Quotes from Across the Nightingale Floor

“The less people think of you, the more they will reveal to you or in your presence.”
― Lian Hearn, quote from Across the Nightingale Floor

“How was it possible for the world to be so beautiful and so cruel at the same time?”
― Lian Hearn, quote from Across the Nightingale Floor

“I believe the test of government is the contentment of the people.”
― Lian Hearn, quote from Across the Nightingale Floor

“But just as the river is always at the door, so is the world always outside. And it is in the world that we have to live.”
― Lian Hearn, quote from Across the Nightingale Floor

“When illusions are shattered by truth, talent is set free.”
― Lian Hearn, quote from Across the Nightingale Floor

“The painter had achieved what we would all like to do: capture time and make it stand still”
― Lian Hearn, quote from Across the Nightingale Floor

“It's what you do to yourself when you go mad with rage. You have no idea how much you can hurt yourself with your own strength.”
― Lian Hearn, quote from Across the Nightingale Floor

“Don't you know the man whose life you spare will always hate you?”
― Lian Hearn, quote from Across the Nightingale Floor

“I learned embroidery," Kaede said, "But you can't kill anyone with a needle."

"You can," Shizuka said offhandedly. "I'll show you one day.”
― Lian Hearn, quote from Across the Nightingale Floor

“Shame, however, was what I felt seeping through me as though it stained my white bones black.”
― Lian Hearn, quote from Across the Nightingale Floor

“The world is always outside. And it is in the world that we must live.”
― Lian Hearn, quote from Across the Nightingale Floor

“They reminded me of the people of my village, their indomitable spirit in the face of disaster, their unshakable belief that no matter what might befall them, life was basically good and the world benign.”
― Lian Hearn, quote from Across the Nightingale Floor

“Cuando era niño, solía llevar a casa animales del bosque (…) Nunca logré domesticarlos, porque lo único que querían, ciega e irracionalmente, era escapar.”
― Lian Hearn, quote from Across the Nightingale Floor

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Popular quotes

“As the conference continued it occurred to me finally that it wasn't really about Indian history as it was written, but really about rewriting it by taking a fresh look at race, ethnicity, gender, and a mix of sociocultural questions...

I just couldn't believe how far along the desi scene was, not just socially but intellectually, how many people were out there thinking about it. This whole event so far rocked my world, muddled me still more, and delivered a series of tiny epiphanies, all at the same time. To be honest, I was quite intimidated by the dialogue going on, as well as by the passion and conviction of these people on so many subjects which I, frankly, had never really even thought about.

...A history of a people in transit -- what could that be card catalogued under? And the history of the ABCD. Everyone seemed to know about this ABCD thing -- that didn't seem very confused to me! And it was a relatively new phenomenon; it had never occurred to me that things going on now could have a history already. The moments that made up my life in the present tense seemed so fleetingly urgent and self-contained to me: I'd always felt my life had very little to do with my parents' and especially their parents' histories...and that it would have very little effect on anything to come.

But the way these people were talking -- about desis in Hollywood; South Asian Studies departments; the relatively new Asian Indian slot on the census -- was hummingly sculpting the air, as if they were making history as they spoke. Making it, messily but surely, even simply by speaking. I was feeling it, too -- a sense of history in the making. But where did I fit in to any of it?

And how come no one had told me?”
― Tanuja Desai Hidier, quote from Born Confused

“It's all so sweet. Needing each other and finding each other.”
― Rosamunde Pilcher, quote from Winter Solstice

“She’d buy diamond-studded earplugs and go and lie on a beach in the Caribbean where the whining of jealous bastards wouldn’t reach her.”
― Sophie Hannah, quote from The Other Half Lives

“Ask most entrepreneurs who have decided to pivot and they will tell you that they wish they had made the decision sooner.”
― Eric Ries, quote from The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses

“Nothing that ever was changes. Yet nothing that is can ever be the same as what went before.”
― Gore Vidal, quote from The City and the Pillar

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About BookQuoters

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.