency about how professional and sophisticated soldiering really is.”

David Morrison (1956) Australian army general

Address at the International Women's Day Conference (2013)

Fight , Country

“All right lad this is what we want with you. Your mission is this: to go out into the world and pull down all those election posters. Let’s get all those ugly faces off our streets and out of our elective offices. We are not going to vote any more, no matter how often they come around with their sound trucks and statesmanlike gestures. Pull down the sound trucks. Pull down the outstretched arms. To hell with the whole business. Voting has turned out to be a damned impertinence. They never do what we want them to do anyhow. And when they do what we want them to do, they don’t do it well. To hell with them. We are going to save up all our votes for the next twenty years and spend them all at one time. Maybe by that day there will be some Rabelaisian figure worth spending them on. …”

Donald Barthelme book Snow White

Source: Snow White (1967), p. 146.

World , Hell , Business , Time

“Whoa there, lad! Whoa! Gentle now! Die well, die well.”

Bernard Cornwell (1944) British writer

Sergeant Michael Connelly, p. 184
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Sword (1983)

“Scarce had the morning starre hid from the light
Heavens crimson canopie with stars bespangled,
But I began to rue th' unhappy sight
Of that faire boy that had my hart intangled;
Cursing the time, the place, the sense, the sin;
I came, I saw, I viewd, I slipped in.

If it be sinne to love a sweet-fac'd boy,
Whose amber locks trust up in golden tramels
Dangle adowne his lovely cheekes with joy,
When pearle and flowers his faire haire enamels;
If it be sinne to love a lovely lad,
Oh then sinne I, for whom my soule is sad.”

Richard Barnfield (1574–1627) English poet

The Teares of an Affectionate Shepheard Sicke for Love, or the Complaint of Daphnis for the Love of Ganimede.
The Affectionate Shepheard http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/19902 (1594)

Love , Sadness , Soul , Star

“One minute, he's just a teenage lad in Alaska having joyful unprotected sex, the next minute: 'Get to the Republican Convention!' I think that is the best safe sex message of all time: 'Use a condom, or become Republican!”

Russell Brand (1975) British comedian, actor, and author

MTV Video Music Awards (2008)

Sex , Thinking , Time

“Where's he that died o' yesterday?
What better chance hath he
To clink the can and toss the pot
When this night's junkets be?
For the lad that died o' yesterday
Is just as dead — ho! ho! —
As the whoreson knave men laid away
A thousand years ago.”

Edmund Clarence Stedman (1833–1908) American poet, critic, and essayist

"Falstaff's Song".

Men , Chance , Night , Dead

“"Lambe them, lads! lambe them!" a cant phrase of the time derived from the fate of Dr. Lambe, an astrologer and quack, who was knocked on the head by the rabble in Charles the First's time.”

Walter Scott book Peveril of the Peak

Peveril of the Peak, Chap. xlii.
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Fate , Time

“‘ There are three kinds of soldier, Sharpe […] There are the damned useless ones, and God knows there's an endless supply of those. Then there are the good solid lads who get the job done, but would piss in their breeches if you didn't show them how their buttons worked. And then there's your and me. Soldiers' soldiers, that's who we are.’”

Bernard Cornwell (1944) British writer

Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Prey (2001)

God

“[Aphrodite] set out, and after searching up and down Olympus for her boy, found him far away in the fruit-laden orchard of Zeus. With him was Ganymede, whose beauty had so captivated Zeus that he took him up to heaven to live with the immortals. The two lads, who had much in common, were playing with golden knuckle-bones. Eros, the greedy boy, was standing there with a whole handful of them clutched to his breast and a happy flush mantling his cheeks. Near by sat Ganymede, hunched up, silent and disconsolate, with only two left. He threw these for what they were worth in quick succession and was furious when Eros laughed. Of course he lost them both immediately – they joined the rest. So he went off in despair with empty hands and did not notice the goddess's approach. Aphrodite came up to her boy, took his chin in her hand, and said: 'Why this triumphant smile, you rascal?”

Apollonius of Rhodes book Argonautica

I do believe you won the game unfairly by cheating a beginner…
Argonautica (3rd century BC), Book III. Jason and Medea

Smile , Beauty , Search , Boy

“When all the world is old, lad,
And all the trees are brown;
And all the sport is stale, lad,
And all the wheels run down;
Creep home, and take your place there,
The spent and maimed among
God grant you find one face there,
You loved when all was young.”

