Quotes from Arclight

Josin L. McQuein ·  403 pages

Rating: (4K votes)


“Someone's attention shouldn't have a physical weight, but it does. Hate's a heavy burden; hope is worse.”
― Josin L. McQuein, quote from Arclight


“I know one thing about the place I came from,' I say. 'We didn't eat dessert.'

'Then you came from a horrible and backward place and must stay here out of self-preservation.”
― Josin L. McQuein, quote from Arclight


“What sense is there in ending another life when we’re trying to keep the world from dying?”
― Josin L. McQuein, quote from Arclight


“She wants to know why she can’t hear you,” Rue explains. “I told her your voice has been lost, so she’s keeping your hand until it comes back.”
― Josin L. McQuein, quote from Arclight


“I wasn’t home. Home wasn’t that bed and that pain. Home didn’t hurt. There were no strangers who hid their faces or their voices from me. Home held no secrets.”
― Josin L. McQuein, quote from Arclight



“You cannot murder someone in the Safe Room, okay?”
― Josin L. McQuein, quote from Arclight


Light is safety; light is life
The first rule of the Arclight.”
― Josin L. McQuein, quote from Arclight


“Do you have any matches?"
"What for?" The suspicion is back in his voice. That's the Tobin I know and lo-
Well, that's the Tobin I know, anyway.”
― Josin L. McQuein, quote from Arclight


“Fire and light. With all our safety measures, and all our weapons, it's the primitive things that keep us safe.”
― Josin L. McQuein, quote from Arclight


Priority target... no way is that a good thing.”
― Josin L. McQuein, quote from Arclight



“We unify. We include."
"But humans like being individuals."
"We know," Rue said. He pushes off the ground with his foot, starting the swing into a slow sway. "We didn't understand-individuals like being lonely."
"It's not lonely." Hopefully he can't tell I'm lying.”
― Josin L. McQuein, quote from Arclight


About the author

Josin L. McQuein
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“Five months after Zoran's disappearance, his wife gave birth to a girl. The mother was unable to nurse the child. The city was being shelled continuously. There were severe food shortages. Infants, like the infirm and the elderly, were dying in droves. The family gave the baby tea for five days, but she began to fade.

"She was dying," Rosa Sorak said. "It was breaking our hearts."

Fejzić, meanwhile, was keeping his cow in a field on the eastern edge of Goražde, milking it at night to avoid being hit by Serbian snipers.

"On the fifth day, just before dawn, we heard someone at the door," said Rosa Sorak. "It was Fadil Fejzić in his black rubber boots. He handed up half a liter of milk he came the next morning, and the morning after that, and after that. Other families on the street began to insult him. They told him to give his milk to Muslims, to let the Chetnik children die. He never said a word. He refused our money. He came 442 days, until my daughter-in-law and granddaughter left Goražde for Serbia."

The Soraks eventually left and took over a house that once belonged to a Muslim family in the Serbian-held town of Kopaci. Two miles to the east. They could no longer communicate with Fejzić.

The couple said they grieved daily for their sons. They missed their home. They said they could never forgive those who took Zoran from them. But they also said that despite their anger and loss, they could not listen to other Sebs talking about Muslims, or even recite their own sufferings, without telling of Fejzić and his cow. Here was the power of love. What this illiterate farmer did would color the life of another human being, who might never meet him, long after he was gone, in his act lay an ocean of hope.”
― Chris Hedges, quote from War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning


“Throughout history, different cultures have produced creation myths that explain our origins as the result of cosmic forces shaping our destiny. These histories have helped us to ward off feelings of insignificance. Although origin stories typically begin with the big picture, they get down to Earth with impressive speed, zipping past the creation of the universe, of all its contents, and of life on Earth, to arrive at long explanations of myriad details of human history and its social conflicts, as if we somehow formed the center of creation.”
― Neil deGrasse Tyson, quote from Origins: Fourteen Billion Years of Cosmic Evolution


“And as to me, I know nothing else but miracles”
― Walt Whitman, quote from Leaves of Grass: The First (1855) Edition


“ALICE was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do:”
― Lewis Carroll, quote from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Other Stories


“Ich versuche mir vorzustellen, wie es wäre, wenn mir dies Erleben zum ersten Mal auf solche Art zuteil geworden wäre. Ich muß den Gedanken abbremsen, so was ist nicht vorstellbar. Eines ist klar: Wäre an dem Mädchen irgendwann in Friedenszeiten durch einen herumstreunenden Kerl die Notzucht verübt worden, wäre hinterher das übliche Friedensbrimborium von Anzeige, Protokoll, Vernehmung, ja von Verhaftung und Gegenüberstellung, Zeitungsbericht und Nachbarngetue gewesen – das Mädel hätte anders reagiert, hätte einen anderen Schock davongetragen. Hier aber handelt es sich um ein Kollektiv-Erlebnis, vorausgewußt, viele Male vorausbefürchtet – um etwas, das den Frauen links und rechts und nebenan zustieß, das gewissermaßen dazu gehörte. Diese kollektive Massenform der Vergewaltigung wird auch kollektiv überwunden werden. Jede hilft jeder, indem sie darüber spricht, sich Luft macht, der anderen Gelegenheit gibt sich Luft zu machen, das Erlittene auszuspeien. Was natürlich nicht ausschließt, das feinere Organismen als diese abgebrühte Berliner Göre daran zerbrechen oder doch auf Lebenszeit einen Knacks davontragen.”
― quote from A Woman in Berlin: Eight Weeks in the Conquered City: A Diary


Interesting books

Up to Me
(32.5K)
Up to Me
by Michelle Leighton
Reasons I Fell for the Funny Fat Friend
(7K)
Reasons I Fell for t...
by Cassie Mae
Mastery
(16.7K)
Mastery
by Robert Greene
Don't Let Me Go
(12.5K)
Don't Let Me Go
by Catherine Ryan Hyde
The Last Days of Lorien
(5.9K)
The Last Days of Lor...
by Pittacus Lore
Inevitable
(11.5K)
Inevitable
by Angela Graham

About BookQuoters

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.