Quotes from A Quiet Belief in Angels

R.J. Ellory ·  403 pages

Rating: (4.9K votes)


“Let the past be what it was, the present what it is, the future the best it can be.”
― R.J. Ellory, quote from A Quiet Belief in Angels


“Love was the breaking and healing of hearts. Love was the misunderstood. Love was faith; love was the promise of now that became hope for the future. Love was a rhythm, a resonance, a reverberation. Love was awkward and foolish, it was aggressive and simple, possessed of so many indefinable qualities that it could never be conveyed in language. Love was being.”
― R.J. Ellory, quote from A Quiet Belief in Angels


“Sorry is for the things you've done that you shouldn't have not for things you believe in.”
― R.J. Ellory, quote from A Quiet Belief in Angels


“A life to hold, or to see slip through uncaring and inattentive hands, but always a life. And given one, we wish for two, or three, or more, so easily forgetting the one we had was spent unwisely”
― R.J. Ellory, quote from A Quiet Belief in Angels


“The city went on about its business. A new day would soon begin, and nothing so inconsequential as a death possessed the power to delay it. It was just a life, after all: no more, nor less than that.”
― R.J. Ellory, quote from A Quiet Belief in Angels



“I looked down at my hands. They were folded neatly together on the table like they belonged to someone else, as if someone had left their gloves behind and I had arranged them ready for collection.”
― R.J. Ellory, quote from A Quiet Belief in Angels


“Perhaps some of us will have learned enough to make a difference, to influence things for the better, to wait until the moment is right, and then act.
And despite appearances, despite all indications to the contrary, despite reticence for fear of what others might think, I still felt we all possessed this quiet belief.
A quiet belief in angels.”
― R.J. Ellory, quote from A Quiet Belief in Angels


About the author

R.J. Ellory
Born place: in Birmingham, The United Kingdom
Born date June 20, 1965
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“Men are not content with a simple life: they are acquisitive, ambitious, competitive, and jealous; they soon tire of what they have, and pine for what they have not; and they seldom desire anything unless it belongs to others.”
― Will Durant, quote from The Story of Philosophy: The Lives and Opinions of the World's Greatest Philosophers


“My need for love had gone underground, like a canny toothache.”
― Alice Munro, quote from Lives of Girls and Women


“As the Mongol warriors withdrew from the cities of the Jurched, they had one final punishment to inflict upon the land where they had already driven out the people and burned their villages. Genghis Khan wanted to leave a large open land with ample pastures should his army need to return. The plowed fields, stone walls, and deep ditches had slowed the Mongol horses and hindered their ability to move across the landscape in any direction they wished. The same things also prevented the free migration of the herds of antelope, asses, and other wild animals that the Mongols enjoyed hunting. When the Mongols left from their Jurched campaign, they churned up the land behind them by having their horses trample the farmland with their hooves and prepare it to return to open pasture. They wanted to ensure that the peasants never returned to their villages and fields. In this way, Inner Mongolia remained a grazing land, and the Mongols created a large buffer zone of pastures and forests between the tribal lands and the fields of the sedentary farmers. The grassy steppes served as ready stores of pasturage for their horses that allowed them easier access in future raids and campaigns, and they provided a ready store of meat in the herds of wild animals that returned once the farmers and villagers had been expelled.”
― Jack Weatherford, quote from Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World


“At the happy ending of the Tempest, Prospero brings the kind back togeter with his son, and finds Miranda's true love and punishes the bad duke and frees Ariel and becomes a duke himself again. Everyone - except Caliban - is happy, and everyone is forgiven, and everyone is fine, and they all sail away on calm seas. Happy endings.
That's how it is in Shakespeare.
But Shakespeare was wrong.
Sometimes there isn't a Prospero to make everything fine again.
And sometimes the quality of mercy is strained.”
― Gary D. Schmidt, quote from Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy


“Knowledge is freedom and with freedom comes understanding.”
― Julie Garwood, quote from For the Roses


Interesting books

Shattered Glass
(7.9K)
Shattered Glass
by Dani Alexander
Metamorphosis
(12.4K)
Metamorphosis
by Erin Noelle
Women of the Silk
(13.6K)
Women of the Silk
by Gail Tsukiyama
Killer Spirit
(4.5K)
Killer Spirit
by Jennifer Lynn Barnes
Hood
(12.1K)
Hood
by Stephen R. Lawhead
The Atonement Child
(32.2K)
The Atonement Child
by Francine Rivers

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.