“I guard my memories of my lost one jealously, keep them securely under wraps, like a folio of delicate watercolours that must be protected from the harsh light of day.”
― John Banville, quote from Ancient Light
“These things that were between us, these and a myriad others, a myriad myriad, these remain of her, but what will become of them when I am gone, I who am their repository and sole preserver?”
― John Banville, quote from Ancient Light
“¿Recordáis cómo era abril cuando éramos jóvenes, esa sensación de líquida impetuosidad y el viento extrayendo cucharadas azules del aire y los pájaros fuera de sí en los árboles que ya habían echado brotes?”
― John Banville, quote from Ancient Light
“Yes, another April; in a way, in this story, it is always April.”
― John Banville, quote from Ancient Light
“Sleep is uncanny, I have always found it so, a nightly dress-rehearsal for being dead.”
― John Banville, quote from Ancient Light
“Imágenes del pasado remoto se agolpan en mi cabeza, y la mitad de las veces soy incapaz de distinguir si son recuerdos o invenciones. Tampoco es que haya mucha diferencia, si es que hay alguna. Hay quien afirma que, sin darnos cuenta, nos lo vamos inventando todo, adornándolo y embelleciéndolo, y me inclino a creerlo, pues Madame Memoria es una gran y sutil fingidora. Los pecios que elijo salvar del naufragio general —¿y qué es la vida, sino un naufragio gradual?— a veces asumen un aspecto de inevitabilidad cuando los exhibo en sus vitrinas, pero son azarosos; quizá representativos, quizá de manera convincente, pero sin embargo azarosos.”
― John Banville, quote from Ancient Light
“Remember what April was like when we were young, that sense of liquid rushing and the wind taking blue scoops out of the air and the birds beside themselves in the budding trees?”
― John Banville, quote from Ancient Light
“Yet even without saying, each knew what the other was thinking, and, more acutely, what the other was feeling -- this is a further effect of our shared sorrow, this empathy, this mournful telepathy.”
― John Banville, quote from Ancient Light
“Whom now would I love, and who would love me?”
― John Banville, quote from Ancient Light
“of her blood. Oh, I do not say these are”
― John Banville, quote from Ancient Light
“What did I brood on, sitting there in the classic pose with my elbows on my knees and my chin on my hands? We do not need to go to the Greeks, our tragic predicament is written out on rolls of lavatory paper.”
― John Banville, quote from Ancient Light
“… убеждението, което ние всички храним на тази възраст, че семействата на нашите приятели са много симпатични, по-приятни и интересни – с една дума, по-желани, – отколкото нашите собствени?”
― John Banville, quote from Ancient Light
John Banville
Born place: in Wexford, Ireland
Born date December 8, 1945
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“I trust you have seen the ocean. If you have, then you have witnessed the divine. How barren the ground is in comparison! If I could count the hours I have spent staring out at it! And yet those hours never feel lost. I cannot imagine how else I could refill them were I given a second chance.”
― David Ebershoff, quote from The 19th Wife
“Just as many who were brought up to think of God as a bearded old gentleman sitting on a cloud decided that when they stopped believing in such a being they had therefore stopped believing in God, so many who were taught to think of hell as a literal underground location full of worms and fire...decided that when they stopped believing in that, so they stopped believing in hell. The first group decided that because they couldn't believe in childish images of God, they must be atheists. The second decided that because they couldn't believe in childish images of hell, they must be universalists.”
― N.T. Wright, quote from Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church
“If you were a man, your ladyship, I would cordially horsewhip you for that remark.”
― Deanna Raybourn, quote from Silent in the Grave
“You know, for someone who holds a position of legal authority as high as yours, you sure do like to throw away the rule book sometimes."
"Knowing the rules is one thing. Following them blindly all the time is something else again.”
― Kay Hooper, quote from Hunting Fear
“Not a breath, not a sound—except at intervals the muffled crackling of stones that the cold was reducing to sand—disturbed the solitude and silence surrounding Janine. After a moment, however, it seemed to her that the sky above her was moving in a sort of slow gyration. In the vast reaches of the dry, cold night, thousands of stars were constantly appearing, and their sparkling icicles, loosened at once, began to slip gradually towards the horizon. Janine could not tear herself away from contemplating those drifting flares. She was turning with them, and the apparently stationary progress little by little identified her with the core of her being, where cold and desire were now vying with each other. Before her the stars were falling one by one and being snuffed out among the stones of the desert, and each time Janine opened a little more to the night. Breathing deeply, she forgot the cold, the dead weight of others, the craziness or stuffiness of life, the long anguish of living and dying. After so many years of mad, aimless fleeing from fear, she had come to a stop at last. At the same time, she seemed to recover her roots and the sap again rose in her body, which had ceased trembling. Her whole belly pressed against the parapet as she strained towards the moving sky; she was merely waiting for her fluttering heart to calm down and establish silence within her. The last stars of the constellations dropped their clusters a little lower on the desert horizon and became still. Then, with unbearable gentleness, the water of night began to fill Janine, drowned the cold, rose gradually from the hidden core of her being and overflowed in wave after wave, rising up even to her mouth full of moans. The next moment, the whole sky stretched out over her, fallen on her back on the cold earth.”
― Albert Camus, quote from Exile and the Kingdom
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The Only Pirate at t...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.
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