“From the anarchists of tsarist Russia to the IRA of 1916, from the Irgun and the Stern Gang to the EOKA in Cyprus, from the Baader-Meinhof group in Germany, the CCC in Belgium, the Action Directe in France, the Red Brigades in Italy, the Red Army Faction again in Germany, the Rengo Sekigun in Japan, through to the Shining Path in Peru to the modern IRA in Ulster or the ETA in Spain, terrorism came from the minds of the comfortably raised, well-educated, middle-class theorists with a truly staggering personal vanity and a developed taste for self-indulgence.”
“The hatred of your country is not because it attacks theirs; it is because it keeps theirs safe. Never seek popularity. You can have supremacy or be loved but never both. What is felt toward you is ten percent genuine disagreement and ninety percent envy. Never forget two things! No man can ever forgive his protector. There is no loathing that any man harbors more intense than that toward his benefactor.”
“When it came to evil, to tolerate was to accommodate, to accommodate was to appease, and to appease was to concede defeat.”
“The United Nations had created a military “peacekeeping” force—the usual lunacy of sending a force to keep the peace where there was no peace to keep, then forbidding them to create the peace, ordering them instead to watch the slaughter without interfering.”
“One of the aspects of the genius of Franklin Delano Roosevelt was that, although a convinced Democrat, he was quite prepared to use talent wherever he found it.”
“Almost all great fortunes are based upon one cracking good idea and the guts to go with it”
“As he went down the steps to the street, something was troubling him. Something about the Vietcong officer, his face, the expression of frozen astonishment.
At the end of the street passers-by turned to look at the young lawyer who threw back his head and laughed at the madness of Fate. Absently he rubbed his left hand where the one-time enemy's hot nut oil in the tunnel had scalded him.”
“The easiest way to steal a man’s wallet is to tell him you’re going to steal his watch. You take his attention and direct it where you want it to go.”
“I am twenty years old. To a world-wise adult, I am little more than a child. To any child, however, I am old enough to be distrusted, to be excluded forever from the magical community of the short and beardless.”
“Hey, our hair's the same color," I said, eying us side by side in the mirror.
"Sure is, girlfriend." Eric grinned at me.”
“I learned that there is good in this world, if you look hard enough for it. I learned that not everyone is disappointing, including me, and that a 1,257-foot bump in the ground can feel higher than a bell tower if you’re standing next to the right person.”
“The sky above them was an intense velvety black, changing to bands of Indian red on the horizon, where the great stars burned like street-lamps. From time to time a greenish wave of the Northern Lights would roll across the hollow of the high heavens, flick like a flag, and disappear; or a meteor would crackle from darkness to darkness, trailing a shower of sparks behind. Then they could see the ridged and furrowed surface of the floe tipped and laced with strange colours—red, copper, and bluish; but in the ordinary starlight everything turned to one frost-bitten gray.”
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.