Quotes from All the Names

“Don't be afraid, the darkness you're in is no greater than the darkness inside your own body, they are two darknesses separated by a skin, I bet you've never thought of that, you carry a darkness about with you all the time and that doesn't frighten you...my dear chap, you have to learn to live with the darkness outside just as you learned to live with the darkness inside”
― José Saramago, quote from All the Names

“old photographs are very deceiving, they give us the illusion that we are alive in them, and it's not true, the person we are looking at no longer exists, and if that person could see us, he or she would not recognise him -- or herself in us, 'Who's that looking at me so sadly,' he or she would say.”
― José Saramago, quote from All the Names

“Strictly speaking, we do not make decisions, decisions make us.”
― José Saramago, quote from All the Names

“إن الصور القديمة تخدعنا كثيرًا، فهي توهمنا بأننا أحياء فيها، وهذا غير صحيح، لأن الشخص الذي ننظر إليه فيها لم يعد موجودًا، ولو كان بمقدوره أن يرانا فلن يتعرف على نفسه فينا، وسيقول من هذا الذي ينظر إليّ بوجه محزون؟.”
― José Saramago, quote from All the Names

“الوحدة لم تكن قط بالرفقة الطيبة، فالأحزان الكبيرة، والإغواءات الكبيرة، والأخطاء الكبيرة هي على الدوام تقريبًا نتيجة بقاء المرء وحيدًا في هذه الحياة.”
― José Saramago, quote from All the Names

“Nothing so tires a person as having to struggle, not with himself, but with an abstraction.”
― José Saramago, quote from All the Names

“فـ الأحزان الكبيرة، والإغواءات الكبيرة، والأخطاء الكبيرة هي على الدوام تقريباً نتيجة بقاء المرء وحيداً في الحياة”
― José Saramago, quote from All the Names

“... we know that it is the search that gives meaning to any find and that one often has to travel a long way in order to arrive at what is near.”
― José Saramago, quote from All the Names

“All the great sadnesses, great temptations, and great mistakes are almost always the result of being alone in life, without a prudent friend to advise us when we are troubled by something more serious than our normal everyday problems.”
― José Saramago, quote from All the Names

“وهؤلاء هم أشخاصٌ يقتصرون على العيش كيفما أتفق ، أشخاصٌ لم يواجهوا القدر قط وجهاً لوجه”
― José Saramago, quote from All the Names

“عندما تحين الفرصة، يمكن حتى للطيبين أن يتحولوا إلى متصلبين ومتجبرين”
― José Saramago, quote from All the Names

“Al contrario de lo que se cree, sentido y significado nunca han sido lo mismo, el significado se queda aquí, es directo, literal, explícito, cerrado en sí mismo, unívoco, podríamos decir, mientras que le sentido no es capaz de permanecer quieto, hierve de segundos sentidos, terceros y cuartos, de direcciones radicales que se van dividiendo y subdividiendo en ramas y ramajes hasta que se pierdende vista, el sentido de cada palabra se parece a una estrella cuando se pone a proyectar mareas vivas por el espacio, vientos cósmicos, perturbaciones magnéticas, aflicciones".”
― José Saramago, quote from All the Names

“Contrary to what is generally believed, meaning and sense were never the same thing, meaning shows itself at once, direct, literal, explicit, enclosed in itself, univocal, if you like, while sense cannot stay still, it seethes with second, third and fourth senses, radiating out in different directions that divide and subdivide into branches and branchlets, until they disappear from view, the sense of every word is like a star hurling spring tides out into space, cosmic winds, magnetic perturbations, afflictions.”
― José Saramago, quote from All the Names

“هناك لحظات في هذه الحياة نطلق فيها العنان لأنفسنا، ولا نتورع عن مكاشفة أول مجهول نصادفه بآلامنا”
― José Saramago, quote from All the Names

“It is well known that the human mind very often makes decisions for reasons it clearly does not know, presumably because it does so after having travelled the paths of the mind at such speed that, afterwards, it cannot recognise those paths, let alone find them again.”
― José Saramago, quote from All the Names

“What torments people have to go through when they leave the safety of their homes to become embroiled in mad adventures.”
― José Saramago, quote from All the Names

“ولم يكن لديه أي سبب للبحث عن أحد ، وخصوصاً في مثل هذه الساعة من الليل”
― José Saramago, quote from All the Names

“الضمائر تصمتُ أكثر مما هو مطلوبٌ منها، ولهذا أبتُدعت القوانين!!”
― José Saramago, quote from All the Names

“إن الصور القديمة تخدعُنا كثيراً، فهي توهمنا بأننا أحياءُ فيها ،وهذا غير صحيح ، لأن الشخص الذي ننظر إليه فيها لم يعد موجوداً”
― José Saramago, quote from All the Names

“...las viejas fotografías engañan mucho, nos dan la ilusión de que estamos vivos en ellas, y no es cierto, la persona a quien estamos mirando ya no existe, y ella, si pudiese vernos, no se reconocería en nosotros.”
― José Saramago, quote from All the Names

“حيثُ تُكرر الكِذبة نَفسها، فـ تتحول إلى حقيقة !”
― José Saramago, quote from All the Names

“..then he added, as if requiring a response to his own remark,
'Probably the greater the difference, the greater the similarity, and the greater the similarity, the greater the difference,' at that moment he did not yet know how right he was.”
― José Saramago, quote from All the Names

