“We're all mad, the whole damned race. We're wrapped in illusions, delusions, confusions about the penetrability of partitions, we're all mad and in solitary confinement.”
― William Golding, quote from Darkness Visible
“The way towards simplicity is through outrage.”
― William Golding, quote from Darkness Visible
“You don't even care enough about us to hate us, do you?”
― William Golding, quote from Darkness Visible
“History is the nothing people write about a nothing.”
― William Golding, quote from Darkness Visible
“We have to face it at last. We're not all human.”
― William Golding, quote from Darkness Visible
“We think we know."
"Know? That's worse than an atom bomb, and always was.”
― William Golding, quote from Darkness Visible
“Heaven lies around us in our infancy.”
― William Golding, quote from Darkness Visible
“Ο κόσμος απλωνόταν έξω από το κεφάλι της, προς κάθε κατεύθυνση, εκτός από μια. Κι αυτή η μια ήταν η μόνη ασφαλής, γιατί ήταν δικιά της κι έβγαζε στο πίσω μέρος του κεφαλιού, εκεί, που σκοτάδι βαθύ σα νύχτα απλωνόταν (...) και θέλησε να δραπετεύσει, να βγει έξω στο φως του ήλιου, να γίνει όπως όλοι οι άλλοι. Μα δεν υπήρχε φως του ήλιου αυτή την ώρα. Έτσι και εκείνη το έφτιαξε μόνη της και το γέμισε με ανθρώπους που δεν είχαν σήραγγες στο πίσω μέρος του κεφαλιού τους' ανθρώπους χαρούμενους, εύθυμους, ανθρώπους που δεν ήξεραν.”
― William Golding, quote from Darkness Visible
William Golding
Born place: in St. Columb Minor, Cornwall, The United Kingdom
Born date September 19, 1911
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“He gently kissed that scar and felt something changing inside him - just a flutter of change, there and gone, but leaving its mark.”
― Anne Bishop, quote from Marked in Flesh
“[A Chinese Restaurant.] Roma is seated alone at the booth. Lingk is at the booth next to him. Roma ,i>is talking to him.
* * *
Roma: . . . Eh? What I’m saying, what is our life? (Pause.) It’s looking forward or it’s looking back. And that’s our life. That’s it. Where is the moment? (Pause.) And what is it that we’re afraid of? Loss. What else? (Pause.) The bank,/i> closes. We get sick, my wife died on a plane, the stock market collapsed . . . the house burnt down . . . what of these happen . . . ? None of ’em. We worry anyway. What does this mean? I’m not secure. How can I be secure? (Pause.) Through amassing wealth beyond all measure? No. And what’s beyond all measure? That’s a sickness. That’s a trap. There is no measure. Only greed. How can we act? The right way, we would say, to deal with this: “There is a one-in-a million chance that so and so will happen. . . . Fuck it, it won’t happen to me. . . .” No. We know that’s not the right way I think. (Pause.) We say the correct way to deal with this is “There is a one-in-so-and-so chance that this will happen . . . God protect me. I am powerless, let it not happen to me. . . .” But no to that. I say. There’s something else. What is it? “If it happens, AS IT MAY for that is not within our powers, I will deal with it, just as I do today with what draws my concern today.” I say this is how we must act. I do those things which seem correct to me today. I trust myself. And if security concerns me, I do that which today I think will make me secure. And every day I do that, when that day arrives that I need a reserve, (a) odds are that I have it, and (b) the true reserve that I have is the strength that I have of acting each day without fear. (Pause.) According to the dictates of my mind. (Pause.)”
― David Mamet, quote from Glengarry Glen Ross
“What strange times we live in, when good must disguise itself in the tawdry rags of evil!”
― Amin Maalouf, quote from Balthasar's Odyssey
“Japan
Today I pass the time reading
a favorite haiku,
saying the few words over and over.
It feels like eating
the same small, perfect grape
again and again.
I walk through the house reciting it
and leave its letters falling
through the air of every room.
I stand by the big silence of the piano and say it.
I say it in front of a painting of the sea.
I tap out its rhythm on an empty shelf.
I listen to myself saying it,
then I say it without listening,
then I hear it without saying it.
And when the dog looks up at me,
I kneel down on the floor
and whisper it into each of his long white ears.
It’s the one about the one-ton
temple bell
with the moth sleeping on its surface,
and every time I say it, I feel the excruciating
pressure of the moth
on the surface of the iron bell.
When I say it at the window,
the bell is the world
and I am the moth resting there.
When I say it into the mirror,
I am the heavy bell
and the moth is life with its papery wings.
And later, when I say it to you in the dark,
you are the bell,
and I am the tongue of the bell, ringing you,
and the moth has flown
from its line
and moves like a hinge in the air above our bed.”
― Billy Collins, quote from Picnic, Lightning
“All natural disasters are comforting because they reaffirm our impotence, in which, otherwise, we might stop believing. At times it is strangely sedative to know the extent of your own powerlessness.”
― Erica Jong, quote from Fear of Flying
Split
So the Wind Won't Bl...
Stolen Nights
Second Class Citizen
Secret Smile
The 13th HourBookQuoters 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.
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