“Then there were so many things to be said that they did not speak of any of them.”
― quote from As a Driven Leaf
“Does man not face life with a greater assurance is he believes that a benevolent providence foresees the future? And yet he must at the same time be confident that his will is free, otherwise moral support is meaningless altogether. Doctrines in themselves are not important to me, but their consequences are. For example, I urge upon men that they regard themselves as embodiments of the divine essence. If I convince them, their days are endowed with a sense of abiding significance and unturning glory. Then not all the misfortunes and degradations to which they may be subjected can take from them their feelings of oneness with angels and stars. And as for our people, persecuted and dispersed, they live under the shadow of death, cherishing a dream that is recurrently shattered by the caprice of tyrants and then dreamed again half in despair. What can enable such a people to persist except a conviction of a special relationship to God?”
― quote from As a Driven Leaf
“Stop," she shrieked, "stop trying to make it easier."
"But we do not love each other. We never have..."
"You mean," she screamed, "you have never loved me.”
― quote from As a Driven Leaf
“Do you remember, Meir, that epigram quoted in the name of Rabbi Johanan ben Zaccai: 'There is no truth unless there be a faith on which it may rest'? Ironically enough the only sure principle I have achieved is this which I have known almost all my life. And it is so. For all truths rest ultimately on some act of faith, geometry on axioms, the sciences on the assumptions of the objective existence and orderliness of the world of nature. In every realm one must lay down postulates or he shall have nothing at all. So with morality and religion. Faith and reason are not antagonists. On the contrary, salvation is through the commingling of the two, the former to establish first premises, the latter to purify them of confusion and to draw the fullness of their implications. It is not certainty which one acquires so, only plausibility, but that is the best we can hope for.”
― quote from As a Driven Leaf
“That is the fantastic intolerable paradox of my life, that I have gone questing for what I possessed initially -- a belief to invest my days with dignity and meaning, a pattern of behavior through which man might most articulately express his devotion to his fellows.”
― quote from As a Driven Leaf
“Although Pirahã nouns are simple, Pirahã verbs are much more complicated. Each verb can have as many as sixteen suffixes—that is, up to sixteen suffixes in a row. Not all suffixes are always required, however. Since a suffix can be present or absent, this gives us two possibilities for each of the sixteen suffixes—216, or 65,536, possible forms for any Pirahã verb.”
― Daniel L. Everett, quote from Don't Sleep, There Are Snakes: Life and Language in the Amazonian Jungle
“The ideal or the dream would be to arrive at a language that heals as much as it separates.”
― Susan Sontag, quote from Against Interpretation and Other Essays
“The only choice we have as we mature is how we inhabit our vulnerability, how we become larger and more courageous and more compassionate through our intimacy with disappearance...”
― David Whyte, quote from Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words
“No, I’m telling you that you’re the only thing on this earth that has made me feel connected to what’s here. When I’m with you, I know what’s real. I can feel it, touch it. When I’m with you, I’m something more than . . . other. When I’m not with you, my head’s in the stars.”
― Kyra Davis, quote from Just One Night
“Most people want easy answers to life. They will agree with whatever the echo chamber around them says as long as it means they don’t have to think for themselves. Only a precious few can cope with ambiguity and carry on.”
― J.D. Horn, quote from The Source
King Rat
Abarat
Kiss of Death
The Lions of Al-Rass...
In a Sunburned Count...
Shades of GreyBookQuoters 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.
