Quotes from A Dance to the Music of Time: 4th Movement

“Even the formal measure of the Seasons seemed suspended in the wintry silence.”
― Anthony Powell, quote from A Dance to the Music of Time: 4th Movement

“One’s capacity for hearing about ghastly doings lessens with age.”
― Anthony Powell, quote from A Dance to the Music of Time: 4th Movement

“In any case the friendships of later life, in contrast wih those negotiated before thirty, are apt to be burdened with reservations, constraints, inhibitions.”
― Anthony Powell, quote from A Dance to the Music of Time: 4th Movement

“Within this hollow bed of the stream the whole range of the quarry was out of sight, except for where the just visible peak of an escarpment of spoil shelved up to the horizon's mountainous coagulations of floating cottonwool, a density of white cloud perforated here and there by slowly opening and closing loopholes of the palest blue light.”
― Anthony Powell, quote from A Dance to the Music of Time: 4th Movement

“For some reason Canon Fenneau made me feel a little uneasy. His voice might be soft, it was also coercive. He had small eyes, a large loose mouth, the lips thick, a somewhat receding chin. The eyes were the main feature. They were unusual eyes, not only almost unnaturally small, but vague, moist, dreamy, the eyes of a medium. His cherubic side, increased by a long slightly uptilted nose, was a little too good to be true, with eyes like that. In the manner in which he gave you all his attention there was a taste for mastery.”
― Anthony Powell, quote from A Dance to the Music of Time: 4th Movement

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Popular quotes

“Fear is a vile thing, and is at the bottom of almost every wrong and hatred of the world.”
― L.M. Montgomery, quote from Emily Climbs

“No man can see himself unless he borrows the eyes of a friend”
― Colin Higgins, quote from Harold and Maude

“I thought it would be a good thing to follow John Redmond’s words. I thought for my mother’s sake, her gentle soul, for the sake of my own children, I might go out and fight for to save Europe so that we might have the Home Rule in Ireland in the upshot. I came out to fight for a country that doesn’t exist, and now, Willie, mark my words, it never will.”
― Sebastian Barry, quote from A Long Long Way

“Then came Dani’s turn to read a question. “‘Who’s in charge in the bedroom?’”
Much to the group’s amusement, none of them got a match, and Sean didn’t think they would either as he held up his notepad. “‘I am, since I carry the big stick.’”
Emma read hers with a remarkably straight face. “‘Sean, because he has a magic penis.’”
“Wow. Um…so Sean and Emma have a point,” Dani said as the men nearly pissed themselves laughing.
No way in hell was he leaving that unpunished, and he winked at Emma when Kevin read the next question. “‘Where’s the kinkiest place you’ve had sex?’”
The fact that Joe and Keri had done the dirty deed on the back of his ATV led to a few questions about the logistics of that, but then it was Emma’s turn. “‘In bed, because Sean has no imagination.’”
Roger threw an embarrassed wince his way, but his cousins weren’t shy about laughing their asses off.
Sean just shrugged and held up his notepad. “In the car in the mall parking lot. Emma’s lying because she doesn’t want anybody to know being watched turns her on.”
Her jaw dropped, but she recovered quickly and gave him a sweet smile that didn’t jibe with the “you are so going to get it” look in her eyes.
Beth asked the next question. “‘Women, where does your man secretly dream of having sex?’”
Keri knew Joe wanted to have sex in the reportedly very haunted Stanley Hotel, from King’s The Shining. Dani claimed Roger wanted to do the deed on a Caribbean beach, but he said that was her fantasy and that his was to have sex in an igloo. No amount of heckling would get him to say why. And when it came to Kevin, even Sean knew he dreamed of getting laid on the pitcher’s mound at Fenway Park.
Then, God help him, it was Emma’s turn to show her answer. “‘In a Burger King bathroom.’”
The room felt silent until Dani said, “Ew. Really?”
“No, not really,” Sean growled.
“Really,” Emma said over him. “He knows that’s the only way he can slip me a whopper.”
As the room erupted in laughter, Sean knew humor was the only way they’d get through the evening with their secret intact, but he didn’t find that one very funny, himself.
It was the final answer that really did him in, though. The question: “If your sex had a motto, what would it be?”
Joe and Keri’s was, not surprisingly, Don’t wake the baby Kevin and Beth wrote, Better than chocolate cake, whatever that was supposed to mean. Dani wrote, Gets better with time, like fine wine, and Roger wrote, Like cheese, the older you get, the better it is, which led to a powwow about whether or not to give them a point. They probably would have gotten it if they weren’t tied with Keri and Joe, who took competitive to a cutthroat level.
When they all looked at Sean, he groaned and turned his paper around. They’d lost any chance of winning way back, but he was already dreading what the smart-ass he wasn’t really engaged to had written down. “‘She’s the boss.’”
The look Emma gave him as she slowly turned the notepad around gave him advance warning she was about to lay down the royal flush in this little game they’d been playing.
“Size really doesn’t matter,” she said in what sounded to him like a really loud voice.
Before he could say anything—and he had no idea what was going to come out of his mouth, but he had to say something--Cat appeared at the top of the stairs.
“I hate to break up the party,” she said, “but it’s getting late, so we’re calling it a night.”
Maybe Cat was, but Sean was just getting started.”
― Shannon Stacey, quote from Yours to Keep

“Peut-être que vous étiez allongé au lit, presque sur le point de vous endormir, et vous avez ri de quelque chose, une plaisanterie toute personnelle, une bonne façon de finir la journée. C'est ça, mon nom.”
― Richard Brautigan, quote from The Tokyo-Montana Express

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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.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

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