Quotes from Complete Works

“A thousand Dreams within me softly burn:
From time to time my heart is like some oak
Whose blood runs golden where a branch is torn.”
― Arthur Rimbaud, quote from Complete Works

“I have stretched ropes from steeple to steeple; Garlands from window to window; Golden chains from star to star ... And I dance.”
― Arthur Rimbaud, quote from Complete Works

“Evening prayer

I spend my life sitting, like an angel in a barber's chair,
Holding a beer mug with deep-cut designs,
My neck and gut both bent, while in the air
A weightless veil of pipe smoke hangs.

Like steaming dung within an old dovecote
A thousand Dreams within me softly burn:
From time to time my heart is like some oak
Whose blood runs golden where a branch is torn.

And then, when I have swallowed down my Dreams
In thirty, forty mugs of beer, I turn
To satisfy a need I can't ignore,

And like the Lord of Hyssop and of Myrrh
I piss into the skies, a soaring stream
That consecrates a patch of flowering fern.”
― Arthur Rimbaud, quote from Complete Works

“Ciel ! Amour ! Liberté ! Quel rêve, ô pauvre Folle!
Tu te fondais à lui comme une neige au feu”
― Arthur Rimbaud, quote from Complete Works

“These verses believe; they love; they hope; that is all.”
― Arthur Rimbaud, quote from Complete Works

“Eternas ondinas,
dividid el agua fina.
Venus, del azul hermana,
conmueve las puras aguas.

Judío errante en Noruega,
dime, ¿cómo nieva?
Viejos exiliados tiernos,
contadme el océano.

YO-. Nunca esas bebidas puras,
ni esas flores de florero,
ni leyendas, ni figuras,
saciarme pudieron.

Coplista, tu ahijada
es mi sed que se desboca,
hidra íntima sin bocas
que roe y devasta.”
― Arthur Rimbaud, quote from Complete Works

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Popular quotes

“stopped.
Well, he'd been stopped.
And the king had been deprived of his most loyal supporter, was suspected of having”
― quote from The Light of Eidon

“The reality is that dying isn’t bad, but it takes forever. And that forever is no time at all. I know that sounds like a contradiction, or maybe just wordplay. What it really is, it turns out, is a matter of perspective.
—David Foster Wallace “Good Old Neon” (2004)”
― David Foster Wallace, quote from Oblivion

“Why do I think these particular books have been popular? Two reasons. First, I think it is because they involve no harsh, garish violence at all. They involve game playing, really. No one is burned or cut or hurt. Certainly no one is killed. Indeed the whole sadomasochistic predicament is presented as a glorified game played out in luxurious rooms and with very attractive people, and involving very attractive slaves. There are endless motifs offered for dominance and submission, for surrender and love. It’s like a theme park of dominance and submission, a place to go to enjoy the fantasy of being overpowered by a beautiful man or woman and delightfully compelled to surrender and feel keening pleasure, without the slightest serious harm. I think it’s authentic to the way many who share this kind of fantasy really feel. I think what makes it work for people is the combination of the very graphic and unsparing sexual details mixed with the elegant fairy-tale world. Unfortunately a lot of hackwork pornography is written by those who don’t share the fantasy, and they slip into hideous violence and ugliness, thinking the market wants all that, when the market never really did. Second, this is shamelessly erotic. It pulls no punches at being what it is. It’s excessive and it is erotica. Before these books, a lot of women read what were called “women’s romances” where they had to mark the few “hot pages” in the book. I said, well, look, try this. Maybe this is what you really want, and you don’t have to mark the hot pages because every page is hot. Every page is about sexual fulfillment. Every page is meant to give you pleasure. There are no boring parts. Yet it’s very “romantic.” And well, I think this worked.”
― quote from The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty

“That is the fantastic intolerable paradox of my life, that I have gone questing for what I possessed initially -- a belief to invest my days with dignity and meaning, a pattern of behavior through which man might most articulately express his devotion to his fellows.”
― quote from As a Driven Leaf

“This most beautiful system of the sun, planets, and comets, could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being. And if the fixed stars are the centers of other like systems, these, being formed by the like wise counsel, must be all subject to the dominion of One.”
― Isaac Newton, quote from The Principia: Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy

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.