“كأن أحدهم بعث بإشارة سرية تخبرهم أن الحياة ببساطة ليست قواعد ومحظورات وقيود، بل مشاعر أقل عقلانية وأقل رشداً وأكثر حرية مما ظلوا يعتقدونه حتى هذه اللحظة”
― Sándor Márai, quote from Casanova in Bolzano
“لا شئ أخطر من رجل لا يخضع للطاغية”
― Sándor Márai, quote from Casanova in Bolzano
“لحظة واحدة مكتملة قد تحوي أكثر إلي ما لا نهاية مما سبقها من سنوات وعقود غير مكتملة”
― Sándor Márai, quote from Casanova in Bolzano
“على المرء أن يتقبل الأحداث ويدعها تأخذ مسارها فحسب”
― Sándor Márai, quote from Casanova in Bolzano
“إن كل شئ يذهب، ما نفعله، وما نرغب فيه، وما نحبه، وما نقوله، النساء والعلاقات ، يتراكم تراب الزمن علي كل ما فعلناه، كل ما أثارنا ذات مرة .. لكن الكلمات وحدها تبقي”
― Sándor Márai, quote from Casanova in Bolzano
“لم أكتفِ بعد من الضحك علي الحماقة البشرية”
― Sándor Márai, quote from Casanova in Bolzano
“أن تعيش يعني أحياناً أن تنتظر”
― Sándor Márai, quote from Casanova in Bolzano
“يريد الناس الحب مجاناً، وبدون التزامات إن أمكن”
― Sándor Márai, quote from Casanova in Bolzano
“ألا تظن أيها الغريب أن ثمة نوعاً من الرجال تكمن كل قوة جاذبيته، كل مميزاته وكل سحره، في عجزه عن أن يكون سعيداً؟”
― Sándor Márai, quote from Casanova in Bolzano
“الحاضر ليس سوى استمرار لمحادثة بدأت منذ زمن طويل”
― Sándor Márai, quote from Casanova in Bolzano
“Meditation is not about getting rid of all your thoughts; it’s learning not to get so lost in them that you forget what your goal is. Don’t worry if your focus isn’t perfect when meditating. Just practice coming back to the breath, again and again.”
― Kelly McGonigal, quote from The Willpower Instinct: How Self-Control Works, Why It Matters, and What You Can Do to Get More of It
“I had a bizarre rapport with this mirror and spent a lot of time gazing into the glass to see who was there. Sometimes it looked like me. At other times, I could see someone similar but different in the reflection. A few times, I caught the switch in mid-stare, my expression re-forming like melting rubber, the creases and features of my face softening or hardening until the mutation was complete. Jekyll to Hyde, or Hyde to Jekyll. I felt my inner core change at the same time. I would feel more confident or less confident; mature or childlike; freezing cold or sticky hot, a state that would drive Mum mad as I escaped to the bathroom where I would remain for two hours scrubbing my skin until it was raw.
The change was triggered by different emotions: on hearing a particular piece of music; the sight of my father, the smell of his brand of aftershave. I would pick up a book with the certainty that I had not read it before and hear the words as I read them like an echo inside my head. Like Alice in the Lewis Carroll story, I slipped into the depths of the looking glass and couldn’t be sure if it was me standing there or an impostor, a lookalike.
I felt fully awake most of the time, but sometimes while I was awake it felt as if I were dreaming. In this dream state I didn’t feel like me, the real me. I felt numb. My fingers prickled. My eyes in the mirror’s reflection were glazed like the eyes of a mannequin in a shop window, my colour, my shape, but without light or focus.
These changes were described by Dr Purvis as mood swings and by Mother as floods, but I knew better. All teenagers are moody when it suits them. My Switches could take place when I was alone, transforming me from a bright sixteen-year-old doing her homework into a sobbing child curled on the bed staring at the wall.
The weeping fit would pass and I would drag myself back to the mirror expecting to see a child version of myself. ‘Who are you?’ I’d ask. I could hear the words; it sounded like me but it wasn’t me. I’d watch my lips moving and say it again, ‘Who are you?”
― quote from Today I'm Alice: Nine Personalities, One Tortured Mind
“Pleasure has turned into habit much more quickly than I should have ever thought possible.”
― Théophile Gautier, quote from Mademoiselle de Maupin
“A rock pile ceases to be a rock pile the moment a single man contemplates it, bearing within him the image of a cathedral.”
― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, quote from Der kleine Prinz
“Design is really an act of communication, which means having a deep understanding of the person with whom the designer is communicating.”
― Donald A. Norman, quote from Design of Everyday Things: Revised and Expanded Edition (Revised)
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.