“Loss is like a shrapnel wound, I said, where the piece of metal's got stuck in a place where the surgeons daren't go, so they decide to leave it. It is painful at first, horribly painful, so that you wonder you can live with it. But then the body grows around it, until it doesn't hurt anymore. Not like it used to be. But every now and again there are these twinges when you are not ready for them, and you realize it is still there, and it's always going to be there. It is a part of you. A still, hard point inside.”
― Robert Wilson, quote from A Small Death in Lisbon
“They crossed the Mondego and Dao rivers to Viseu and headed south to Coimbra and Leiria.”
― Robert Wilson, quote from A Small Death in Lisbon
“The chinese character for "strife" is represented by two women under the same roof.”
― Robert Wilson, quote from A Small Death in Lisbon
“The portuguese never put anything behind them except a chair to eat lunch.”
― Robert Wilson, quote from A Small Death in Lisbon
“Eva was a between-the-lines talker. She left the sayable unsaid and said what she meant without saying it.”
― Robert Wilson, quote from A Small Death in Lisbon
“Boldly fruity, but clean and dry. The spice holding from the top to the bottom, as long as an Atlantic cruise.”
― Robert Wilson, quote from A Small Death in Lisbon
“I remember him standing under a streetlamp.
'Just as we passed that other lamp I was going to tell you a further thing, Sal, but now I am parenthetically continuing with a new thought and by the time we reach the next I'll return to the original subject, agreed?'
I certainly agreed.”
― Jack Kerouac, quote from On the Road: the Original Scroll
“This world is unforgiving and cruel to those it judges as even the slightest bit outside the norm. If anyone should be kind, understanding, accepting, loving to their fellow outcasts, it’s you. All of you. You are the guardians of the secrets of the universe, beloved of worlds that most will never dream of, much less see … can’t you see where you owe it to yourselves to be kind? To care for one another? No one outside this room will ever understand what you’ve been through the way the people around you right now understand.”
― Seanan McGuire, quote from Every Heart a Doorway
“Provider of moonbeams when I wanted full illumination.”
― Ivan Doig, quote from The Whistling Season
“Television, radio, and all the sources of amusement and information that surround us in our daily lives are also artificial props. They can give us the impression that our minds are active, because we are required to react to stimuli from the outside. But the power of those external stimuli to keep us going is limited. They are like drugs. We grow used to them, and we continuously need more and more of them. Eventually, they have little or no effect. Then, if we lack resources within ourselves, we cease to grow intellectually, morally, and spiritually. And we we cease to grow, we begin to die.”
― Mortimer J. Adler, quote from How to Read a Book: The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading
“Jesus was a strange hobo who walked on water—”
― Jack Kerouac, quote from Lonesome Traveler
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.