Quotes from Charlotte Sometimes

“Of course I'm not going to look through the keyhole. That's something only servants do. I'm going to hide in the bay window.”
― Penelope Farmer, quote from Charlotte Sometimes

“Where you some particular person because people recognized you as that?”
― Penelope Farmer, quote from Charlotte Sometimes

“And, she thought uncomfortably, what would happen if people did not recognize you? Would you know who you were yourself? If tomorrow they started to call her Vanessa or Janet or Elizabeth, would she know how to be, how to feel like, Charlotte? Were you some particular person only because people recognized you as that?”
― Penelope Farmer, quote from Charlotte Sometimes

“Charlotte was used to all the marks of war: the shabbiness of things, bad food, shop queues, posters about the war effort, people with worried faces, people dressed in black. She was used to seeing the wounded men from the hospital with their bright blue uniforms and bright red ties, the colours, she thought, if not the clothes of Arthur's soldiers. Such things did not disturb her, and the war seemed quite remote. But this disturbed her, the grotesque kind of circus that came now. It did not seem remote at all, nor did it fit with her vague ideas of war gained from those books of Arthur's she had read, with their flags and glory and brave drummer boys. How could you dare to become a soldier, knowing that you might end like this? There were men like clowns with white heads, white arms, white legs, men with crutches, slings, and bloodied bandages, and all so distressingly like men you would expect to see walking down the street, two armed, two legged, in hats instead of bandages and suits of black not battered khaki. Some came on stretchers borne by whole and ordinary men, some hobbled and leaned on whole ordinary arms. Most had mud dried thick across their clothes, and all came from the dark station's mouth with the spewings of trains behind, the clankings, thumpings, grindings, the sounds like great devils taking in breaths and blowing them out again.”
― Penelope Farmer, quote from Charlotte Sometimes

“Charlotte looked up doubtfully, wondering why, as she got older, she seemed to be more afraid of things, not less.”
― Penelope Farmer, quote from Charlotte Sometimes

“Even her footsteps did not seem to belong to her. The night seized and transformed them, just as it transformed the greenhouses they passed from useful places for growing things into cold night palaces.”
― Penelope Farmer, quote from Charlotte Sometimes

“But when she put her fingers into the water and pulled a marble out, it was small by comparison with those still in the glass, and unimportant, too. It was like the difference between what you long for and what you find--the difference, for instance, between Arthur's image of war and his experience of it. It was like other times, her own and Miss Agnes' proper childhood times that seemed so near to her memory and yet so far away. It was like everything that made you ache because in on sense it was so close and in another unobtainable.”
― Penelope Farmer, quote from Charlotte Sometimes

About the author

Popular quotes

“Historia naszego życia, a czasem i śmierci, jest zapisana w kościach.”
― Simon Beckett, quote from Written in Bone

“The ship itself was about as long as a football field, or some other really long thing, given that may honestly could never remember how long football fields were. A hundred yards? That was like three hundred feet, wasn't it? The boat did seem long, but she was over five feet tall herself, and that's be like sixty of her end to end. Only sixty? Or was that a lot of herselves? Stupid analogies. The boat was big, that should cover it.”
― James Riley, quote from Twice Upon a Time

“In lots of books I read, the writer seems to go haywire every time he reaches a high point. He’ll start leaving out punctuation and running his words together and babble about stars flashing and sinking into a deep dreamless sea. And you can’t figure out whether the hero’s laying his girl or a cornerstone. I guess that kind of crap is supposed to be pretty deep stuff—a lot of the book reviewers eat it up, I notice. But the way I see it is, the writer is just too goddam lazy to do his job. And I’m not lazy, whatever else I am. I’ll tell you everything.”
― Jim Thompson, quote from The Killer Inside Me

“I will not waste time on second thoughts. My life will not be an apology. It will be a statement.”
― Andy Andrews, quote from The Traveler's Gift: Seven Decisions that Determine Personal Success

“The most difficult times for many of us are the ones we give ourselves.”
― Pema Chödrön, quote from When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times

Interesting books

About BookQuoters

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.