Quotes from City of Saints and Madmen

“Ten years ago, we would have been writing perfect stories, but people's attention spans have become more limited in these, the last days of literacy.”
― Jeff VanderMeer, quote from City of Saints and Madmen

“Perhaps [he had] persevered for too long, in the face of too many obstacles, his hair proof of his tenacity - the stark black streaked with white or, in certain light, stark white shot through with black, each strand of white attributable to the jungle fever (so cold it burned, his skin glacial), each strand of black a testament to being alive afterwards.”
― Jeff VanderMeer, quote from City of Saints and Madmen

“If people were not by nature insane and resistant to self-improvement or therapy,”
― Jeff VanderMeer, quote from City of Saints and Madmen

“No doubt the detour to deliver Lake had made the sheep late for an appointment.”
― Jeff VanderMeer, quote from City of Saints and Madmen

“Take two pictures representing the same subject; one may be dismissed as illustration if it is dominated by the subject and has no other justification but the subject, the other may be called painting if the subject is completely absorbed in the style, which is its own justification, whatever the subject, and has an intrinsic value.”
― Jeff VanderMeer, quote from City of Saints and Madmen

“When Dradin stopped running he found himself on the fringe of the religious quarter, next to an emaciated macadamia salesman who cracked jokes like nuts.”
― Jeff VanderMeer, quote from City of Saints and Madmen

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Popular quotes

“He means to make his subjects merciful and wise; sorrow and struggle bringeth both. We will, he tells me, grow by grieving, live by dying, love by losing. The heart itself is the field of battle and the garden green.”
― Andrew Peterson, quote from The Monster in the Hollows

“If your faith is strong enough, she'll be healed.' If I've heard that once, I've heard it a thousand times. The problem is, when someone tells you that, they're not asking you to put faith in the power of God; they're asking you to put faith in the power of your own faith. And I can't even pretend that my mustard-seed faith measures up to the promises of God.”
― quote from Miracles from Heaven: A Little Girl, Her Journey to Heaven, and Her Amazing Story of Healing

“I have often noticed that we are inclined to endow our friends with the stability of type that literary characters acquire in the reader's mind. [...] Whatever evolution this or that popular character has gone through between the book covers, his fate is fixed in our minds, and, similarly, we expect our friends to follow this or that logical and conventional pattern we have fixed for them. Thus X will never compose the immortal music that would clash with the second-rate symphonies he has accustomed us to. Y will never commit murder. Under no circumstances can Z ever betray us. We have it all arranged in our minds, and the less often we see a particular person, the more satisfying it is to check how obediently he conforms to our notion of him every time we hear of him. Any deviation in the fates we have ordained would strike us as not only anomalous but unethical. We could prefer not to have known at all our neighbor, the retired hot-dog stand operator, if it turns out he has just produced the greatest book of poetry his age has seen.”
― Vladimir Nabokov, quote from The Annotated Lolita

“Behalve de magisters is het iedereen verboden om de tempel binnen te treden.'
'Mari... Er zijn geen magisters meer in Calypsos. Ze zijn in ieder geval nu niet hier... Als leerlingen zijn wij de enige magisters die Calypsos op dit moment heeft.'
...
'Misschien heb je gelijk.' Haar stem werd vaster. 'We moeten het proberen.'
...
'Jullie de magisters van Calypsos? Dan zijn we zeker verloren.' - Pindor”
― James Rollins, quote from Jake Ransom and the Skull King's Shadow

“I like your hair. It smells good.” Venomous buried his nose in it and sniffed. “I like how it feels against my scales when we are snug in our nest. It makes you look bigger than you are, and is a frightening threat display when you wake.” “Maybe if you found me a brush the situation would be less frightful.”
― Penelope Fletcher, quote from Venomous

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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.