“Books are the ultimate Dumpees: put them down and they’ll wait for you forever; pay attention to them and they always love you back.”
― John Green, quote from An Abundance of Katherines
“What is the point of being alive if you don't at least try to do something remarkable?”
― John Green, quote from An Abundance of Katherines
“You don't remember what happened. What you remember becomes what happened.”
― John Green, quote from An Abundance of Katherines
“I figured something out. The future is unpredictable.”
― John Green, quote from An Abundance of Katherines
“Here's to all the places we went. And all the places we'll go. And here's to me, whispering again and again and again and again: iloveyou”
― John Green, quote from An Abundance of Katherines
“That's who you really like. The people you can think out loud in front of.”
― John Green, quote from An Abundance of Katherines
“There's some people in this world who you can just love and love and love no matter what.”
― John Green, quote from An Abundance of Katherines
“If people could see me the way I see myself - if they could live in my memories - would anyone love me?”
― John Green, quote from An Abundance of Katherines
“He liked the mere act of reading, the magic of turning scratches on a page into words inside his head.”
― John Green, quote from An Abundance of Katherines
“What matters to you defines your mattering.”
― John Green, quote from An Abundance of Katherines
“Because you're only thinking they-might-not-like-me-they-might-not-like-me, and guess what? When you act like that, no one likes you.”
― John Green, quote from An Abundance of Katherines
“How do you just stop being terrified of getting left behind and ending up by yourself forever and not meaning anything to the world?”
― John Green, quote from An Abundance of Katherines
“That smile could end wars and cure cancer.”
― John Green, quote from An Abundance of Katherines
“you can never love someone as much as you miss them.”
― John Green, quote from An Abundance of Katherines
“I don't think you can ever fill the empty space with the thing you lost.”
― John Green, quote from An Abundance of Katherines
“The thing about chameleoning your way through life is that it gets to where nothing is real.”
― John Green, quote from An Abundance of Katherines
“It's just that I learned a while ago that the best way to get people to like you is not to like them too much.”
― John Green, quote from An Abundance of Katherines
“We fatties have a bond, dude. It's like a secret society. We got all kinds of shit you don't know about. Handshakes, special fat people dances-we got these secret fugging lairs in the center of the earth and we go down there in the middle of the night when all the skinny kids are sleeping and eat cake and friend chicken and shit. Why d'you think Hollis is still sleeping, kafir? Because we were up all night in the secret lair injecting butter frosting into our veins. ...A fatty trusts another fatty.”
― John Green, quote from An Abundance of Katherines
“Do you know what your problem is? You can't live with the idea that someone might leave.”
― John Green, quote from An Abundance of Katherines
“I am crying, he thought, opening his eyes to stare through the soapy, stinging water. I feel like crying, so I must be crying, but it's impossible to tell because I'm underwater. But he wasn't crying. Curiously, he felt too depressed to cry. Too hurt. It felt as if she'd taken the part of him that cried.”
― John Green, quote from An Abundance of Katherines
“They like their coffee like they like their ex-boyfriends: bitter.”
― John Green, quote from An Abundance of Katherines
“Do you ever wonder whether people would like you more or less if they could see inside you? But I always wonder about that. If people could see me the way I see myself—if they could live in my memories—would anyone, anyone, love me?”
― John Green, quote from An Abundance of Katherines
“Dude, you're such a geek. And that's coming from an overweight Star Trek fan who scored a 5 on the AP Calculus test. So you know your condition is grave”
― John Green, quote from An Abundance of Katherines
“You matter as much as the things that matter to you. And I got so backwards trying to matter to him. All this time, there were real things to care about: real, good people who care about me, and this place. It's so easy to get stuck. You just get caught in being something, being special or cool or whatever, to the point where you don't even know why you need it; you just think you do.”
― John Green, quote from An Abundance of Katherines
“Babies are made through an act that you will eventually find intriguing but for right now will just sort of horrify you, and also sometimes people do stuff that involves baby-making parts that does not actually involve making babies, like for instance kiss each other in places that are not on the face.”
