“Some pieces couldn’t be glued back together. Some people weren’t for fixing.
Sometimes, the only thing to do was burn the whole fucking world down and start again.”
― Abigail Haas, quote from Dangerous Boys
“Our lives are made up of choices. Big ones, small ones, strung together by the thin air of good intentions; a line of dominoes, ready to fall. Which shirt to wear on a cold winter's morning, what crappy junk food to eat for lunch. It starts out so innocently, you don't even notice: go to this party or that movie, listen to this song, or read that book, and then, somehow, you've chosen your college and career; your boyfriend or wife.”
― Abigail Haas, quote from Dangerous Boys
“History is told by those who win.”
― Abigail Haas, quote from Dangerous Boys
“And so it goes, day after day. Every sharp word and every angry, impure thought. You press them down, pretending they’re not a part of who you really are – the sweet, good girl, the smiling, happy person but the truth is, that anger is more real than anything. It burns and blooms and blossoms, twisting tighter with every faked smile until you wonder, what would it be like to just let it free?
Stop pretending. Stop hiding. Stop being the girl they all said you should be.
Imagine that freedom. God, can’t you feel it?
What harm could it do?”
― Abigail Haas, quote from Dangerous Boys
“We're all strangers, in the end.”
― Abigail Haas, quote from Dangerous Boys
“Our lives are made up of choices. Big ones, small ones, strung together by the thin air of good intentions; a line of dominoes, ready to fall.”
― Abigail Haas, quote from Dangerous Boys
“We're all irrevocably trapped inside our own minds: just as it's impossible for anyone to truly know us, we can't begin to hope to know anyone else.”
― Abigail Haas, quote from Dangerous Boys
“I’d never met anyone like him before. Every rule I’d ever learned, he was breaking; everything I’d been taught to hide away, he announced it out loud.”
― Abigail Haas, quote from Dangerous Boys
“Don’t you know? There’s no such thing as the truth.’ Oliver yawned. ‘We all walk around trapped in our own subjective consciousness, experiencing the same events through a totally different lens.”
― Abigail Haas, quote from Dangerous Boys
“You don’t know what’s behind that smile. You can’t imagine who someone will turn out to be. We assume the sun will rise every morning just because it has done every other day, but what happens when you wake up to darkness? When you open your eyes and find, today is the one different day? I”
― Abigail Haas, quote from Dangerous Boys
“we’re all irrevocably trapped inside our own minds: just as it’s impossible for anyone to truly know us, we can’t begin to hope to know anyone else. I”
― Abigail Haas, quote from Dangerous Boys
“His eyes lingered on me, and I wondered if that was a message. Was he danger? Was I supposed to run?
I wasn’t afraid.”
― Abigail Haas, quote from Dangerous Boys
“Necessity could drive you to things that seemed impossible, once upon a time.”
― Abigail Haas, quote from Dangerous Boys
“What happens when you realize in that sick, bloodied moment - no, no, no! - that you can't take it back?
You chose wrong.”
― Abigail Haas, quote from Dangerous Boys
“So ether or starter fluid wouldn’t confuse her?” Budress smiled at Maggie, and offered his hand. She sniffed, then lay down at Scott’s feet. “Not this nose. If I asked you to point out the orange tents, would the green hedges or blue sky or the tree bark confuse you?” “’Course not.” “She smells like we see. Just laying here, she’s picking up thousands of scents, just like we’re seeing a thousand shades of green and blue and whatever. I say, show me the orange, you instantly spot the orange, and don’t think twice about all those other colors. It’s the same way for her with scents. If she was trained to alert to dynamite, you can wrap dynamite in plastic, bury it under two feet of horseshit, and douse the whole thing with whiskey, and she’ll still smell the dynamite. Ain’t she amazing?” Scott”
― Robert Crais, quote from Suspect
“Think about it. Why does one eat a snack? Why is a snack necessary? The answer—and we’ve done a million studies on this—is because our lives are filled with tedium and drudgery and endless toil and we need a tiny blip of pleasure to repel the gathering darkness. Thus, we give ourselves a treat. “But here’s the thing,” Periwinkle continues, his eyes all aglow, “even the things we do to break the routine become routine. Even the things we do to escape the sadness of our lives have themselves become sad. What this ad acknowledges is that you’ve been eating all these snacks and yet you are not happy, and you’ve been watching all these shows and yet you still feel lonely, and you’ve been seeing all this news and yet the world makes no sense, and you’ve been playing all these games and yet the melancholy sinks deeper and deeper into you. How do you escape?” “You buy a new chip.” “You buy a missile-shaped chip! That’s the answer. What this ad does is admit something you already deeply suspect and existentially fear: that consumerism is a failure and you will never find any meaning there no matter how much money you spend. So the great challenge for people like me is to convince people like you that the problem is not systemic. It’s not that snacks leave you feeling empty, it’s that you haven’t found the right snack yet. It’s not that TV turns out to be a poor substitute for human connection, it’s that you haven’t found the right show yet. It’s not that politics are hopelessly bankrupt, it’s that you haven’t found the right politician yet. And this ad just comes right out and says it. I swear to god it’s like playing poker against someone who’s showing his cards and yet still bluffing by force of personality.”
― quote from The Nix
“You really should take up boxing, or fencing—”
“Fencing? What century are you from?”
“—or solving crimes.”
“Are you prescribing me your company, Doctor?”
“Detective, you can read me like a book.” She lifted her glass, and I clinked mine against it.”
― Brittany Cavallaro, quote from A Study in Charlotte
“I was a creature so small, trapped in some crevice of an indifferent universe.”
― Carmen Maria Machado, quote from Her Body and Other Parties
“I don't hate the English and I don't know do I love the Irish. But I love him. I'm sure of that now. And he's my country.”
― Jamie O'Neill, quote from At Swim, Two Boys
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.