“The library smells like old books — a thousand leather doorways into other worlds. I hear silence, like the mind of God. I feel a presence in the empty chair beside me. The librarian watches me suspiciously. But the library is a sacred place, and I sit with the patron saint of readers. Pulsing goddess light moves through me for one moment like a glimpse of eternity instantly forgotten. She is gone. I smell mold, I hear the clock ticking, I see an empty chair. Ask me now and I'll say this is just a place where you can't play music or eat. She's gone. The library sucks.”
― Laura Whitcomb, quote from A Certain Slant of Light
“I couldn't take my eyes off him. Like a desert wanderer afraid of mirages, I gazed at my oasis, but he was real.”
― Laura Whitcomb, quote from A Certain Slant of Light
“To desperately hope," I whispered
James let out a breath. "To gratefully believe.”
― Laura Whitcomb, quote from A Certain Slant of Light
“Someone was looking at me, a disturbing sensation if you're dead.”
― Laura Whitcomb, quote from A Certain Slant of Light
“That I am your heart's secret fills me with song. I wish I could sing of you here in my cage. You are my heart's hidden poem. I reread you, memorize you every moment we're apart.”
― Laura Whitcomb, quote from A Certain Slant of Light
“He kissed me for a long moment, holding my shoulders, perhaps to keep me from pressing my whole body against his. Then he tried to lift my bag.
"My God," he said. "What happened?"
"I found out one may check out twenty books at a time from the school library.”
― Laura Whitcomb, quote from A Certain Slant of Light
“Your mind will never lose anything forever that's worth keeping.”
― Laura Whitcomb, quote from A Certain Slant of Light
“Just walk up to your hell & give it a push. Run through it & i'll be waiting on the other side.”
― Laura Whitcomb, quote from A Certain Slant of Light
“i would court you with passion, if things were different. you'd never get me off your porch swing. ”
― Laura Whitcomb, quote from A Certain Slant of Light
“Like a glimpse of eternity instantly forgotten. She is gone.”
― Laura Whitcomb, quote from A Certain Slant of Light
“Dear sir: twelve hours is as twelve years to me. I imagine you in your home, smiling, thinking of me. That I am your heart's secret fills me with song. I wish I could sing of you here in my cage. You are my heart's hidden poem. I reread you, memorize you, every moment we're apart.”
― Laura Whitcomb, quote from A Certain Slant of Light
“Books are boring," James said as he wrote.
"They line the walls like a thousand leather doorways to be opened into worlds unknown," I offered.”
― Laura Whitcomb, quote from A Certain Slant of Light
“About the library," he whispered. He took out the pencil stub from his pocket and poised it over the page.
"Will you write like Mr. Blake or like yourself?" I inquired.
He wrote and whispered the words aloud as he did. "I am in the library. It smells like old stuff."
"It smells familiar," I suggested. "It smells like words." Because his left side was to me, I couldn't easily take his hand to write.
"Books are boring," James said as he wrote.
"They line the walls like a thousand leather doorways to be opened into worlds unknown," I offered.
He thought about this and then wrote with a smile, "I hate books.”
― Laura Whitcomb, quote from A Certain Slant of Light
“Boys and girls hid in the library stacks or behind the gym and flew at each other with no promise of love or even kindness, tasting one another in clumsly attempts to steal pleasure before they could be hurt or hated.”
― Laura Whitcomb, quote from A Certain Slant of Light
“he was watching me and when our eyes met, i had no fan to cover my face, no way to hid my feelings. i was desperate for him, and he could see it, all the way in me. ”
― Laura Whitcomb, quote from A Certain Slant of Light
“I had asked her for help, and she had sent me to the lions. I knew that she was trying to save her little girl, but sometimes mothers with the best intentions kill their daughters all the same.”
― Laura Whitcomb, quote from A Certain Slant of Light
“Those who cry to be young again should think twice before they seal those prayers.”
― Laura Whitcomb, quote from A Certain Slant of Light
“It´s hard to have you with me but not to be able to take your hand or kiss you -James”
― Laura Whitcomb, quote from A Certain Slant of Light
“i felt my being flutter. each tousled head that came through the door i wanted to be his, but no and on, a dozen boys entered, yet not the one. ”
― Laura Whitcomb, quote from A Certain Slant of Light
“...You deserve to be happy. What can I do?"
