“It's a simple matter of mathematics.”
― Jean Lee Latham, quote from Carry On, Mr. Bowditch
“Behind Nat someone chuckled. Nat turned. Dr. Bentley was looking at him with a twinkle. "Is this a political argument?"
Nat shrugged. "No argument at all. Ben's got an article there that talks against the President. I said I didn't want to hear it. I said that sort of thing ought to be stopped."
To Nat's amazement, Dr. Bentley shook his head. "No, Nat. We can't have freedom—unless we have freedom."
Nat stiffened. "Does that mean right to tell lies?"
Dr. Bentley smiled. "It means the right to have our own opinions. Human problems aren't like mathematics, Nat. Every problem doesn't have just one answer; sometimes you get several answers—and you don't know which is the right one.”
― Jean Lee Latham, quote from Carry On, Mr. Bowditch
“A strong man sails by ash breeze!”
― Jean Lee Latham, quote from Carry On, Mr. Bowditch
“Mother did not answer. She was still gazing up at the sky. After a while she said, "I made up a sort of saying for myself, Nat. I will lift up my eyes unto the stars. Sometimes, if you look at the stars long enough, it helps. It shrinks your day-by-day troubles down to size." She smiled. 'We'd better go back. Granny and Father will be wondering where we are.”
― Jean Lee Latham, quote from Carry On, Mr. Bowditch
“We can't have freedom unless we have freedom. And that means freedom to speak our minds.”
― Jean Lee Latham, quote from Carry On, Mr. Bowditch
“He would have been forty-two years old in two months. His forty-first had been his very last birthday, as it turned out.”
― David Baldacci, quote from The Last Mile
“I agree that two and two make four is an excellent thing; but to give everything its due, two and two make five is also a very fine thing.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, quote from Notes from Underground & The Double
“You reach a certain age when reality grabs you by the scruff of the neck and shouts in your face:"Hey, look, this is what life is." And you have to open your eyes and look at it, listen to it, smell it: people who don't like you, things you don't want to do, things that hurt, things that scare you, questions without answers, feelings you don't understand, feelings you don't want but have no control over.
Reality.
When you gradually come to realise that all that stuff in books, films, television, magazines, newspapers, comics - it's all rubbish. It's got nothing to do with anything. It's all made up. It doesn't happen like that. It's not real. It means nothing. Reality is what you see when you look out of the window of a bus: dour faces, sad and temporary lives, millions of cars, metal, bricks, glass, rain, cruel laughter, ugliness, dirt, bad teeth, crippled pigeons, little kids in pushchairs who've already forgotten how to smile ...”
― Kevin Brooks, quote from Martyn Pig
“Are they always so mean?” I asked.
“It’s the oldest story in the book— the bullied become the bullies.”
― David Clawson, quote from My Fairy Godmother Is a Drag Queen
“Her smile was something I couldn't describe, except to say that it seemed to be queenly in the way that queens remind you of situations grander than your own puny life could conceive.”
― Joshua Gaylord, quote from When We Were Animals
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.