“لقد قرأت بعض الكتب فقط للتقليل من جهلي !”
― Amin Maalouf, quote from Balthasar's Odyssey
“حين يصبح الإيمان حقوداً ، بورك الذين يشككون !”
― Amin Maalouf, quote from Balthasar's Odyssey
“أنا الذي أشكك بكل شيء ، كيف لا أشكك كذلك بشكوكي ؟”
― Amin Maalouf, quote from Balthasar's Odyssey
“ما جدوى السفر حول العالم لرؤية ما يكمن أصلا في قرارة النفس ؟”
― Amin Maalouf, quote from Balthasar's Odyssey
“غيري يكتب كما يتكلم ، و أنا أكتب كما ألتزم الصمت”
― Amin Maalouf, quote from Balthasar's Odyssey
“وفي صلواتي صرت أرغب أن ابتهل قائلاً
يارب لاتنأى عني كثيراً ولا تقترب مني كثيراً كذلك !
دعني أتأمل النجوم على أهداب ثوبك ولكن لا تكشف لي عن وجهك !
اسمح لي أن أسمع خرير الأنهار التي تجعلها تجري والريح التي تنفخ في الأشجار وضحكات الأطفال الذين قد خلقتهم ولكن إلهي إلهي لا تسمح لي أن أسمع صوتك !”
― Amin Maalouf, quote from Balthasar's Odyssey
“فطبيعتى المتشككة التى أنشأنى عليها والدى تقينى من إستفاضات الإيمان العارمة - أو ربما يجدر بي القول إنها تحظر على أى ثبات , سواء فى الحفاظ على التعقل أو فى السعى وراء الأوهام”
― Amin Maalouf, quote from Balthasar's Odyssey
“Cette recommandation (Aime ton prochain comme toi-même) paraît, à première vue, irréprochable mais à voir ce que la plupart des gens font de leur vie, à voir ce qu'ils font de leur intelligence, je n'ai pas envie qu'ils m'aiment comme eux-mêmes.”
― Amin Maalouf, quote from Balthasar's Odyssey
“كم اشتهي أن أتذوق أيضا و أيضا ، تلك المتعة المرتسمة .لا لحرصي على إبقائها طاهرة للأبد . غير أني لم أمل تلك الجيرة المبهمة ، و ذلك التواطؤ المتعاظم ، و تلك الرغبة الحبلى بالمحن العذبة ، أي باختصار تلك الدرب التي نسلكها معا ، مبتهجين سرا ، و زاعمين في كل مرة أن العناية الإلهية وحدها التي تدفع أحدنا نحو الأخر.
تلك الرغبة تسحرني و لست على يقين من رغبتي بالعبور الى الجهة الأخرى من التلال .
أعرف أنها لعبة لا تخلو من الخطورة . ففي أية لحظة قد تحرقنا النيران ، و لكن كم كانت نهاية العالم تلوح بعيدة نائية في تلك الليلة.”
― Amin Maalouf, quote from Balthasar's Odyssey
“La route quelquefois s'agrémente de fables, comme le sommeil s'agrémente de songes, il faut savoir ouvrir les yeux à l'arrivée.”
― Amin Maalouf, quote from Balthasar's Odyssey
“هذه المرأة لم تشبع في قرارة نفسي شهوة الجسد التي تعتري الرحالة بل لطَّفت محنتي الأولى. فقد ولدت غريباً، وعشت غريباً، وسوف أموت وقد تعاظمت غربتي. وغروري يمنعني من ذكر العداء، والإهانات، والضغينة، والمعاناة. ولكن النظرات والحركات لا تخفي عليَّ. فعناق بعض النساء يلوح كالمنفى، وعناق بعضهن الآخر يذكر بالأرض الأم”
― Amin Maalouf, quote from Balthasar's Odyssey
“What's a year in comparison with eternity? what's a day? an hour? a second? Such measures have meaning only for a heart that's still beating.”
― Amin Maalouf, quote from Balthasar's Odyssey
“I look at the world and my own life as if I were a stranger. I wish for nothing, except perhaps that time would stop.”
― Amin Maalouf, quote from Balthasar's Odyssey
“...people always manage to 'prove' what they want to believe; they'd be just as well off if they tried to prove the opposite.”
― Amin Maalouf, quote from Balthasar's Odyssey
“What strange times we live in, when good must disguise itself in the tawdry rags of evil!”
― Amin Maalouf, quote from Balthasar's Odyssey
“Some women's arms are places of exile; others are a native land.”
― Amin Maalouf, quote from Balthasar's Odyssey
“Perhaps writing only arouses the passions in order to allay them, as beaters flush out the game in order to expose it to the hunter's arrows.”
― Amin Maalouf, quote from Balthasar's Odyssey
“So I've become an exile without ever leaving my country.”
― Amin Maalouf, quote from Balthasar's Odyssey
“Some women's arms are placed of exile; others are a native land.”
― Amin Maalouf, quote from Balthasar's Odyssey
“...it's better to wake up amid the pangs of desire than amid those of remorse.”
― Amin Maalouf, quote from Balthasar's Odyssey
“Because people are ever willing to believe the negative over the positive. It’s easier for you to think me corrupt and evil than it is for you to see me for what I really am. No one wants to believe that some people are willing to help others out of the goodness of their hearts because they can’t stand to see someone suffer. So few people are altruistic that they can’t understand or conceive that anyone else in the world could ever put someone else’s good above their own. (Leta)”
― Sherrilyn Kenyon, quote from Upon the Midnight Clear
“LATER.—After seven days of almost ceaseless goose-stepping, speech-making, and pageantry, the party rally came to an end tonight. And though dead tired and rapidly developing a bad case of crowd-phobia, I’m glad I came. You have to go through one of these to understand Hitler’s hold on the people, to feel the dynamic in the movement he’s unleashed and the sheer, disciplined strength the Germans possess. And now—as Hitler told the correspondents yesterday in explaining his technique—the half-million men who’ve been here during the week will go back to their towns and villages and preach the new gospel with new fanaticism. Shall sleep late tomorrow and take the night train back to Berlin.”
― William L. Shirer, quote from Berlin Diary: The Journal of a Foreign Correspondent 1934-1941
“Everybody's crooked. The trick is to find out how they're bent.”
― Jennifer Crusie, quote from Faking It
“And he has guns and dogs that would make the Hound of Baskervilles seem like a bleeding Pekinese.”
― David Baldacci, quote from Deliver Us from Evil
“You should know that there is little you can seek in this world, that there is no need for you to be so greedy, in the end all you can achieve are memories, hazy, intangible, dreamlike memories which are impossible to articulate. When you try to relate them, there are only sentences, the dregs left from the filter of linguistic structures.”
― Gao Xingjian, quote from Soul Mountain
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.