“Each time he took a walk, he felt as though he were leaving himself behind, and by giving himself up to the movement of the streets, by reducing himself to a seeing eye, he was able to escape the obligation to think, and this, more than anything else, brought him a measure of peace, a salutary emptiness within...By wandering aimlessly, all places became equal and it no longer mattered where he was. On his best walks he was able to feel that he was nowhere. And this, finally was all he ever asked of things: to be nowhere.”
― Paul Auster, quote from City of Glass
“He would conclude that nothing was real except chance.”
― Paul Auster, quote from City of Glass
“They had come to the end of what they could talk about. Beyond that point there was nothing: the random thoughts of men who knew nothing.”
― Paul Auster, quote from City of Glass
“By wandering aimlessly, all places became equal, and it no longer mattered where he was.”
― Paul Auster, quote from City of Glass
“Quinn froze. There was nothing he could do now that would not be a mistake. Whatever choice he made--and he had to make a choice--would be arbitrary, a submission to chance. Uncertainty would haunt him to the end. At that moment, the two Stillmans started on their way again. The first turned right, the second turned left. Quin craved an amoeba's body, wanting to cut himself in half and run off in two directions at once. (Chapter 7)”
― Paul Auster, quote from City of Glass
“Would it be possible, he wondered, to stand up before the world and with the utmost conviction spew out lies and nonsense? To say that windmills were knights, that a barber’s basin was a helmet, that puppets were real people? Would it be possible to persuade others to agree with what he said, even though they did not believe him? In other words, to what extent would people tolerate blasphemies if they gave them amusement? The answer is obvious, isn’t it? To any extent. For the proof is that we still read the book. It remains highly amusing to us. And that’s finally all anyone wants out of a book—to be amused.”
― Paul Auster, quote from City of Glass
“It was a wrong number that started it, the telephone ringing three times in the dead of night, and the voice on the other end asking for someone he was not.”
― Paul Auster, quote from City of Glass
“And that's finally all anyone wants out of a book- to be amused”
― Paul Auster, quote from City of Glass
“If some saw the Indians as living in prelapsarian innocence, there were others who judged them to be savage beasts, devils in the form of men. The discovery of cannibals in the Caribbean did nothing to assuage this opinion. The Spaniards used it as a justification to exploit the natives mercilessly for their own mercantile ends. For if you do not consider the man before you to be human, there are few restraints of conscience on your behavior towards him. It was not until 1537, with the papal bull of Paul III that the Indians were declared to be true men possessing souls.”
― Paul Auster, quote from City of Glass
“The telephone was not his favorite object, and more than once he had considered getting rid of his. What he disliked most of all was its tyranny. Not only did it have the power to interrupt him against his will, but inevitably he would give in to its command.”
― Paul Auster, quote from City of Glass
“I have come to New York because it is the most forlorn of places, the most abject. The brokenness is everywhere, the disarray is universal. You have only to open your eyes to see it. The broken people, the broken things, the broken thoughts. The whole city is a junk heap.”
― Paul Auster, quote from City of Glass
“If you do not consider the man before you to be human, there are few restraints of conscience on your behavior towards him.”
― Paul Auster, quote from City of Glass
“What will happen when there are no more pages in the red notebook?”
― Paul Auster, quote from City of Glass
“What better portrait of a writer than to show a man who has been bewitched by books?”
― Paul Auster, quote from City of Glass
“So...what are you working on now?"
“Right now, an essay about Don Quixote.”
“One of my favorite books.”
“Mine too.”
“What’s the gist?”
“It has to do with the authorship of the books.”
“Is there any question?”
“I mean the book inside the book Cervantes wrote, the one he imagined he was writing.”
“Ah.”
“Cervantes claims he is not the author, that the original text was in Arabic.”
“Right. It’s an attack on make-believe, so he must claim it was real.”
“Precisely. Therefore, the story has to be written by an eyewitness yet Cid Hamete Benengeli, the acknowledged author, never makes an appearance. So who is he? Sancho Panza is of course the witness – illiterate, but with a gift for language. He dictated the story to the barber and the priest, Don Quixote’s friends. They had the manuscript translated into Arabic. Cervantes found the translation and had it rendered back into Spanish. The idea was to hold up a mirror to Don Quixote’s madness so that when he finally read the book himself, he would see the error of his ways. But Don Quixote, in my view, was no mad. He only pretended to be. He engineered the collaboration, and the translation from Arabic back into Spanish. I like to imagine Cervantes hiring Don Quixote in disguise to decipher the story of Don Quixote.”
“But why did Quixote go to such lengths?”
“He wanted to test the gullibility of man. To what extent would people tolerate blasphemies, lies, and nonsense if they gave them amusement? The answer: to any extent. For the book is still amusing us today. That’s finally all anyone wants out of a book. To be amused.”
― Paul Auster, quote from City of Glass
“Anything for the truth. No sacrifice is too great.”
― Paul Auster, quote from City of Glass
“You can't hate something so violently unless a part of you also loves it.”
― Paul Auster, quote from City of Glass
“Time makes us grow old, but it also gives us the day and the night...Lying is a bad thing. It makes you sorry you were ever born. And not to have been born is a curse. You are condemned to live outside time. And when you live outside time, there is no day and night. You don't get a chance to die.”
― Paul Auster, quote from City of Glass
“The impediment to the building of Babel—that man must fill the earth—would be eliminated. At that moment it would again be possible for the whole earth to be of one language and one speech. And if that were to happen, paradise could not be far behind.”
― Paul Auster, quote from City of Glass
Paul Auster
Born place: in Newark, New Jersey, The United States
Born date February 3, 1947
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“So here we have purposeful practice in a nutshell: Get outside your comfort zone but do it in a focused way, with clear goals, a plan for reaching those goals, and a way to monitor your progress. Oh, and figure out a way to maintain your motivation. This recipe is an excellent start for anyone who wishes to improve—but it is still just a start.”
― K. Anders Ericsson, quote from Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise
“Don’t’ pin this on me, Mr. Irresistible.”
― Lucian Bane, quote from Seven Sons of Zion
“With the ascension of Charles I to the throne we come at last to the Central Period of English History (not to be confused with the Middle Ages, of course), consisting in the utterly memorable Struggle between the Cavaliers (Wrong but Wromantic) and the Roundheads (Right but Repulsive).”
― quote from 1066 and All That: A Memorable History of England
“I suppose you could say that Paul is a … hustler? His rich wife Corina paid him grandly when they divorced, wouldn’t you say?”
“That’s called alimony,” I laughed.”
― John Rechy, quote from After the Blue Hour
“She can't explain why she is choked up. She isn't entirely sure, other than the sweetness of Patrick's familiarity, an aching nostalgia for her youth, a reminder of all that is good, and solid, and stable. All that she once had. All that she has lost. Patrick has grown into a big man. Solid. Imposing. His embrace is all-enveloping, tight, stable. Like being held by a bear.
Safe, she thinks.
I am safe.
And almost immediately after: I have come home.”
― Jane Green, quote from Saving Grace
Red Riding Hood
The History Boys
Checkmate
The Counterfeiters
A Density of Souls
England's Perfect He...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.
