“The cow strains at the rope that tethers it to the post and comes up to them, nudging their faces with its soft wet nose: the slimy feel of fish guts, the earthy tang of manure. The girls laugh, syrup and sweetness, their angst forgotten, dispersed into the evening air that brings cooking smells wafting”
― Renita D'Silva, quote from A Sister's Promise
“My name is Kushi Shankar. I am seventeen years old and a resident of Bhoomihalli village. I am writing this letter to you because, in my opinion, even though you have been elected to represent the people of this state and have pledged to do your best by them, you sometimes forget how they, i.e. we, the common people, live.”
― Renita D'Silva, quote from A Sister's Promise
“with her, still. I am hurt, the hurt having multiplied when I realised that Kushi is Gopi’s child. But I also feel sorry for Puja, for everything she went through all alone, without the bolstering support of us, her family. Now I understand why Puja asked the landlord if she could marry Gopi. It was a desperate act on the part of a floundering girl. Is Kushi Puja’s way of giving me something of Gopi because she stole him from me? I love Kushi like nothing and no one else. It was love at first sight as it was with Puja, Ma, but with none of the jealousy. How could I resent this tiny new life, this helpless minuscule being who had come into my world on the rain ravaged day when I bid adieu to you and Da, a blessing at a time when I had never felt more alone? Whatever her reasons, I am grateful to Puja for the”
― Renita D'Silva, quote from A Sister's Promise
“Raj closes his eyes, and lets the cigarette work its magic. When he opens them again, Ellie is in his line of sight, under the awning by the bus stop, standing slightly apart from the giggly group of girls she hangs out with. Her sunshine coloured hair spills out of its loose ponytail, and her eyelashes fan downy gold-dusted cheeks. Her strawberry lips pucker as she checks her phone and she frowns.”
― Renita D'Silva, quote from A Sister's Promise
“forgive his father that. Before his father left for India, Raj had always nurtured the secret hope that one day he could leave his unfeeling mum and go stay with his dad. But when his dad emigrated, that”
― Renita D'Silva, quote from A Sister's Promise
“Touch-me-nots, their blooms, the soft, sugar-embroidered pink of a happy ending, shrink from the kiss of grumbling yellow bees. Butterflies coyly flutter their emerald-tipped silver wings as if dispensing benedictions from a benevolent god. High up in the coconut trees, the crows squabble and gossip.”
― Renita D'Silva, quote from A Sister's Promise
“To get back up to the shining world from there
My guide and I went into that hidden tunnel,
And Following its path, we took no care
To rest, but climbed: he first, then I-so far,
through a round aperture I saw appear
Some of the beautiful things that Heaven bears,
Where we came forth, and once more saw the stars.”
― Dante Alighieri, quote from The Inferno
“This is the terrible thing about learning everything from books—sometimes you don’t know how to say the words. You know the ideas, but you cannot discuss them with people with any confidence. And so you stay silent. It is the curse of the autodidact. Or “autodidiact,” as I said, on the same shameful day. Oh, that was a conversation that went so wrong.”
― Caitlin Moran, quote from How to Build a Girl
“When she was little, someone gave her some weird book called The Wife Store. It was about a very lonely man who decided that he wanted to get married. So he went to the wife store, where endless women lined enormous shelves. He picked himself a wife and bought her. She was bagged up and put in a cart. He took her home. After that, the two of them went to the children store to buy a few kids.
Petey read this book over and over. Not because she liked it, but because she kept waiting for the story to change, kept waiting for the day she'd turn the page and a woman would get to the husband store. She kept waiting for justice. But, of course, the story never changed. She never got justice. If Petey were keeping one of her lists of the things she hated, she wold have to add: the fact that there was no justice. But The Wife Store was still on her shelf at home, if only to remind her that there were assholes in the world who would write such things, believe such things.”
― Laura Ruby, quote from Bone Gap
“This was their favorite place to meet. It always felt hidden, forgotten. The gold-lettered World Book encyclopedias from the 1980s. The smell of old glue and crumbling paper, the industrial carpet burning her palms.
It reminded her of what you did when you were a little girl, making little burrows and hideaways. Like boys did with forts. Eli and his friend, stacking sofa cushions, pretending to be sharpshooters. With girls, you didn’t call them forts, though it was the same.”
― Megan Abbott, quote from The Fever
“She’s dying?!” “What?!” “He didn’t say that!” “Let me evaluate the severity of her injuries!” “Dude, get your stupid medical bag.” “It’s not so stupid now that we need it, is it?!” “Shut the bloody hell up and get the bag!”
― A.E. Kirk, quote from Demons in Disguise
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.
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