“...a butterfly is like the soul of a person, it dries out in captivity.”
― Marlene van Niekerk, quote from Agaat
“Everything is important. To the smallest insect, even the mouldering tree, the deepest stone in the drift.”
― Marlene van Niekerk, quote from Agaat
“First smile!! An unseasonal little shower of rain fell here, and a lot of butterflies drowned, so we put them in the sun and they came back to life, and flew up and then Agaat SMILED!”
― Marlene van Niekerk, quote from Agaat
“Does a mirror preserve everything that has been reflected in it? Is there a record of light, thin membranes compressed layer upon layer that one has to ease apart with the finger-tips so that the colors don't dissipate, so that the moments don't blot and the hours don't run together into inconsequential splotches? So that a song of preserved years lies in your palm, a miniature of your life and times, with every detail meticulous in clear, chanting angel-fine enamel, as on the old manuscripts, at which you can peer through a magnifying glass and marvel at so much effort? So many tears for nothing? For light? For bygone moments?”
― Marlene van Niekerk, quote from Agaat
“In a state of pseudo-death you restore your substance.”
― Marlene van Niekerk, quote from Agaat
“..did i think i was god that i had to lie and take it did i think then i was a mountain or a hill or a ridge and who told me that and who decided stones had no rights for stones can waste away from being denied from being abused and who decided who is the ploughed and who ploughs and why did i not get up and why not go away and what would have happened if i had resisted..”
― Marlene van Niekerk, quote from Agaat
“Well, I am something, Ma, you hissed, I am not nothing, I am somebody and I know what I want from life and I know what to do to get it. I will provide for myself.”
― Marlene van Niekerk, quote from Agaat
“And I will close my eyes and prepare myself so that they can unscrew my head and allow the map to slip into my lacunae. So that I can be filled and braced from the inside and fortified for the voyage. Because without my world inside me I will contract and congeal, more even than I am now, without speech and without actions and without any purchase upon time.”
― Marlene van Niekerk, quote from Agaat
“After all the years, after everything that you'd had to endure, after everything that you'd undertaken, however good or bad, long after you'd given up all hope, the reward.”
― Marlene van Niekerk, quote from Agaat
“Nobody can be so beautiful from the outside and so hollow from inside. Not even in a third-rate novel.”
― Marlene van Niekerk, quote from Agaat
“Marriage is holy and it's private.”
― Marlene van Niekerk, quote from Agaat
“..we all have to do things in this life that we don't like..”
― Marlene van Niekerk, quote from Agaat
Marlene van Niekerk
Born place: in Caledon, South Africa
Born date November 10, 1954
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“He had his arms around me, I had my hand on his stomach, and I was smiling up into his face. Jake wasn’t smiling but the expression in his eyes told everyone who looked at that picture that he was in love with me. I’d”
― Samantha Young, quote from Into the Deep
“Renunţarea la inteligenţa veritabilă este preţul care trebuie plătit pentru a avea certitudini, şi este întotdeauna o cheltuială invizibilă la banca conştiinţei noastre, în sensul ăsta, îi prefer pe cei care nu se-nvăluie în mantia raţiunii şi recunosc caracterul fictiv al credinţei lor.”
― Martin Page, quote from How I Became Stupid
“I have to trust that, or I’ll lose my mind. Well, lose it more.”
― Kiersten White, quote from Perfect Lies
“I think you guys already know this but if you’re thinking of starting your own company, never forget one major thing— networking. You need to sell your company shamelessly. Like everywhere. During the initial days of Alma Mater, I practically lived in one of our Cottonian hoodies. Networking is the key, and if you want be an entrepreneur, forget about being shy.”
― Varun Agarwal, quote from How I Braved Anu Aunty & Co-Founded A Million Dollar Company
“We must trust our thoughts while we sleep. We must trust our hunches. We must begin to examine all of those things that we think of as irrational simply because we do not understand them. In other words, we must distrust the rational, the logical, the sane, in an attempt to reach for something higher, for something more worthy.”
― Jeff VanderMeer, quote from Acceptance
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The Winter LongBookQuoters 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.
