“The world is full of bastards, the number increasing rapidly the further one gets from Missoula, Montana.”
― Norman Maclean, quote from A River Runs Through It
“Like many fly fishermen in western Montana where the summer days are almost Arctic in length, I often do not start fishing until the cool of the evening. Then in the Arctic half-light of the canyon, all existence fades to a being with my soul and memories and the sounds of the Big Blackfoot River and a four-count rhythm and the hope that a fish will rise.
Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world's great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of those rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs.
I am haunted by waters.”
― Norman Maclean, quote from A River Runs Through It
“So it is that we can seldom help anybody. Either we don't know what part to give or maybe we don't like to give any part of ourselves. Then, more often than not, the part that is needed is not wanted. And even more often, we do not have the part that is needed.”
― Norman Maclean, quote from A River Runs Through It
“As for my father, I never knew whether he believed God was a mathematician but he certainly believed God could count and that only by picking up God's rhythms were we able to regain power and beauty. Unlike many Presbyterians, he often used the word "beautiful.”
― Norman Maclean, quote from A River Runs Through It
“The hardest thing usually to leave behind, as was the case now, can loosely be called the conscience.”
― Norman Maclean, quote from A River Runs Through It
“On the Big Blackfoot River above the mouth of Belmont Creek the banks are fringed by large Ponderosa pines. In the slanting sun of late afternoon the shadows of great branches reached from across the river, and the trees took the river in their arms. The shadows continued up the bank, until they included us”
― Norman Maclean, quote from A River Runs Through It
“At sunrise, everything is luminous but not clear”
― Norman Maclean, quote from A River Runs Through It
“Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world's great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of those rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs. I am haunted by waters.”
― Norman Maclean, quote from A River Runs Through It
“That's how you know when you have thought too much-- when you become a dialogue between You'll probably lose and You're sure to lose.”
― Norman Maclean, quote from A River Runs Through It
Norman Maclean
Born place: in Clarinda, Iowa, The United States
Born date January 23, 1902
See more on GoodReads
“فطبيعتى المتشككة التى أنشأنى عليها والدى تقينى من إستفاضات الإيمان العارمة - أو ربما يجدر بي القول إنها تحظر على أى ثبات , سواء فى الحفاظ على التعقل أو فى السعى وراء الأوهام”
― Amin Maalouf, quote from Balthasar's Odyssey
“Marginalia
Sometimes the notes are ferocious,
skirmishes against the author
raging along the borders of every page
in tiny black script.
If I could just get my hands on you,
Kierkegaard, or Conor Cruise O'Brien,
they seem to say,
I would bolt the door and beat some logic into your head.
Other comments are more offhand, dismissive -
Nonsense." "Please!" "HA!!" -
that kind of thing.
I remember once looking up from my reading,
my thumb as a bookmark,
trying to imagine what the person must look like
who wrote "Don't be a ninny"
alongside a paragraph in The Life of Emily Dickinson.
Students are more modest
needing to leave only their splayed footprints
along the shore of the page.
One scrawls "Metaphor" next to a stanza of Eliot's.
Another notes the presence of "Irony"
fifty times outside the paragraphs of A Modest Proposal.
Or they are fans who cheer from the empty bleachers,
Hands cupped around their mouths.
Absolutely," they shout
to Duns Scotus and James Baldwin.
Yes." "Bull's-eye." "My man!"
Check marks, asterisks, and exclamation points
rain down along the sidelines.
And if you have managed to graduate from college
without ever having written "Man vs. Nature"
in a margin, perhaps now
is the time to take one step forward.
We have all seized the white perimeter as our own
and reached for a pen if only to show
we did not just laze in an armchair turning pages;
we pressed a thought into the wayside,
planted an impression along the verge.
Even Irish monks in their cold scriptoria
jotted along the borders of the Gospels
brief asides about the pains of copying,
a bird singing near their window,
or the sunlight that illuminated their page-
anonymous men catching a ride into the future
on a vessel more lasting than themselves.
And you have not read Joshua Reynolds,
they say, until you have read him
enwreathed with Blake's furious scribbling.
Yet the one I think of most often,
the one that dangles from me like a locket,
was written in the copy of Catcher in the Rye
I borrowed from the local library
one slow, hot summer.
I was just beginning high school then,
reading books on a davenport in my parents' living room,
and I cannot tell you
how vastly my loneliness was deepened,
how poignant and amplified the world before me seemed,
when I found on one page
A few greasy looking smears
and next to them, written in soft pencil-
by a beautiful girl, I could tell,
whom I would never meet-
Pardon the egg salad stains, but I'm in love.”
― Billy Collins, quote from Picnic, Lightning
“Though my friends envied me because I always seemed so cheerful and confident, I was secretly terrified of practically everything.”
― Erica Jong, quote from Fear of Flying
“We have some nachos left.” Carlos motioned to a plate on the table. “But I don’t suppose you’re interested.”
“I already ate.” Ian sat at the end of the table.
“Anyone we know?” Carlos’s amber eyes twinkled. “Ouch.” He glared at Toni.”
― Kerrelyn Sparks, quote from All I Want for Christmas is a Vampire
“It looks rather ordinary," said the Snork. "Unless you consider that a top hat is always somewhat extraordinary, of course.”
― Tove Jansson, quote from Finn Family Moomintroll
Silas Marner
The Maltese Falcon
Will Grayson, Will G...
Light in August
The Man Without Qual...
Childhood's EndBookQuoters 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.
