“One day you'll discover that the opinions of worthless people are worthless.”
― Piers Anthony, quote from A Spell for Chameleon
“Bink knew the dolphin only from old pictures; it was a kind of magic fish that breathed air instead of water.”
― Piers Anthony, quote from A Spell for Chameleon
“How many people similarly spent their lives searching for their own spells—some gratuitous benefit such as a silver tree or political power or undeserved acclaim—when all they really needed was to be satisfied with what they already had? Sometimes what they had was better than what they thought they wanted.”
― Piers Anthony, quote from A Spell for Chameleon
“Now it was done. He was free of Xanth forever. Free to make his own life, without being ridiculed or mothered or tempted. Free to be himself.
Bink put his face in his hands and cried.”
― Piers Anthony, quote from A Spell for Chameleon
“It is the man who can’t be trusted who does not trust others because he judges them by himself.”
― Piers Anthony, quote from A Spell for Chameleon
“All because he had tried to rescue a beautiful, vacuous girl from a dragon. In folklore, such a hero always received a most intriguing reward. In reality, the hero was as likely as not to find himself in need of rescue…”
― Piers Anthony, quote from A Spell for Chameleon
“there was nothing but mutual mischief.”
― Piers Anthony, quote from A Spell for Chameleon
“If you need anything, let me know,’ he said. Stop talking to me.”
― Durjoy Datta, quote from Our Impossible Love
“Isn't there something in living dangerously?'
There's a great deal in it,' the Controller replied. 'Men and women must have their adrenals stimulated from time to time.'
What?' questioned the Savage, uncomprehending.
It's one of the conditions of perfect health. That's why we've made the V.P.S. treatments compulsory.'
V.P.S.?'
Violent Passion Surrogate. Regularly once a month. We flood the whole system with adrenin. It's the complete physiological equivalent of fear and rage. All the tonic effects of murdering Desdemona and being murdered by Othello, without any of the inconvenience.'
But I like the inconveniences.'
We don't,' said the Controller. 'We prefer to do things comfortably.'
But I don't want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin.'
In fact,' said Mustapha Mond, 'you're claiming the right to be unhappy. Not to mention the right to grow old and ugly and impotent; the right to have syphilis and cancer, the right to have too little to eat; the right to be lousy; the right to live in constant apprehension of what may happen tomorrow; the right to catch typhoid; the right to be tortured by unspeakable pains of every kind.' There was a long silence.
I claim them all,' said the Savage at last.
Mustapha Mond shrugged his shoulders. 'You're welcome,' he said.”
― Aldous Huxley, quote from Uljas uusi maailma
“Or maybe I’m just a reckless fool, the way I was when I once jumped eighty feet off Foster Falls, near Sequatchie, Tennessee, or went swimming in the Atlantic Ocean during a hurricane. You could say—and some have—that I have a death wish. Not sure. I believe it’s more accurate to say I have a risk wish, somehow clinging to the notion that achieving these audacious feats will somehow make me worthy, make me special, as if I’d taken some magical, esteem-enhancing drug.”
― quote from Wherever I Wind Up: My Quest for Truth, Authenticity and the Perfect Knuckleball
“It's laughable, looking back, to see the processes I went through, pretending to make a reasoned decision. No choice is ever made on the basis of logic; the logic is fabricated around the impulse, the initial desire which is innate and incontrovertible. All the time, I knew where I was going, the elements of my fulfillment or ruin were always present; I only had to work my way into that seam of desire and find the hidden vein of dross or gold. It's not a question of predestination, it's just that free will and destiny are illusions, false opposites, consolations. In the end, they are one and the same: a single process. You choose what you choose and it could not have been otherwise: the choice is destiny. It was there all along, but any alternative you might have considered is an absurd diversion, because it is in your nature to make one choice rather than another. That is identity. To speak of freedom or destiny is absurd because it suggests there is something outside yourself, directing your life, where really it is of the essence: identity, the craftwork of the soul.”
― John Burnside, quote from The Dumb House
“If you've not been loved as a child, you don't know how to love a child.”
― Jane Gardam, quote from Old Filth
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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