“Cause you know, we live in different time, me in your yesterday, you in my tomorrow.”
― quote from Anterograde Tomorrow
“Where does a thought go when it’s forgotten?”
― quote from Anterograde Tomorrow
“Yesterday you loved me. Today you’ll love me again.”
― quote from Anterograde Tomorrow
“You don't deserve to see daisies wither.”
― quote from Anterograde Tomorrow
“Your name is Do Kyungsoo. You have short-term memory loss, antesomething amnesia, so you won’t remember what happened last night. But let me help you out.
Last night I put my head on this pillow and my arms around your waist. My name’s Kim Jongin. I call you hyung. Yesterday you loved me. Today you’ll love me again.
This is where you undressed me.
This is where I undressed you.
And here I pushed you up against the wall and kissed you really hard (approximately, it was kind of dark) and we thought we should have sex.
Here you sat, dangling your legs. I put my palm on your kneecap and you bent forward and kissed me first.
We talked about ballet. You hummed a tune and my fingers did an arabresque here, grand jeté onto the floor, fouetté en tourant and then sissonne on the back of your hand. Pas de valse fast up your arm and you smiled.
I leaned on this and read your green sticky notes while you went around cleaning up invisible messes. It came to me that all the green looks like grass, and grass is boring without daisies. So I hope you like yellow?
And here’s Kim Jongin. Say hello to me?”
― quote from Anterograde Tomorrow
“It’s funny because my life is full of this:
you think you’re escaping, until you run into yourself.
Twenty-three years later it turns out that the longest way round is the shortest way home,
and I’ve been running in circles since the get-go.
What a riot, huh?”
― quote from Anterograde Tomorrow
“The main problem of living in the city that never sleeps that neither did I.”
― Maria Dahvana Headley, quote from The Year of Yes
“Corliss wondered what happens to a book that sits unread on a library shelf for thirty years. Can a book rightfully be called a book if it never gets read?...
'How many books never get checked out," Corliss asked the librarian.
'Most of them,' she said.
Corliss never once considered the fate of library books. She loved books. How could she not worry about the unread? She felt like a disorganized scholar, an abusive mother, and a cowardly soldier.
'Are you serious?' Corliss asked. 'What are we talking about here? If you were guessing, what is the percentage of books in this library that never get checked out?'
'We're talking sixty percent of them. Seriously. Maybe seventy percent. And I'm being optimistic. It's probably more like eighty or ninety percent. This isn't a library, it's an orphanage.'
The librarian talked in a reverential whisper. Corliss knew she'd misjudged this passionate woman. Maybe she dressed poorly, but she was probably great in bed, certainly believed in God and goodness, and kept an illicit collection of overdue library books on her shelves.”
― Sherman Alexie, quote from Ten Little Indians
“When Mrs. Wiggins cried you could hear her down in Centerboro, and it was almost impossible to make her stop.”
― quote from Freddy and the Ignormus
“Don't believe that, dear. Don't ever believe that. Nobody's bad just because of the way they look. It's what's inside a person that counts.' 'But, Ma, what's inside a person? When people look different are they different inside, too?' Ma didn't answer, she was looking at her hands now, kneading a ball of dough. Saroj thought she had forgotten her and so she said, 'Ma?' Ma turned her eyes back to Saroj. 'I'll show you in a moment, dear. I'll just finish making these.' Saroj watched the stack of dhal puris grow into a flat round tower and then Ma said she was finished and covered them with a cloth and washed her hands. Then she opened the cupboard where she kept her spare jars and bottles and took out six jars and placed them on the kitchen counter. 'Do you see these jars, Saroj? Are they all the same?' Saroj shook her head. 'No, Ma.' The glasses were all different. There was a short flat one and a tall thin one and a medium-sized one, and other shapes in between. Some were different colours: green or brown or clear. 'All right. Now, just imagine these jars are people. People with different shapes of bodies and colours of skin. Can you do that?' Saroj nodded. 'Right. Well, now the bodies are empty. But look…’ Ma picked up a big glass jug, filled it at the tap and poured water into all the jars. 'See, Saroj? Now all the glasses are filled. All the bodies are alive! They have what we call a spirit. Now, is that spirit the same in all the glasses, or different?' 'It's the same, Ma. So people are —' But Ma broke in. 'Now, can you run into the pantry and get the tin where I keep my dyes? You know it, don't you?' Saroj was back even before Ma had finished speaking. Ma opened the tin and picked up one of the tiny bottles of powdered dye. It was cherry-coloured. Ma held the bottle over one of the jars and tipped a little of the powder into the water. Immediately, the water turned pink-red. Ma returned the cap to the bottle and picked up another one. The water turned lime-green. She did that six times and each time the water turned a different colour so that in the end Ma had six different shaped jars of six different colours. 'So, Saroj, now you answer me. Are these people here all the same inside, or are they all different?' Saroj took her time before answering. She puckered her brow and thought hard. Finally she said, 'Well, Ma, really they're all the same but the colours make them different.' 'Yes, but what is more real, the sameness or the differences?' Saroj thought hard again. Then she said: 'The sameness, Ma. Because the sameness holds up the differences. The differences are only the powders you put in.' 'Exactly. So think of all these people as having a spirit which is the same in each one, and yet each one is also different — that is because each person has a different personality. A personality is made up of thoughts, and everyone has different kinds of thoughts. Some have loving thoughts, some have angry thoughts, some have sad thoughts, some have mean thoughts. Most people have jumbles of thoughts — but everybody's thoughts are different, and so everybody is different. Different outside and different inside. And they see those differences in each other and they squabble and fight, because everyone thinks the way he is, is right. But if they could see through the differences to the oneness beyond, linking them all, then…’ 'Then what, Ma?' 'Then we would all be so wise, Saroj, and so happy!”
― Sharon Maas, quote from Of Marriageable Age
“She was endowed with great beauty for all those attributes that were outside her control, but it was said that in all characteristics for which she herself was responsible, she was utterly wicked”
― quote from Njal's Saga
The First and Last F...
Always
The Long Way to a Sm...
Incognito: The Secre...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.