Don't send me away, I thought.
He looked at me again. "What do you want?"
"I want to taste an apple," I said. And your lips, I thought.”
― Laura Whitcomb, quote from A Certain Slant of Light
“I would court you with a passion, if things were different.”
― Laura Whitcomb, quote from A Certain Slant of Light
“It seemed as if humans had lost the ability to make their own fun. The more they were gifted with inventions, the less they needed one another. They didn't sing or play the fiddle at the hearth; they turned on the stereo. They didn't tell stories on the porch; they watched television.”
― Laura Whitcomb, quote from A Certain Slant of Light
“It was all real and blazing with detail.
But I was shadow, light as mist, mute as the wallpaper.”
― Laura Whitcomb, quote from A Certain Slant of Light
“As I look around the quiet room, I see a thousand leather covers like doorways into worlds unknown.”
― Laura Whitcomb, quote from A Certain Slant of Light
“The library smells like old books-a thousand leather doorways into other worlds."
"Dear sir, I was called away and couldn't bring you, but now I feel haunted. I know that sometimes you felt I was a part of you and that losing me would leave a hole in your heart, but that's not true... Please forgive me... I am sorry that I didn't say goodbye.”
― Laura Whitcomb, quote from A Certain Slant of Light
“I studied a crescent moon hung crooked in a plum purple sky and thought about what it would be like to truly be seen.”
― Laura Whitcomb, quote from A Certain Slant of Light
“A sea of dreams trapped in a span of pressed pages”
― Laura Whitcomb, quote from A Certain Slant of Light
“Pulsing goddess light moves through me for one moment like - Here Mr. Brown paused again. Like a glimpse of eternity instantly forgotten.”
― Laura Whitcomb, quote from A Certain Slant of Light
“I would court you with a passion, if things were different. You’d never get me off your porch swing.”
― Laura Whitcomb, quote from A Certain Slant of Light
“in the wings, as often mothers and grandmothers are, ready to catch the children should they need saving,”
― Laura Whitcomb, quote from A Certain Slant of Light
Laura Whitcomb
Born place: The United States
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“I have been stabbed, shot, burned, bitten, beaten unconscious too many times to count, and even staked. None of those held a candle to the pain I felt at seeing his mouth on hers.”
― Jeaniene Frost, quote from One Foot in the Grave
“I've got kids that enjoy stealing. I've got kids that don't think about stealing one way or the other, and I've got kids that just tolerate stealing because they know they've got nothing else to do. But nobody--and I mean nobody--has ever been hungry for it like this boy. If he had a bloody gash across his throat and a physiker was trying to sew it up, Lamora would steal the needle and thread and die laughing. He...steals too much.”
― Scott Lynch, quote from The Lies of Locke Lamora
“Outside the house, against a sheltered wall to the south, a single stalk of green thrust upwards, with slender rapierlike leaves and one huge scarlet blossom. Kit went down on her knees. “It looks just like the flowers at home,” she marveled. “I didn’t know you had such flowers here.” “It came all the way from Africa, from the Cape of Good Hope,” Hannah told her. “My friend brought the bulb to me, a little brown thing like an onion. I doubted it would grow here, but it just seemed determined to keep on trying and look what has happened.”
― Elizabeth George Speare, quote from The Witch of Blackbird Pond
“Jossi had been slow in agreeing with Ben Yehuda and the others. Hebrew had to be revived. If the desire for national identity was great enough a dead language could be brought back. But Sarah was set in her ways. Yiddish was what she spoke and what her mother had spoken. She had no intention of becoming a scholar so late in life.”
― Leon Uris, quote from Exodus
“Check it out-this is a copy of a painting of a Greek High Priestess named Calliope. it says she was also the Poet Laureate after Sappho. Doesn't she look exactly like Cher?'
Wow, that's insane. She does look just like young Cher,' Erin said.
Yeah, before she started wearing those white wigs. What the hell's up with that?' Shaunee said.
Damien gave the Twins a look. 'There is nothing wrong with Cher. Absolutely. Nothing.'
Uh-oh,' Shaunee said.
Stepped on a gay nerve,' Erin agreed.”
― P.C. Cast, quote from Burned
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The Birth of Tragedy...BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
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