Quotes from A Time of Gifts

“I found my mind wandering at games; loved boxing and was good at it; and in summer, having chosen rowing instead of cricket, lay peacefully by the Stour, well upstream of the rhythmic creaking and the exhortation, reading Lily Christine and Gibbon and gossiping with kindred lotus-eaters under the willow-branches.”
― Patrick Leigh Fermor, quote from A Time of Gifts

“At school some learning by heart was compulsory, though not irksome. But this intake was out-distanced many times, as it always is among people who need poetry, by a private anthology, both of those automatically absorbed and of poems consciously chosen and memorized as though one were stocking up for a desert island or for a stretch of solitary.”
― Patrick Leigh Fermor, quote from A Time of Gifts

“[Poetry] is a field where England can take on all challengers.”
― Patrick Leigh Fermor, quote from A Time of Gifts

“Often, half in a bay of the mountains and half on a headland, a small and nearly amphibian Schloss mouldered in the failing light among the geese and the elder-bushes and the apple trees. Dank walls rose between towers that were topped with cones of moulting shingle. Weeds throve in every cranny. Moss mottled the walls. Fissures branched like forked lightning across damp masonry which the rusting iron clamps tried to hold together, and buttresses of brick shored up the perilously leaning walls. The mountains, delaying sunrise and hastening dusk, must have halved again the short winter days. Those buildings looked too forlorn for habitation. But, in tiny, creeper-smothered windows, a faint light would show at dusk. Who lived in those stone-flagged rooms where the sun never came? Immured in those six-foot-thick walls, overgrown outside with the conquering ivy and within by genealogical trees all moulting with mildew? My thoughts flew at once to solitary figures…a windowed descendant of a lady-in-waiting at the court of Charlemagne, alone with the Sacred Heart and her beads, or a family of wax-pale barons, recklessly inbred; bachelors with walrus moustaches, bent double with rheumatism, shuddering from room to room and coughing among their lurchers, while their cleft palates called to each other down corridors that were all but pitch dark.”
― Patrick Leigh Fermor, quote from A Time of Gifts

“I fell asleep among the beer mugs and when I woke, I couldn’t think where I was.”
― Patrick Leigh Fermor, quote from A Time of Gifts

“The notion that I had walked twelve hundred miles since Rotterdam filled me with a legitimate feeling of something achieved. But why should the thought that nobody knew where I was, as though I were in flight from bloodhounds or from worshipping corybants bent on dismemberment, generate such a feeling of triumph? It always did.”
― Patrick Leigh Fermor, quote from A Time of Gifts

“My mother was filled with apprehension to begin with; we pored over the atlas, and, bit by bit as we pored, the comic possibilities began to unfold in absurd imaginary scenes until we were falling about with laughter; and by the time I caught the train to London next morning, she was infected with my excitement.”
― Patrick Leigh Fermor, quote from A Time of Gifts

“I found it impossible to tear myself away from my station and plunge into Hungary. I feel the same disability now; a momentary reluctance to lay hands on this particular fragment of the future; not out of fear, but because, within arm's reach and still intact, this future seemed, and still seems, so full of promised marvels.”
― Patrick Leigh Fermor, quote from A Time of Gifts

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Popular quotes

“Even with her failing vision, Violet West could see the scars. They had turned purple, almost red, from the icy cold, the color of the pears on the tree in the yard, the color of blood that can't be washed away and of things that can never be undone.”
― Alice Hoffman, quote from Blackbird House

“for those that would be kept from any sin must be careful to avoid all temptations to it, and every thing that looks towards it or leads to it.”
― Matthew Henry, quote from Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible

“What's the Future? It's a blank sheet of paper, and we draw lines on it, but sometimes our hand is held, and the lines we draw aren't the lines we wanted.”
― John Marsden, quote from The Dead of Night

“To a teacher of languages there comes a time when the world is but a place of many words and man appears a mere talking animal not much more wonderful than a parrot.”
― Joseph Conrad, quote from Under Western Eyes

“Do I get to choose
what she commands you to do? Come on, let me, it’ll be fun.”
Jai laughed humorlessly. “I said I don’t want her commanding me to do something asinine, kid.”
Charlie’s grin disappeared as quickly as it had surfaced. “I told you not to call me, kid, Jinn boy. I’m what… two years younger than you,
douchebag?”
“Try five. And that’s only in physical years.”
“What, you trying to say I’m not mature?”
“Oh those socks you’re wearing definitely are. Have you heard of detergent? A shower? Hygiene?”
“I shower, you militant, glorified fucking babysitter.”
“Watch it, kid.”
“Kid? I am this close to taking a swing at you, you overblown piece of-”
“Oh for the love of God!” Ari cried, throwing her hands up, her head pounding. So much for their strained peace treaty. “Shut up. Shut up. Shut
up!”Despite their matching glowers, both of them slammed their lips closed and glared at one another. Ari heaved a sigh of relief as she pulled a
chilled can of soda out of the refrigerator. At least the soda still felt nice sliding down her throat. Not the same as an ice cold Coke on a blazing
summer day but still nice. She took a refreshing swig and turned towards her male companions once again. Blasts of frost shot out from Jai’s eyes
only to be met by the simmering black heat of Charlie’s angry gaze. Rolling her eyes and biting back the guilt that she was somehow responsible
for the animosity between the only two people she could count on right now, Ari spilled into the chair between them and Jai slowly sunk back down
into his.
“So what will I command you?” she asked quietly, ignoring the way her fingers trembled as she played with the tab on her soda can.
When she got no answer, she glanced up to see Jai’s face going red, the veins in his head throbbing.
“Dude, what’s wrong?” Charlie asked quietly, looking at Ari in alarm. “Is he choking?”
Ari’s heart flipped in her chest at the thought and she reached across the table to grab his arm. “Jai?”
His eyes widened and he waved a large hand at his throat and mouth and then pointed at her.
What the hell?!
“Jesus Christ, he can’t talk?” Charlie asked incredulously. “Is this a joke?”
― Samantha Young, quote from Smokeless Fire

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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.

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