“I looked on astounded as from his ordinary life he made his art. We were both ordinary men, he and I. Yet from the ordinary he created Legends--and I from Legends created only the ordinary!”
― Peter Shaffer, quote from Amadeus
“Goodness is nothing in the furnace of art.”
― Peter Shaffer, quote from Amadeus
“What use, after all, is man, if not to teach God His lessons?”
― Peter Shaffer, quote from Amadeus
“God was singing through this little man to all the world.”
― Peter Shaffer, quote from Amadeus
“Tell me, before you call us servants, who served whom? And who, I wonder, in your generations, will immortalize you?”
― Peter Shaffer, quote from Amadeus
“Oh, you monster!No one exists but you, do they? You and your music!”
― Peter Shaffer, quote from Amadeus
“Emperor Joseph II: My dear young man, don't take it too hard. Your work is ingenious. It's quality work. And there are simply too many notes, that's all. Just cut a few and it will be perfect.
Mozart: Which few did you have in mind, Majesty?”
― Peter Shaffer, quote from Amadeus
“Only the French, I thought, could attain orgasm by listening to themselves. It was self-inflicted oral sex. A DIY blowjob.”
― Stephen Clarke, quote from A Year in the Merde
“He was struck by the sensation she’d made it happen in some way, that his life was simply a story the old woman was making up in her head.”
― Michael Crummey, quote from Galore
“If feminism means anything at all, women with power should be addressing their energies to help the girls and women who suffer the pain of genital mutilation, who are at risk of being murdered because of their Western lifestyle and ideas, who must ask for permission just to leave the house, who are treated no better than serfs, branded and mutilated, traded without regard to their wishes. If you are a true feminist, these women should be your first priority.”
― Ayaan Hirsi Ali, quote from Nomad: From Islam to America: A Personal Journey Through the Clash of Civilizations
“If we read the text alone, assuming that the word 'cross' can only derive its meaning from the later death of Jesus, then its appearance in the text must be an anachronism read back into the story after the crucifixion. This conclusion becomes unnecessary if the cross, being the standard punishment for insurrection or for the refusal to confess Caesar's lordship, already had a clear definition in the listener's awareness. 'Take up your cross' may even have been a standard phrase of Zealot recruiting. The disciple's cross is not a metaphor for self-mortification or even generally innocent suffering; 'if you follow me, your fate will be like mine, the fate of a revolutionary. You cannot follow me without facing that fate.”
― John Howard Yoder, quote from The Politics of Jesus
“Shelley was also the wife of the great poet and rotter Percy Bysshe Shelley.”
― quote from The Encyclopedia of Fantastic Victoriana
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.