“I think I can remember
being dead. Many times, in winter,
I approached Zeus. Tell me, I would ask him,
how can I endure the earth?”
― Louise Glück, quote from Averno
“Doesn’t everyone want to feel in the night
the beloved body, compass, polestar,
to hear the quiet breathing that says
I am alive, that means also
you are alive, because you hear me,
you are here with me”
― Louise Glück, quote from Averno
“I am tired of having hands
she said
I want wings —
But what will you do without your hands
to be human?
I am tired of human
she said
I want to live on the sun —”
― Louise Glück, quote from Averno
“It is true that there is not enough beauty in the world.
It is also true that I am not competent to restore it.
Neither is there candor, and here I may be of some use.”
― Louise Glück, quote from Averno
“The assignment was to fall in love.
The details were up to you.
The second part was
to include in the poem certain words,
words drawn from a specific text
on another subject altogether.”
― Louise Glück, quote from Averno
“The sound of the sea— just memory now.”
― Louise Glück, quote from Averno
“You get on a train, you disappear.
You write your name on the window, you disappear.
There are places like this everywhere,
places you enter as a young girl
from which you never return.”
― Louise Glück, quote from Averno
“I fell asleep in a river, I woke in a river,
of my mysterious
failure to die I can tell you
nothing, neither
who saved me nor for what cause—”
― Louise Glück, quote from Averno
“When they behave properly, you will say there is no problem. When they complain loudly, you will say they cause their own problems with their impropriety. And when they are driven to extremes, you say you will not reward such actions. What will it take for you to listen?”
― Ann Leckie, quote from Ancillary Sword
“I won't let anyone hurt you."
If a heart can smile, mine does.
"Bodee, thanks," I say, though I know he doesn't need it. "I'm sorry you lost her."
"At least I found you," he says.”
― Courtney C. Stevens, quote from Faking Normal
“Because people should not be punished for loving and hoping and holding their hearts open.”
― Damon Suede, quote from Hot Head
“We come from goldfish, essentially, but that [doesn’t] mean we turned around and killed all the goldfish. Maybe [the AIs] will feed us once a week…. If you had a machine with a 10 to the 18th power IQ over humans, wouldn’t you want it to govern, or at least control your economy? —SETH SHOSTAK”
― Ray Kurzweil, quote from The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology
“You look very librarian.” He’s right. The blue dress falls just below the knee and is probably the frumpiest-looking thing I’ve ever worn, but at least it’s loose enough that I can fight in it if I have to.”
― Rysa Walker, quote from Time's Edge
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.