“We are at war, and in time of war there is only one rule. Form your battalion and fight.”
― Kermit Roosevelt III, quote from Allegiance
“I never wanted to safe... I wanted to be good.”
― Kermit Roosevelt III, quote from Allegiance
“From the front row of the balcony, I look out over the Uptown Cinema. The red velvet seats are emptying, the credits scrolling up the screen. Ginger Rogers married a Nazi, but Cary Grant got her out of it. Their ship is sailing to America; sun burns away the fog and the wind blows free. Now they are gone and I am coming back to reality, breathing a harsher air. It is how I always feel when a movie ends.”
― Kermit Roosevelt III, quote from Allegiance
“I have crossed over, and that childhood is as far away and strange as something that happened to someone else in a land beyond the sea. That boy is not me, though I am what he became.”
― Kermit Roosevelt III, quote from Allegiance
“I feel an emptiness open in my chest, coupled with a strange downward pull in my throat. I think, this is my heart sinking.”
― Kermit Roosevelt III, quote from Allegiance
“There is no suspension, no whispered prayer for silk to stop my fall. There is only the falling, and it goes on and on, in fierce silence and sharp bursts of breath.”
― Kermit Roosevelt III, quote from Allegiance
“I never wanted to be safe, I wanted to be good.”
― Kermit Roosevelt III, quote from Allegiance
“But for a moment I stay there, suspended above the green swell of the land as though thrown up onto the crest of a wave, seeing for the first time a break in the at horizon. For this the boats crossed the ocean, the wagons climbed the mountain pass. For this the songs were sung with desert all around. This is what is given: the promise there is still a way, if we can find it, the promise we can always be renewed.”
― Kermit Roosevelt III, quote from Allegiance
“I never wanted to be safe... I wanted to be good.”
― Kermit Roosevelt III, quote from Allegiance
“This is what happens to people who aren’t like you,” Clara continues. “When you get scared, of course they’re the first to feel it.”
― Kermit Roosevelt III, quote from Allegiance
“The social contract imposes obligations on citizens, but it does so in exchange for rights, and the government may not deny the rights while it insists on the obligations.”
― Kermit Roosevelt III, quote from Allegiance
“ ‘A republic, if you can keep it,”
― Kermit Roosevelt III, quote from Allegiance
“Midland City had a goddess of discord all its own. This was a goddess who could not dance, would not dance, and hated everybody at the high school. She would like to claw away her face, she told us, so that people would stop seeing things in it that had nothing to do with what she was like inside. She was ready to die at any time, she said, because what men and boys thought about her and tried to do to her made her so ashamed. One of the first things she was going to do when she got to heaven, she said, was to ask somebody what was written on her face and why had it been put there.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, quote from Deadeye Dick
“Sunil and Abdul sat together more often than before, but when they spoke, it was with the curious formality of people who shared the understanding that much of what was said did not matter, and that much of what mattered could not be said.”
― Katherine Boo, quote from Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity
“Okay, that one's pretty good," Fred acknowledged, after she'd told him a particularly filthy joke. "But have you heard the one about the baker's wife?"
"No," Kyra said.
"Rumor has it, she married him for his buns." Fred burst out laughing.
Kyra groaned. "Okay, that was just bad.”
― Bridget Zinn, quote from Poison
“No. I’ve been thinking about this for weeks. I say in my talks it takes two things to make it happen again, a new Hitler and social conditions like in the thirties. But that’s not true. It takes three things: the Hitler, the conditions…and the people to follow the Hitler.” “And don’t you think he’d find them?” “No, not enough of them. I really think people are better and smarter now, not so much thinking their leaders are God. The television makes a big difference. And history, knowing…Some he’d find, yes; but no more, I think—I hope—than the pretend-Hitlers we have now, in Germany and South America.”
― Ira Levin, quote from The Boys from Brazil
“…what the President meant in the intercepted chat. This was, uh, nothing but a routine translation problem. It has to be understood, that…It has to be understood that when the President referred to the Prime Minister of the Global Alliance as a ‘big sh*thead,’ what he was trying to convey was, uh—this is an American idiom used to praise people, by referring to the sheer fertilizing power of their thoughts. The President meant to say that the Prime Minister’s head was fertile, just full of these nutrients where ideas can grow. It really was a compliment…”
― M.T. Anderson, quote from Feed
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.