― John Green, quote from An Abundance of Katherines
“I don't think your missing pieces ever fit inside you again once they go missing.”
― John Green, quote from An Abundance of Katherines
“The feeling of loving her and being loved by her welled up in him, and he could taste the adrenaline in the back of his throat, and maybe it wasn't over, and maybe he could feel her hand in his again and hear her loud, brash voice contort itself into a whisper to say I-love-you as if it were a secret, and an immense one.”
― John Green, quote from An Abundance of Katherines
“You know what I hate? The outdoors. I mean, generally. I don't like outside. I'm an inside person. I'm all about refrigeration and indoor plumbing and Judge Judy.”
― John Green, quote from An Abundance of Katherines
“Something about telling that story made my gut grow back together."
What?"
Oh, nothing. Just thinking out loud."
That's who you really like. The people you can think out loud in front of."
The people who've been in your secret hiding places."
The people you bite your thumb in front of."
Hi."
Hi."
..."
..."
Wow. My first Lindsey."
My second Colin."
That was fun. Let's try it again."
Sold."
..."
..."
..."
...”
― John Green, quote from An Abundance of Katherines
“the simple fact of bearing a responsibility can be something that gives meaning to life.”
― John Ajvide Lindqvist, quote from Little Star
“A sudden yowl from up ahead had them all starting. A small tree smoked on one side, the faint glow of fire darting from a burning patch of dead foliage. The yowl came again. Matt hurried over and peered up the tree to see a calico cat, its green eyes staring down, as if in accusation.
"No," Reyna said, stopping beside him. "We are not rescuing the cat."
"But the tree -"
"- is on fire. I see that. Have you ever owned a cat? If they can go up, they can come down. Guaranteed."
Matt eyed the feline. It eyed him back, then yowled, as if to say Well, hurry it up.
"It might be too scared to come down," he said.
"It's a cat," Reyna said. "They don't get scared - just annoyed, which I'm going to get if you insist on playing hero and rescuing that faker." She scowled at the cat. "Yes, I mean you. Faker."
The cat sniffed, then turned to Matt, clearly sensing the softer touch.
Owen stepped forward. "If you'll feel better rescuing the cat, Matt, then go ahead. We aren't on a tight schedule."
Reyna waved her arms around the smoking street. "Um, Ragnarök?"
"And the longer you two bicker ..."
"Fine," Reyna said. "I've got this." Before Matt could protest, she walked to the base of the tree, grabbed the lowest branch, and swung up. "Rodeo girl, remember? Also, five years of gymnastics, which my mother thought would make me more graceful and feminine. Her mistake."
She shimmied along a branch. "Come on, faker. I'm your designated hero for today." She looked down at Matt. "And if you ever tell anyone I rescued a cat from a tree ..."
Before Matt could answer, the cat sprang to the ground.
"Arggh!" Reyna said.
"You scared him out," Matt said. "He just needed the extra motivation. No, wait. It's a she. Calicos are almost always female."
"Are they? Huh." Reyna swung out. The cat sat on the ground below, watching.
"See?" Matt said. "She's grateful."
"She's gloating. Let's go.”
― K.L. Armstrong, quote from Thor's Serpents
“All the people who try to torment me, and who have now occupied the entire space around me, will quite gradually be thrust back by the beneficent passage of these days, without my having to help them even in the very least. And, as it will come about quite naturally, I can be weak and quiet and let everything happen to me, and yet everything must turn out well, through the sheer fact of the passing of days.”
― Franz Kafka, quote from The Complete Short Stories
“At least there was another human being to share the weight of this crushing knowledge.”
― Blake Crouch, quote from Wayward
“The emerging and vital truth isn’t who is more Neanderthal than whom. It’s that all peoples, everywhere, enjoyed archaic human lovers whenever they could. These DNA memories are buried deeper inside us than even our ids, and they remind us that the grand saga of how humans spread across the globe will need some personal, private, all-too-human amendments and annotations—rendezvous here, elopements there, and the commingling of genes most everywhere.”
― Sam Kean, quote from The Violinist's Thumb: And Other Lost Tales of Love, War, and Genius, as Written by Our Genetic Code
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.