“There never was a story that was happy through and through.”
― Marcus Sedgwick, quote from Blood Red, Snow White
“He had learned something already in the course of his journey. If you carried a closed wooden box, people want to know what is in it.”
― Marcus Sedgwick, quote from Blood Red, Snow White
“Stories twist and turn and grow and meet and give birth to other stories. Here and there, one story touches another, and a familiar character, sometimes the hero, walks over the bridge from one story into another.”
― Marcus Sedgwick, quote from Blood Red, Snow White
“She risked her life to put your mind at rest,' Evgenia said. 'How great is love!”
― Marcus Sedgwick, quote from Blood Red, Snow White
“You have life written all over you. Some people bear tragedy on their faces; loss, death, whatever it might be. But you have life.”
― Marcus Sedgwick, quote from Blood Red, Snow White
“Slowly he had learned that there is a world beneath the visible one, and that people, some people at least, have a different life, that they carry inside them.”
― Marcus Sedgwick, quote from Blood Red, Snow White
“Love, he decided, is not about how much someone else cares for you, it's about how much you care for someone else.”
― Marcus Sedgwick, quote from Blood Red, Snow White
“The time for princes and tsars and holy madmen was gone.
In its place came a world of war and revolution, of tanks and
telephones, murder and assassination.”
― Marcus Sedgwick, quote from Blood Red, Snow White
“Why were there some people who seemed so sure of themselves that it made him feel small and ignorant by comparison, as if they had a script to life with all the answers on it? He felt he didn't even know the questions.”
― Marcus Sedgwick, quote from Blood Red, Snow White
“And that was how the young writer found love, just when he had stopped looking for it.”
― Marcus Sedgwick, quote from Blood Red, Snow White
“The bear, which by now was as large as the cathedral on Catherine’s canal, rose on its hind legs like a dancing bear in a street market. For a moment the sun was blotted out by its size, and then it fell. As it fell, it came apart. It disintegrated. It fell like brown snow, but each flake was a person. The bear had been one hundred thousand people, and now the people came to earth, tumbling into the snowy streets of the city and picking themselves up, laughing at it all. Far from being hurt, they realised that they felt strong. But, like the bear, they felt hungry. They ran through the streets, swarming like bees, joining others who had emerged when the sun had. It was chaos.”
― Marcus Sedgwick, quote from Blood Red, Snow White
“The time for princes and tsars and grand duchesses and especially holy madmen was gone. In its place came a world of war and revolution, of tanks and telephones, of murder and assassination. The bear had already become what it had been waiting to be, and the men who set it on its journey changed too. Lev became Trotsky, Vladimir took the name Lenin, and they stepped into a bright and furious modern world; blood red, and snow white.”
― Marcus Sedgwick, quote from Blood Red, Snow White
“At first it had been a torrent; now it was a tide, with a flow and ebb. During its flood she could almost fool them both. It was as if out of her knowledge that it was just a flow that must presently react was born a wilder fury, a fierce denial that could flag itself and him into physical experimentation that transcended imagining, carried them as though by momentum alone, bearing them without volition or plan. It was as if she knew somehow that time was short, that autumn was almost upon her, without knowing yet the exact significance of autumn. It seemed to be instinct alone: instinct physical and instinctive denial of the wasted years. Then the tide would ebb. Then they would be stranded as behind a dying mistral, upon a spent and satiate beach, looking at one another like strangers, with hopeless and reproachful (on his part with weary: on hers with despairing) eyes.”
― William Faulkner, quote from Light in August
“Ich war eigentlich in meine Liebe damals verliebt, in meinen veränderten Zustand, weniger in die Frau, die dazu gehörte.”
― Robert Musil, quote from The Man Without Qualities
“There were, however, a few exceptions.
One was Norma Dodsworth, the poet, who had not unpleasantly drunk but had been sensible enough to pass out before any violent action proved necessary. He had been deposited, not very gently, on the lawn, where it was hoped that a hyena would give him a rude awakening. For all practical purposes he could, therefore, be regarded as absent.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, quote from Childhood's End
“How did men believe in something that preached love on one hand, yet taught destruction of unbelievers on the other? How did one rationalize belief with no proof? How could they honestly expect him to have faith in something that taught of miracles and wonders in the far past, but carefully gave excuses for why such things didn't occur in the present day?”
― Brandon Sanderson, quote from The Hero of Ages
“Smoking had become my favorite thing in the world to do. It was like having instant comfort, no matter where or when.”
― Augusten Burroughs, quote from Running with Scissors
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.