Quotes from A Long, Long Time Ago and Essentially True

“The stupid things you do in life are the most beautiful.”
― Brigid Pasulka, quote from A Long, Long Time Ago and Essentially True

“[The Pigeon had learned something about [women] from his eight sisters, and if over the years he had absorbed only this one thing, it would stand as vindication that a boy does not suffer needlessly from growing up in a house with eight sisters. That thing was that a woman's heart is not bought by the currency of a man's emotion for her. A woman's heart is won over by her own feelings for herself when he just happens to be around ...”
― Brigid Pasulka, quote from A Long, Long Time Ago and Essentially True

“If everyone knows so much about it, why do they need to make a documentary?”
― Brigid Pasulka, quote from A Long, Long Time Ago and Essentially True

“I press my back against the wall and feel the pressure of it against my whole body. I want to feel enclosed again, protected, safe as I was in the village. I wrap the blanket tightly around me, and I try to comfort myself by thinking about Tadeusz, but the loneliness that has opened up inside me is bigger than one person can fill.”
― Brigid Pasulka, quote from A Long, Long Time Ago and Essentially True

“It was just after the war. There was nothing left in Warsaw for me. He and his brother were coming to Krakow to make a fresh start. And he loved me so. He would have done anything for me.”
― Brigid Pasulka, quote from A Long, Long Time Ago and Essentially True

“I keep repeating the conversation with Taduesz in mind, reaching out to touch it to make sure it doesn't disappear.”
― Brigid Pasulka, quote from A Long, Long Time Ago and Essentially True

“Golden hands. It is said that all Poles have them, and that this is how you know your place in life, by the ease of your hands, that whether you are born to make cakes or butcher animals, cuddle children or paint pictures, drive nails or play jazz, your hands know it before you do. Long before birth, the movements are choreographed into the tendons as they're formed.”
― Brigid Pasulka, quote from A Long, Long Time Ago and Essentially True

“Over the weeks I am surprised to find that the more stories I record and the longer I carry them around, the lighter they become. I find out that the difference between knowing something and being able to talk about it is that there we many hands now, and we all share the burden”
― Brigid Pasulka, quote from A Long, Long Time Ago and Essentially True

“Normally I give permission to take my daughter for a walk after only the building of a wall and a stone pathway.' He smiled. 'For future reference.'

'But, Pan, I knew after the first week that a walk was not the only thing I would request,' the Pigeon said, smiling, 'and winter will be here soon.”
― Brigid Pasulka, quote from A Long, Long Time Ago and Essentially True

“That was before I found out that capitalists are just communists without the polyester.”
― Brigid Pasulka, quote from A Long, Long Time Ago and Essentially True

“When someone is telling you what to do all the time, anything you do of your own volition becomes a protest, doesn’t it?”
― Brigid Pasulka, quote from A Long, Long Time Ago and Essentially True

“But I thought you protested against the communists."
"Phooh. That was before I found our that capitalists are just communists without the polyester.”
― Brigid Pasulka, quote from A Long, Long Time Ago and Essentially True

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“An English teacher at school once said to her, 'Alice, one thing I hope you never find out is that a broken heart hurts physically.' Nothing she has ever experienced has prepared her for the pain of this. Most of the time her heart feels as though it's waterlogged and her ribcage, her arms, her back, her temples, her legs all ache in a dull, persistent way: but at times like this the incredulity and the appalling irreversibility of what has happened cripple her with a pain so bad she often doesn't speak for days.”
― Maggie O'Farrell, quote from After You'd Gone

“She has gone back to Brooklyn,' her mother would say. And, as the train rolled past Macmire Bridge on its way towards Wexford, Eilis imagined the years already when these words would come to mean less and less to the man who heard them and would come to mean more and more to herself. She almost smiled at the thought of it, then closed her eyes and tried to imagine nothing more.”
― Colm Tóibín, quote from Brooklyn

“I drift off for a while. I don't know how long, but when I open my eyes, the Oscars are still on and Alex tells me that Sid has gone and this makes me a little sad. Whatever the four of us had is over. He is my daughter's boyfriend now, and I am a father. A widower. No pot, no cigarettes, no sleeping over. They'll have to find inventive ways to conduct their business, most likely in uncomfortable places, just like the rest of them. I let him and my old ways go. We all let him go, as well as who we were before this, and now it's really just the three of us. I glance over at the girls, taking a good look at what's left.”
― Kaui Hart Hemmings, quote from The Descendants

“He winced when he stood--lumbago, he explained, from turning one too many sentences arounder that day--and said that he still his evening's reading. He did not do justice to a writer unless he read him on consecutive days and for no less than three hours at a sitting. Otherwise, despite his note taking and underlining, he lost touch with a book's inner life and might as well not have begun. Sometimes, when he unavoidably had to miss a day, he would go back and begin all over again, rather than be nagged by his sense that he was wronginger a serious author.”
― Philip Roth, quote from The Ghost Writer

“time is simply an illusion, and the gifted live on,”
― Jamie Magee, quote from Insight

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About BookQuoters

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.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.