“Joy—that’s the word. So easy to say, so hard to find in life sometimes.”
― James Patterson, quote from Cat and Mouse
“Victory belongs to the player who makes the next-to-last mistake. Soneji”
― James Patterson, quote from Cat and Mouse
“of life’s important connections and mysteries. I was hoping that maybe someday she would”
― James Patterson, quote from Cat and Mouse
“Society prepares the crime; the criminal only commits it.”
― James Patterson, quote from Cat and Mouse
“Death is nature’s way of saying “howdy.” Statues”
― James Patterson, quote from Cat and Mouse
“Victory belongs to the player who makes the next-to-last mistake.”
― James Patterson, quote from Cat and Mouse
“The Chinese had a saying that had been in her mind for a while, troubling her: Society prepares the crime; the criminal only commits it.”
― James Patterson, quote from Cat and Mouse
“A FLAT, still sandy, still meadowy region… a superb range of ocean beach—miles and miles of it. The bright sun, the sparkling waves, the foam, the view—a sail here and there in the distance. Walt Whitman had written that”
― James Patterson, quote from Cat and Mouse
“That's the myth of it, the required lie that allows us to render our judgments. Parasites, criminals, dope fiends, dope peddlers, whores--when we can ride past them at Fayette and Monroe, car doors locked, our field of vision cautiously restricted to the road ahead, then the long journey into darkness is underway. Pale-skinned hillbillies and hard-faced yos, toothless white trash and gold-front gangsters--when we can glide on and feel only fear, we're well on the way. And if, after a time, we can glimpse the spectacle of the corner and manage nothing beyond loathing and contempt, then we've arrived at last at that naked place where a man finally sees the sense in stretching razor wire and building barracks and directing cattle cars into the compound.
It's a reckoning of another kind, perhaps, and one that becomes a possibility only through the arrogance and certainty that so easily accompanies a well-planned and well-tended life. We know ourselves, we believe in ourselves; from what we value most, we grant ourselves the illusion that it's not chance in circumstance, that opportunity itself isn't the defining issue. We want the high ground; we want our own worth to be acknowledged. Morality, intelligence, values--we want those things measured and counted. We want it to be about Us.
Yes, if we were down there, if we were the damned of the American cities, we would not fail. We would rise above the corner. And when we tell ourselves such things, we unthinkably assume that we would be consigned to places like Fayette Street fully equipped, with all the graces and disciplines, talents and training that we now posses. Our parents would still be our parents, our teachers still our teachers, our broker still our broker. Amid the stench of so much defeat and despair, we would kick fate in the teeth and claim our deserved victory. We would escape to live the life we were supposed to live, the life we are living now. We would be saved, and as it always is in matters of salvation, we know this as a matter of perfect, pristine faith.
Why? The truth is plain:
We were not born to be niggers.”
― David Simon, quote from The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighborhood
“We circled around and came in from the northwest.” I lifted my wrist to show him the compass on my watch band, although I hoped that, being the pilot, he knew we’d approached from the northwest. “I was looking out the window. I saw a woman running down the street. There was a pack of dogs after her and a guy with a switchblade down the street in the direction she was running.”
“Ma’am,” he said, still very patiently. I reached out and took a fistful of his shirt. Actually, at the last moment, I grabbed the air in front of his shirt. I didn’t think security could throw me out of the airport for grabbing air in a threatening fashion, not even in this post-9/11 age.
“Don’t ma’am me . . .”
― C.E. Murphy, quote from Urban Shaman
“It’s when we feel the most uncertain,” her mother had told her, “that we must appear at our most confident. To show weakness is to allow others to prey upon it. Now brush your hair, lift your chin, and pretend you are the most powerful person in the room.”
― Morgan Rhodes, quote from Crystal Storm
“help meet. But who said anything about what he deserves? You can only realize your womanhood when you are functioning according to your created nature. To covet his role of leadership is to covet something that will not make God, you, or him happy. It is not a question of whether or not you can do a better job than he; it is a matter of doing what you were “designed” to do. If you successfully do the job of leading the family, you will not find satisfaction in it. It is far better that the job be done poorly by your husband than to be done well by you. Your excellence as a help meet to him may very well be God’s plan for improving his leadership role in the family. Your female nature cannot be retrofitted to the male role without permanent damage to the original design.”
― Debi Pearl, quote from Created to be His Help Meet
“الإنسان تأتيه فكره عظيمة، فجأة يركّز عقله عليها لحظة من الزمن، عند هذه النقطة تتدخل العادة. كأن تشكو معدته الجوع، أو يجفّ ريقه ويهمس في أذنه صوت صفير مزيف: إذهب واشبع حاجاتك الجسدية فتغدوا قادراً على التركيز أكثر من ذي قبل. فتراه ينقاد للصوت وسرعان ما ينسى الفكرة العظيمة.”
― Colin Wilson, quote from The Mind Parasites
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.
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