“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
“Nothing in this world was ever certain. Princes could become as frightening as ogres. Princesses could become villains. Best friends could become enemies.”
― Soman Chainani, quote from A World Without Princes
“But free will is what it means to be human, and no one can determine the path you take through this universe. Choice is our greatest right, our greatest gift-and our greatest responsibility.”
― Amie Kaufman, quote from Their Fractured Light
“She looked toward the window, smiling away her life”
― David Leavitt, quote from The Lost Language of Cranes
“Here was a thing that would grow old; here was a thing that would turn beautiful and lose that beauty, that would inherit the grace but also the bad ear and flawed figure of her mother, that would smile too much and squint too often and spend the last decades of her life creaming away the wrinkles made in youth until she finally gave up and wore a collar of pears to hide a wattle; here was the ordinary sadness of the world.”
― Andrew Sean Greer, quote from The Confessions of Max Tivoli
“For what is genius, I ask you, but the capacity to be obsessed? ...We have all been geniuses, you and I; but sooner or later it is beaten out of us, the glory faded, and by the age of seven most of us are nothing but wretched little adults.”
― Steven Millhauser, quote from Edwin Mullhouse: The Life and Death of an American Writer 1943-1954 by Jeffrey Cartwright
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.