“One strain could call up the quivering expectancy of Christmas Eve, childhood, joy and sadness, the lonely wonder of a star”
― Maud Hart Lovelace, quote from Betsy Was a Junior
“Our lives can hold just so much. If they're filled with one thing, they can't be filled with another. We ought to do a lot of thinking about what we want to fill them with.”
― Maud Hart Lovelace, quote from Betsy Was a Junior
“We'll just have to find more flowers in the spring. That's when they bloom, tra la.”
― Maud Hart Lovelace, quote from Betsy Was a Junior
“All those resolutions she had made on Babcock's bay! How they had been smashed to smithereens! She wondered whether life consisted of making resolutions and breaking them, of climbing up and slipping down.
'I believe that's it', she thought. 'And the bright side of it is that you never slip down to quite the point you started climbing from. You always gain a little....'
She thought about those lists she had made in her programs for self-improvement. She hadn't followed them out by any means, but they had revealed her ideals....
'We're growing up,' Betsy said aloud. She wasn't even sure she liked it. But it happened, and then it was irrevocable. There was nothing you could do about it except try to see that you grew up into the kind of human being you wanted to be.
'I'd like to be a fine one,' Betsy thought quickly and urgently.”
― Maud Hart Lovelace, quote from Betsy Was a Junior
“We're growing up and I don't like it," said Tacy, as they say at Heinz's later, drinking coffee.”
― Maud Hart Lovelace, quote from Betsy Was a Junior
“Our lives can only hold so much. If they’re filled with one thing, they can’t be filled with another. We ought to do a lot of thinking about what we want to fill them with.”
― Maud Hart Lovelace, quote from Betsy Was a Junior
“New things are easier to do than old familiar things when there's going to be a change," Betsy decided profoundly.”
― Maud Hart Lovelace, quote from Betsy Was a Junior
“A man bumps me on his busy way without so much as an apology. But that is all right. I forgive you, busy man about town with the sharp elbows. Hail and farewell to you! For I, Gemma Doyle, am to have a splendid Christmas in London town. All shall be well.
God rest us merry gentlemen. And gentlewomen.”
― Libba Bray, quote from Rebel Angels
“...You know that my spells come from God, and that I would not harm any living creature. You believe that everyone should worship God in the way revealed to him. But that is not the way of this country. The way here is for all to do alike. I am despised because I do not wear shoes, because I do not cut my hair, and because I have visions. At home, in the old country, there were many like me, who had been touched by God, or who had seen things in the graveyard at night and were different afterward. We thought nothing of it, and let them alone. But here, if a man is different in his feet or in his head, they put him in the asylum. . . . That is the way; they have built the asylum for people who are different, and they will not even let us live in the holes with the badgers.”
― Willa Cather, quote from O Pioneers!
“and rising extremely unlike Phoebus with the dawn to prepare the schoolhouse.”
― Peter Straub, quote from Ghost Story
“My compliments," Alek said slowly and evenly. "Your contempt was most convincing."
"I am your servant.”
― Scott Westerfeld, quote from Leviathan
“Thus, though I dislike to differ with such a great man, Voltaire was simply ludicrous when he said that if god did not exist it would be necessary to invent him. The human invention of god is the problem to begin with.”
― Christopher Hitchens, quote from god is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything
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.