Charles Kingsley (1819–1875) English clergyman, historian and novelist

Song II, st. 2.
Water Babies http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext97/wtrbs10h.htm (1863)

Love , God , World , Home

“Now we were the very good malchicks, smiling good evensong to one and all, though these wrinkled old lighters started to get all shook, their veiny old rookers all trembling round their glasses, and making the suds spill on the table. 'Leave us be, lads,' said one of them, her face all mappy with being a thousand years old, 'we’re only poor old women.”

Anthony Burgess (1917–1993) English writer

Fiction, A Clockwork Orange (1962)

Women , Smile

““A king has soldiers, servants, messengers, lieutenants. He governs through his servants. Where are the servants of this—Anti-king?”
“In our minds, lad. In our minds. The traitor, the self; the self that cries I want to live; let the world burn so long as I can live! The little traitor soul in us, in the dark, like the worm in the apple.””

Ursula K. Le Guin (1929–2018) American writer

Source: Earthsea Books, The Farthest Shore (1972), Chapter 9, "Orm Embar" (Arren and Ged)

World , Soul

“A youth loathes nothing more than his own callowness. Experience is his object. Experience, however ghastly, for the lad longs before all for the lined face and the chiseled squint of the vetern.”

Steven Pressfield book Last of the Amazons

Damon p. 91
Last of the Amazons (2002)

Youth

“O whistle, and I'll come to you, my lad:
Tho' father and mither and a' should gae mad.”

Robert Burns (1759–1796) Scottish poet and lyricist

Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad, chorus (1793)

Madness

“I've been very poorly but now I feel prime,
I've been out today for the very first time.
I felt like a lad as I walked down the road,
Then I met Old Jones and he said, "Well I'm blowed!
My word you do look queer!
My word you do look queer!
Oh, dear! You look dreadful: you've had a near shave,
You look like a man with one foot in the grave."
I said, "Bosh! l'm better; it's true I've been ill."
He said, "I'm delighted you're better, but still,
I wish you'd a thousand for me in your will.
My word, you do look queer!"”

Stanley Holloway (1890–1982) English stage and film actor, comedian, singer, poet and monologist

My Word! You Do Look Queer!

Feeling , Time

“As Frederic Thrasher says in The Gang, “Other things being equal, the imaginative boy has an excellent chance to become the leader of the gang. He has the power to make things interesting for them.” … After a disastrous week when there were several juvenile murders, the Governor of New York made the following statement (New York Times, September 2, 1959): “We have to constantly devise new ways to bring about a challenge to these young folks and to provide an outlet for their energies and give them a sense of belonging.” … The gist of it is that the Governor of New York is to play the role that Thrasher assigns to the teen-age gang leader. He is to think up new “challenges.” … But it is the word “constantly” that is the clue. A challenge can hardly be worth while, meaningful, or therapeutic if another must constantly and obsessively be devised to siphon off a new threat of “energy.” … Solidly meeting real needs does not have this character. My guess is that in playing games the Governor will not have so lively an imagination as the lad he wants to displace as leader; unlike the grownups, the gang will never select him. One of the objective factors that make it hard to grow up is that Governors are likely to be men of mediocre human gifts.”

Paul Goodman book Growing Up Absurd

Source: Growing Up Absurd (1956), pp. 42-43.

Men , Age , Way , Imagination

“I speak to you for the first time as Prime Minister, in a solemn hour of the life of our country, of our Empire, of our Allies, and, above all, of the cause of Freedom. … I am sure I speak for all when I say we are ready to face it; to endure it; and to retaliate against it—to any extent that the unwritten laws of war permit. There will be many men and women in this Island who when the ordeal comes upon them, as come it will, will feel comfort, and even a pride, that they are sharing the perils of our lads at the Front—soldiers, sailors and airmen, God bless them—and are drawing away from them a part at least of the onslaught they have to bear. Is not this the appointed time for all to make the utmost exertions in their power?”

Winston S. Churchill book The Second World War

Broadcast (19 May 1940), quoted in Martin Gilbert, Finest Hour: Winston S. Churchill, 1939–1941 (London: Heinemann, 1983), p. 363
The Second World War (1939–1945)

Life , Women , Men , God

“When all the world is young, lad,
And all the trees are green;
And every goose a swan, lad,
And every lass a queen;
Then hey for boot and horse, lad,
And round the world away;
Young blood must have its course, lad,
And every dog his day.”

