“To stand up for someone was to stitch your fate into the lining of theirs.”
― Tom Rob Smith, quote from Child 44
“There's nothing more stubborn than a fact. That is why you hate them so much. They offend you.”
― Tom Rob Smith, quote from Child 44
“Trust but check. Check on those we trust.”
― Tom Rob Smith, quote from Child 44
“—Isn’t this how it starts? You have a cause you believe in, a cause worth dying for. Soon, it’s a cause worth killing for. Soon, it’s a cause worth killing innocent people for.”
― Tom Rob Smith, quote from Child 44
“The price of this story was the audience's innocence.”
― Tom Rob Smith, quote from Child 44
“His hate wasn't professional; it was an obsession, a fixation, as if unrequited love had grown awful, twisted into something ugly.”
― Tom Rob Smith, quote from Child 44
“If he wanted to hear about love, the first verse was his to sing.”
― Tom Rob Smith, quote from Child 44
“Leo, I have another secret. I've fallen in love with you.”
"I've always loved you.”
― Tom Rob Smith, quote from Child 44
“The survival of their political system justified anything. The promise of a golden age where none of this brutality would exist, where everything would be in plenty and poverty would be a memory, justified anything.”
― Tom Rob Smith, quote from Child 44
“sentimentality could blind a man to the truth. Those who appear the most trustworthy deserve the most suspicion.”
― Tom Rob Smith, quote from Child 44
“....a man both handsome and repulsive in equal measure-as if his good looks were plastered over a rotten centre, a hero's face with a henchman's heart.”
― Tom Rob Smith, quote from Child 44
“The duty of an investigator was to scratch away at innocence until guilt was uncovered. If no guilt was uncovered then they hadn’t scratched deep enough.”
― Tom Rob Smith, quote from Child 44
“Leo had no idea what the real crime statistics were. He had no desire to find out since those who knew were probably liquidated on a regular basis.”
― Tom Rob Smith, quote from Child 44
“ruthlessness. Leo was trapped. He couldn’t claim the”
― Tom Rob Smith, quote from Child 44
“Precautionary measure. With those words any deaths could be justified. Better to destroy your own people than there be a chance a German soldier might find a loaf of bread.”
― Tom Rob Smith, quote from Child 44
“We should measure a man by what they’re prepared to do themselves. Not by what they’re prepared to have others do for them.”
― Tom Rob Smith, quote from Child 44
“There was no chance you could be found innocent inside these walls. It was an assembly line of guilt.”
― Tom Rob Smith, quote from Child 44
“Leo’s very existence had been a kind of perpetual punishment for Vasili. So, then, why did he miss him?”
― Tom Rob Smith, quote from Child 44
“Was the difference merely that Vasili was senselessly cruel while he’d been idealistically cruel? One was an empty, indifferent cruelty while the other was a principled, pretentious cruelty which thought of itself as reasonable and necessary.”
― Tom Rob Smith, quote from Child 44
“For decades no one had taken action according to what they believed was right or wrong but by what they thought would please their Leader. People”
― Tom Rob Smith, quote from Child 44
“By his count there were forty-three in total. Nesterov had reached over, taken another pin from the box, and stuck it into the center of Moscow, making Arkady child 44.”
― Tom Rob Smith, quote from Child 44
“Boil ’em once or twice in hot water, and they’ll come as fair as chicken and ham.”
― Rudyard Kipling, quote from The Man Who Would Be King
“Kaylee and Nash are like those rocks that ancient cave people used to make fire. Bang them together, and you get sparks." Sabine said.
"Let's never again use the phrase 'bang them together' in reference to my brother and my girlfriend," Tod mumbled.”
― Rachel Vincent, quote from With All My Soul
“Will you listen to me just this once?” he nearly yelled. “I . . . I like you, Maddy. I mean, more than just as a friend. Are you so stubborn you can’t
see that? Maybe last night meant nothing to you, but it meant something to me.” His eyes were vulnerable, almost tortured. “Did you ever even
consider that I might love you, you stubborn, impossible girl?”
― Scott Speer, quote from Immortal City
“Snow and soot covered the ancient tree's broken branches and seared bark. It wasn't dead, not quite yet. Here and there tiny shoots of green struggled to emerge, but they weren't doing well. The end was near.
A shadow loomed, and a creature settled into the drifts, and old, wounded thing of the skies, as near death as the tree.
Pinions drooping, it laboriously began building a nest--a place of dying. Stick by stick, it pecked among the ruined wood on the ground, piling the bits higher until it was clear that it was not a nest at all.
It was a pyre.
The bloody, dying thing settled in atop the kindling, and crooned soft music unlike anything ever heard before. A glow began to build, surrounding the beast soon in a rich purple lambience. Blue flames burst forth.
And the tree seemed to respond. Aged, ruined branches curled forward toward the heat, like an old man warming his hands. Snow shivered and fell, the green patches grew and began to fill the air with the fragrance of renewal
It was not the creature on the pyre that was reborn, and even in sleep, that surprised Gordon. The great bird was consumed, leaving only bones.
But the tree blossomed, and from its flowering branches things uncurled and drifted off into the air.
He stared in wonderment when he saw that they were balloons, airplanes, and rocket ships. Dreams.
They floated away in all directions, and the air was filled with hope.”
― David Brin, quote from The Postman
“As Mother Teresa reminds us, “We cannot do great things on this earth. We can only do small things with great love.”
― Richard Carlson, quote from Don't Sweat the Small Stuff ... and it's all small stuff: Simple Ways to Keep the Little Things from Taking Over Your Life
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.