Quotes from A Painted House

John Grisham ·  384 pages

Rating: (67K votes)


“I was tired of secrets, tired of seeing things I was not supposed to see. And so I just cried.”
― John Grisham, quote from A Painted House


“I looked at her and tried to speak, but all I could think about was how shocked she'd be if I said what I was thinking.”
― John Grisham, quote from A Painted House


“Once again I had asked an innocent question, and because of it, I was banished from the conversation.”
― John Grisham, quote from A Painted House


“Ricky had taught me a few cuss words. I usually practiced them in the woods by the river, then prayed for forgiveness as soon as I was done.”
― John Grisham, quote from A Painted House


“Once again, I was reminded that Tally was the prettiest girl I'd ever met, and when she smiled at me my mind went blank. Once you've seen a pretty girl naked, you feel a certain attachment to her.”
― John Grisham, quote from A Painted House



“I was on the verge of tears, so I turned and ran past the trailer and along the field road until I was safely out of their sight. Then I ducked into the cotton and waited for friendly voices. I sat on the hot ground, surrounded by stalks four feet tall, and I cried, something I really hated to do.”
― John Grisham, quote from A Painted House


“The sky had cleared, and now the sun was overhead, already baking the wet ground so that you could see the humidity drifting lazily above the cotton stalks.”
― John Grisham, quote from A Painted House


“Once you've seen a pretty girl naked, you feel a certain attachment to her.”
― John Grisham, quote from A Painted House


“I was hurting, too. How could she have done such a terrible thing? She was my friend. She treated me like a confidant, and she protected me like a big sister. I loved Tally, and now she had run off with a vicious killer.”
― John Grisham, quote from A Painted House


“How often would I have the chance to see a pretty girl bathing? I could recall no specific prohibition from the church or the Scriptures, though I knew it was wrong. But maybe it wasn't terribly sinful.”
― John Grisham, quote from A Painted House



“I wished i were seven feet tall. I'd hop up there and attack ol' Samson while the crowd went wild. I'd whip him good, send him flying, and become the biggest hero in Black Oak. But, for now, I could only boo him.”
― John Grisham, quote from A Painted House


“In little pockets of conversation, old men were telling stories of ancient floods. Women were talking of about how much rain there'd been in other towns -- Paragould, Lepanto, and Manila.”
― John Grisham, quote from A Painted House


“I had never seen a woman's breasts before, and I doubted if any seven-year-old boy in Craighead County had. Maybe some kid had stumbled upon his mother, but I was certain no boy my age had never had this view.”
― John Grisham, quote from A Painted House


About the author

John Grisham
Born place: in Jonesboro, Arkansas, The United States
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“The baby's large eyes settled on him, and though this has been one of his happiest nights in his whole life, it made him melancholy. He had read somewhere that babies are instinctively drawn to faces, that they will fixate even on drawings or abstract, facelike shapes, and round objects with markings that might resemble eye-mouth-nose. It was information that struck him as terribly sad, terribly lonely - to imagine the infants of the world scoping the blurry atmosphere above them for faces the way primitive people scrutinized the stars for patterns, the way castaways stare at the moon, the blinking of a satellite. It made him sad to think of the baby gathering information - a mind, a soul, slowly solidifying around these impressions, coming to understand cause and effect, coming out of a blank or fog into reality. Into a reality. The true terror, Jonah thought, the true mystery of life was not that we are all going to die, but that we were all born, that we were all once little babies like this, unknowing and slowly reeling in the world, gathering it loop by loop like a ball of string. The true terror was that we once didn't exist and then, through no fault of our own, we had to.”
― Dan Chaon, quote from You Remind Me of Me


“Cybil pushed to her feet. "If he hurts her, I'll twist off his dick and feed it to his dog." With that, she stormed out of the room.
"She's a little scary," Fox decided.
"She's not the only one. I'm the one who'll be roasting his balls for dessert." Layla headed out behind Cybil. "I have to find something to make for dinner."
"Oddly, I don't have much of an appetite right now." Fox glanced at Gage. "How about you?”
― Nora Roberts, quote from Blood Brothers


“My boyfriend and I are badasses. ”
― Nora Roberts, quote from The Pagan Stone


“The unpainted walls of the long rectangular room were soaked with the smell of greasy chicken and warm, headless beer. The brown and pink faces floated above the trails of used cigarette smoke like bodiless carnival balloons.”
― Gloria Naylor, quote from The Women of Brewster Place


“She spoke loudly in order to be heard above the noise of personal communitainers that were thudding and banging all around them. Some people used earphones, some didn't, clearly believing that as many people as possible should be given the opportunity to appreciate their musical taste. That, combined with the mass leakage from the headsets, created a terrible din and even discreet private conversations had to be conducted at a yell.”
― Ben Elton, quote from Blind Faith


Interesting books

Cyrano de Bergerac
(63.1K)
Cyrano de Bergerac
by Edmond Rostand
The Red Pyramid
(260.5K)
The Red Pyramid
by Rick Riordan
Slammed
(183.5K)
Slammed
by Colleen Hoover
The Horse and His Boy
(221.6K)
The Horse and His Bo...
by C.S. Lewis
Angelfall
(137K)
Angelfall
by Susan Ee
Sabriel
(153K)
Sabriel
by Garth Nix

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.