Charles Kingsley (1819–1875) English clergyman, historian and novelist

Song II, st. 1.
Water Babies http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext97/wtrbs10h.htm (1863)

World , Dogs , Tree , Horse

“You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye
Who cheer when soldier lads march by,
Sneak home and pray you'll never know
The hell where youth and laughter go.”

Siegfried Sassoon (1886–1967) English poet, diarist and memoirist

"Suicide in the Trenches"
The Counter-Attack and Other Poems (1918)

Youth , Home , Hell , Laughter

“In 1990 as a teenager I took my first step in cricket and was eager for some kind words in the cricketing world and I then I came across a comment from an accomplished Indian cricket. I quote 'This lad I don't see him winning Test match for India either at home or abroad. He rarely turns the ball, at best he can be restrictive'. The assessment came from Mr Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi. Two decades of international cricket and 619 Test wicket later, it is indeed a great honour to address this lecture.”

Anil Kumble (1970) Former Indian cricketer

India became a sporting nation in the last decade: Kumble

World , Quotes , Home

“You don't wage civil war in kid gloves. The Spanish bishops know it so well that they have been obliged to refer to 'regrettable excesses' and 'inevitable abuses'. They seem to think that war is like Shrove Tuesday, that it's a jolly respite, as it were, from social morality, and that men can give themselves up to being cruel just as gay sparks at carnival-time indulge in bottom-pinching! Once the illuminations go out, we must welcome the dear lad home with a smile that's both knowing and fatherly. 'Don't worry, my dear boy. We can none of us resist a little fun sometimes. Think no more about it.”

Georges Bernanos book Les grands cimetières sous la lune

But, Your Excellencies, this is something more than a little fun!
Source: Les grands cimetieres sous la lune (A Diary of My Times) 1938, p.147

Men , War , Smile , Home

“They were always going to be the biggest band in the world. We wanted nothing to do with success the way U2 saw it. It wasn't to do with conquering the world; it was to do with those lads, like me and Ian Curtis, who liked the Silver Surfer and Bowie. At some point everyone seemed to go toward that Live Aid goal of being seen everywhere, in every sodding street, in every sodding nook and cranny in the world. I never wanted that.”

Ian McCulloch (1959) singer, musician

Spin magazine (2008)

World , Way , Success

“Take a step or two forward lads….. it will be easier that way.”

Robert Erskine Childers (1870–1922) Irish nationalist and author

His last words to the firing squad, lined up before him holding rifles, at his execution. Cited in " The Riddle of Erskine Childers " By Andrew Boyle, Hutchinson, London (1977), pg. 25.
Literary Years and War (1900-1918), Last Years: Ireland (1919-1922)

Way

“What we should have done, lads, is gone north.”

Bernard Cornwell (1944) British writer

Lieutenant Richard Sharpe, p. 290
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Rifles (1988)

“Like enough, you won't be glad,
When they come to hang you, lad:
But bacon's not the only thing
That's cured by hanging from a string.”

Hugh Kingsmill (1889–1949) British writer and journalist

"Two Poems, After A. E. Housman", no. 1, line 5

“p>'Ah, see,' he sang, 'the shamefast, virgin rose
first bursting her green bud so timidly,
half hidden and half bare: the less she shows
herself, the lovelier she seems to be.
Now see her bosom, budding still, unclose
and look! She droops, and seems no longer she—
not she who in her morning set afire
a thousand lads and maidens with desire.So passes in the passing of a day
the leaf and flower from our mortal scene,
nor will, though April come again, display
its bloom again, nor evermore grow green.”

Torquato Tasso (1544–1595) Italian poet

Deh mira (egli cantò) spuntar la rosa
Dal verde suo modesta e verginella;
Che mezzo aperta ancora, e mezzo ascosa,
Quanto si mostra men, tanto è più bella.
Ecco poi nudo il sen già baldanzosa
Dispiega: ecco poi langue, e non par quella,
Quella non par che desiata innanti
Fu da mille donzelle e mille amanti.<p>Così trapassa al trapassar d'un giorno
Della vita mortale il fiore, e 'l verde:
Nè, perchè faccia indietro April ritorno,
Si rinfiora ella mai, nè si rinverde.
Canto XVI, stanzas 14–15 (tr. Wickert)
Gerusalemme Liberata (1581)

Flowers