“Fairy Tales always have a happy ending.' That depends... on whether you are Rumpelstiltskin or the Queen.”
― Jane Yolen, quote from Briar Rose
“Time may heal all wounds, but it does not erase the scars.”
― Jane Yolen, quote from Briar Rose
“Stories," he'd said, his voice low and almost husky, "we are made up of stories. And even the ones that seem the most like lies can be our deepest hidden truths.”
― Jane Yolen, quote from Briar Rose
“A mist. A great mist. It covered the entire kingdom. And everyone in it - the good people and the not so good, the young people and the not-so-young, and even Briar Rose's mother and father fell asleep. Everyone slept: lords and ladies, teacher and tummlers, dogs and doves, rabbits and rabbitzen and all kinds of citizens. So fast asleep they were, they were not able to wake up for a hundred years.”
― Jane Yolen, quote from Briar Rose
“Happy-ever-after is a fairy-tale notion, not history. I know of no woman who escaped from Chelmno alive.”
― Jane Yolen, quote from Briar Rose
“A mist still lay all about the walls and floors, hovering like a last breath on the lips of all the sleepers. As he walked through the castle, he marveled at how many lay asleep: the good people, the not-so-good, the young people and the not-so-young, and not one of them stirring. Not one.”
― Jane Yolen, quote from Briar Rose
“All around the castle, a briary hedge began to grow, with thorns as sharp as barbs.”
― Jane Yolen, quote from Briar Rose
“Once upon a time," Gemma began, the older two girls whispering the opening with her, "which is all times and no times but not the very best of times,there was a castle. And in it lived a king who wanted nothing more in the world than a child.”
― Jane Yolen, quote from Briar Rose
“We, the Sworn Sisterhood, do solemnly vow to take back Acadia from those who are responsible for the scourge of the dragon and the tempests. We will fight them with our hands and our weapons. We will fight them with the power of our conviction. We will face the enemy without fear. We will take the enemy down and bring the enemy to justice and there is nothing that can stand in our way.”
― Mercedes Lackey, quote from One Good Knight
“It was a truism that all civilizations were basically neurotic until they made contact with everybody else and found their place within the ever-changing meta-civilisation of other beings, because, until then, during the stage when they honestly believed they might be entirely alone in existence, all solo societies were possessed of both an inflated sense of their own importance and a kind of existential terror at the sheer scale and apparent emptiness of the universe.”
― Iain M. Banks, quote from The Algebraist
“He could be as memorable an orator as his father, particularly when he was speaking on that topic that had captured his imagination;”
― Robert A. Caro, quote from Master of the Senate
“The method he adopted in building the bridge was as follows. He took a pair of piles a foot and a half thick, slightly pointed at the lower ends and of a length adapted to the varying depth of the river, and fastened them together two feet apart. These he lowered into the river with appropriate tackle, placed them in position at right angles to the bank, and drove them home with pile-drivers, not vertically, as piles are generally fixed, but obliquely, inclined in the direction of the current. Opposite these, forty feet lower down the river, another pair of piles was planted, similarly fixed together, and inclined in the opposite direction to the current. The two pairs were then joined by a beam two feet wide, whose ends fitted exactly into the spaces between the two piles forming each pair. The upper pair was kept at the right distance from the lower pair by means of iron braces, one of which was used to fasten each pile to the end of the beam. The pairs of piles being thus held apart, and each pair individually strengthened by a diagonal tie between the two piles, the whole structure was so rigid, that, in accordance with the laws of physics, the greater the force of the current, the more tightly were the piles held in position. A series of these piles and transverse beams was carried right across the stream and connected by lengths of timber running in the direction of the bridge; on these were laid poles and bundles of sticks. In spite of the strength of the structure, additional piles were fixed obliquely to each pair of the original piles along the whole length of the downstream side of the bridge, holding them up like a buttress and opposing the force of the current. Others were fixed also a little above the bridge, so that if the natives tried to demolish it by floating down tree-trunks or beams, these buffers would break the force of the impact and preserve the bridge from injury.”
― Gaius Julius Caesar, quote from The Conquest of Gaul
“Jesus never met a disease he could not cure, a birth defect he could not reverse, a demon he could not exorcise. But he did meet skeptics he could not convince and sinners he could not convert. Forgiveness of sins requires an act of will on the receiver's part, and some who heard Jesus' strongest words about grace and forgiveness turned away unrepentant.”
― Philip Yancey, quote from The Jesus I Never Knew
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.