“The only true test of friendship is the time your friend spends on you.”
― John Marsden, quote from Circle of Flight
“"And suddenly they came out of the woodwork. I don't actually know what that expression means. What come out of the wood work? Cockroaches maybe. Mice? Are these rhetorical questions, like I just learned about on one of my rare visits to school? Was that a rhetorical question? Is it a paradox when you ask rhetorically if a rhetorical question is a rhetorical question? I think I'd better stop before I get a headache.”
― John Marsden, quote from Circle of Flight
“What happened next played itself out like a terrible drama with two spectators. Lee and I stayed on our side of the fence, like an audience. Of course if the bull had wanted to smash through the fence he could have done so any time, but luckily nearly all cattle live and die without learning that. It's like school, most students go from kindergarten to Year 12 without noticing that they could do a fair amount of damage if they wanted to. They stay inside the fence.”
― John Marsden, quote from Circle of Flight
“It'd be funny if one of them was called Gavin. Funny but irrelevant.”
― John Marsden, quote from Circle of Flight
“Anyway, I should have known better about the roses. Whatever Mum planted grew eventually. Take me for instance.”
― John Marsden, quote from Circle of Flight
“There’s life in his face again. It occurs to me that this is the best thing I could have done, it’s actually a great way to leave, because it’s giving Gavin the message that we haven’t been defeated, we are up for it, we’re young, we’re in control of our lives again, we can charge into the future with confidence. When we round the corner of the driveway I take his hand and we run down to the gate together.”
― John Marsden, quote from Circle of Flight
“A farm is just an accumulation of stories really. Same with people...
"A farmer's footsteps are the best fertiliser," Dad used to say, which just means that the more you walk around your place the better everything seems to grow and flourish.”
― John Marsden, quote from Circle of Flight
“You have to have absolute confidence. Keep right on going, and nothing will happen.”
― Richard Feynman, quote from Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! Adventures of a Curious Character
“Minds, like ancient parachutes, function better when open, but, like fists, they strike harder when closed”
― L.E. Modesitt Jr., quote from The Parafaith War
“When you read the account of a murder - or, say, a fiction story based on murder - you usually begin with the murder itself. That's all wrong. The murder begins a long time beforehand. A murder is the culmination of a lot of different circumstances, all converging at a given moment at a given point. People are brought into it from different parts of the globe and for unforeseen reasons. [...] The murder itself is the end of the story. It's Zero Hour.”
He paused.
“It's Zero Hour now.”
― Agatha Christie, quote from Towards Zero
“A tool always begs to be used. The trick is to learn how to use it.”
― Nnedi Okorafor, quote from Who Fears Death
“Will you keep this?" he asked, holding up the pendant. "Please. Don't show it to your folks. But keep it, please. I'm not asking for anything else. You're going away. God knows when I'll see you again. I can accept what you say about your feelings for me. I have to. But what harm will it do if you take this, and then at least, I'll know that something I got for you is with you.”
― Howard Fast, quote from The Immigrants
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.