“Así como la muerte definitiva es el fruto último de la voluntad de olvido, así la voluntad de recuerdo podrá perpetuarnos la vida.”
― José Saramago, quote from All the Names

“...indeed it is in the General Cemetery that the results of progress are set out before the eyes of the studious or the merely curious, there are even those who say that a cemetery like this is a kind of library which contains not books but buried people, it really doesn't matter, you can learn as much from people as from books.”
― José Saramago, quote from All the Names

“أنت تعرف الاسم الذي أطلقوه عليك، ولكنك لا تعرف الاسم الذي هو لك.”
― José Saramago, quote from All the Names

“نحن في الواقع لا نتخذ القرارات، وإنما القرارات هي التي تتخذنا”
― José Saramago, quote from All the Names

“المرء لا يحتاج لكي يموت إلاّ أن يكون حياً”
― José Saramago, quote from All the Names

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Popular quotes

“We'll leave now, so that this moment will remain a perfect memory...let it be our song and think of me every time you hear it.”
― Betty Smith, quote from A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

“Here's the thing, say Shug. The thing I believe. God is inside you and inside everybody else. You come into the world with God. But only them that search for it inside find it. And sometimes it just manifest itself even if you not looking, or don't know what you looking for. Trouble do it for most folks, I think. Sorrow, lord. Feeling like shit.

It? I ast.

Yeah, It. God ain't a he or a she, but a It.

But what do it look like? I ast.

Don't look like nothing, she say. It ain't a picture show. It ain't something you can look at apart from anything else, including yourself. I believe God is everything, say Shug. Everything that is or ever was or ever will be. And when you can feel that, and be happy to feel that, you've found It.

Shug a beautiful something, let me tell you. She frown a little, look out cross the yard, lean back in her chair, look like a big rose. She say, My first step from the old white man was trees. Then air. Then birds. Then other people. But one day when I was sitting quiet and feeling like a motherless child, which I was, it come to me: that feeling of being part of everything, not separate
at all. I knew that if I cut a tree, my arm would bleed. And I laughed and I cried and I run all around the house. I knew just what it was. In fact, when it happen, you can't miss it. It sort of like you know what, she say, grinning and rubbing high up on my thigh.

Shug! I say.

Oh, she say. God love all them feelings. That's some of the best stuff God did. And when you know God loves 'em you enjoys 'em a lot more. You can just relax, go with everything that's going, and praise God by liking what you like.

God don't think it dirty? I ast.

Naw, she say. God made it. Listen, God love everything you love? and a mess of stuff you don't. But more than anything else, God love admiration.

You saying God vain? I ast.

Naw, she say. Not vain, just wanting to share a good thing. I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don't notice it.

What it do when it pissed off? I ast.

Oh, it make something else. People think pleasing God is all God care about. But any fool living in the world can see it always trying to please us back.

Yeah? I say.

Yeah, she say. It always making little surprises and springing them on us when us least expect.

You mean it want to be loved, just like the bible say.

Yes, Celie, she say. Everything want to be loved. Us sing and dance, make faces and give flower bouquets, trying to be loved. You ever notice that trees do everything to git attention we do, except walk?

Well, us talk and talk bout God, but I'm still adrift. Trying to chase that old white man out of my head. I been so busy thinking bout him I never truly notice nothing God make. Not a blade of corn (how it do that?) not the color purple (where it come from?). Not the little wildflowers. Nothing. Now that my eyes opening, I feels like a fool. Next to any little scrub of a bush in my yard, Mr. ____s evil sort of shrink. But not altogether. Still, it is like Shug say, You have to git man off your eyeball, before you can see anything a'tall.

Man corrupt everything, say Shug. He on your box of grits, in your head, and all over the radio. He try to make you think he everywhere.

Soon as you think he everywhere, you think he God. But he ain't. Whenever you trying to pray, and man plop himself on the other end of it, tell him to git lost, say Shug. Conjure up flowers, wind,water, a big rock.

But this hard work, let me tell you. He been there so long, he don't want to budge. He threaten lightening, floods and earthquakes. Us fight. I hardly pray at all. Every time I conjure up a rock, I throw it.

Amen”
― Alice Walker, quote from The Color Purple

“A girl should think about making herself look attractive so she can get a good husband later on. Looks is more important than books, Miss Hunky..."
"The name is Honey," Miss Honey said.
"Now look at me," Mrs Wormwood said. "Then look at you. You chose books. I chose looks.”
― Roald Dahl, quote from Matilda

“There are many Beths in the world, shy and quiet, sitting in corners till needed, and living for others so cheerfully that no one sees the sacrifices till the little cricket on the hearth stops chirping, and the sweet, sunshiny presence vanishes, leaving silence and shadow behind.”
― Louisa May Alcott, quote from Little Women

“But it does not seem that I can trust anyone,' said Frodo.
Sam looked at him unhappily. 'It all depends on what you want,' put in Merry. 'You can trust us to stick with you through thick and thin--to the bitter end. And you can trust us to keep any secret of yours--closer than you keep it yourself. But you cannot trust us to let you face trouble alone, and go off without a word. We are your friends, Frodo.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, quote from The Fellowship of the Ring

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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.