Quotes from Dalva

Jim Harrison ·  336 pages

Rating: (2.6K votes)


“I was on the verge of jumping into one of those holes in life out of which we emerge a bit tattered and bloody, though we remain sure nonetheless that we had to make the jump.”
― Jim Harrison, quote from Dalva


“the natural world seemed to absorb the poison in me.”
― Jim Harrison, quote from Dalva


“How could all this happen when there was an ocean?”
― Jim Harrison, quote from Dalva


“There is the question of whether life is long enough to get over anything. I sat down on the ground to avoid tipping over from the enormity of it all.”
― Jim Harrison, quote from Dalva


“Earlier, when I made my coffee (after releasing my grateful geese), I sat at the big Northridge desk and got out the Edward Curtis portfolio for breakfast reading. When I untied the first folio there was a note—“Dalva & Ruth. Wash your hands. I love you. Grandpa.” A simple old note, brittle with age, but I was momentarily overcome with loneliness for her; at the same time, though, I knew in a deeper sense that I was totally out of the running. In the long and short of it, love is a more difficult subject than sex. Or history. I”
― Jim Harrison, quote from Dalva



“was a little embarrassed after I dressed and sat down to review my schoolwork. She had a large tumbler of imported sherry and poured me a small glass. The Jerez sherry was an indulgence she had learned during the two years she had lived in Barcelona and Ibiza. She pushed the schoolwork aside and started to talk, more a slangish monologue than a lecture: “I certainly don’t believe that story about you screwing a pheasant-hunter but that’s your business, and right now it should matter to no one except you. You’re going to have a hard time, because you are lovely and your body is as fine as I’ve seen.” I objected to this as ugly and irrelevant but she went on: “You have to study extremely hard and find some subject or profession you’re obsessed with because in our culture it has been very hard on the attractive women I know. They are leered at, teased, abused, set on a pedestal, and no one takes them seriously, so you have to use all your energies to develop”
― Jim Harrison, quote from Dalva


“While it is a truism that man has not learned much more than the sexual act, and that fire burns when you stick your hand into it, it behooves the scholar to immerse himself in the analyses of the problem, rather than the problem itself. One”
― Jim Harrison, quote from Dalva


About the author

Jim Harrison
Born place: in Grayling, Michigan, The United States
Born date December 11, 1937
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“This"I’m so over him. This is me, being over him. La,la,la.”
― Lauren Barnholdt, quote from Two-Way Street


“As she entered the room, she halted abruptly. "Oh, my," she murmured. Somehow she'd managed to forget there were three men in her home, so
consumed had she been with thoughts of Grimm. They gathered near the fire, while several maids cleared dozens
of platters and dishes from the massive table centered in the Greathall. Yesterday, safe behind the balustrade, Jillian had been struck by how tall and broad the three of them were. Today, standing only a few feet from them, she felt like a dwarf willow in a forest of mighty oaks. Each man stood at least a foot taller than she did. It was downright intimidating to a woman who was not easily intimidated.”
― Karen Marie Moning, quote from To Tame a Highland Warrior


“Funboy: Pal, something is seriously wrong with you.
The Crow: Atrocity has that effect on me.”
― James O'Barr, quote from The Crow


“Her raised his face to the weeping sky, closed his dark eyes, and sighed deeply, a smile playing on his sensuous lips. "The bloody hour is come.”
― Rick Yancey, quote from The Monstrumologist


“...he shrunk more and more from the realities of life and above all from the society of his day which he regarded with an ever growing horror,--a detestation which had reacted strongly on his literary and artistic tastes; he refused, as far as possible, to have anything to do with pictures and books whose subjects were in any way connected with modern existence.”
― Joris-Karl Huysmans, quote from Against Nature


Interesting books

The Mezzanine
(5.7K)
The Mezzanine
by Nicholson Baker
Demon Girl
(6.3K)
Demon Girl
by Penelope Fletcher
Tweak: Growing Up On Methamphetamines
(25.9K)
Tweak: Growing Up On...
by Nic Sheff
The FitzOsbornes in Exile
(2.7K)
The Little Giant of Aberdeen County
(10K)
The Little Giant of...
by Tiffany Baker
Safe Harbor
(10.4K)
Safe Harbor
by Christine Feehan

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.