E.M. Delafield · 388 pages
Rating: (3.5K votes)
“She is never alone when she has Her Books. Books, to her, are Friends. Give her Shakespeare or Jane Austen, Meredith or Hardy, and she is Lost - lost in a world of her own. She sleeps so little that most of her nights are spent reading.”
― E.M. Delafield, quote from Diary of a Provincial Lady
“Am struck by paradoxical thought that youth is by no means the happiest time of life, but that most of the rest of life is tinged by regret for its passing, and wonder what old age will feel like, in this respect. (Shall no doubt discover very shortly.)”
― E.M. Delafield, quote from Diary of a Provincial Lady
“Mucho antes de que estuviéramos a medio camino, y sabedora de que nunca llegaría a la roca, ya confiaba en que la segunda esposa de Robert fuera buena con los niños. La vizcondesa, que nadaba tranquilamente, me preguntó si estaba bien. "Oh, sí", contesté, y acto seguido me hundí.
(Duda: ¿Castigo divino?)”
― E.M. Delafield, quote from Diary of a Provincial Lady
“(Query: Is it possible to cultivate the art of conversation when living in the country all the year round?)”
― E.M. Delafield, quote from Diary of a Provincial Lady
“This suggests Query: Does Robert, perhaps, take in what I say even when he makes no reply?”
― E.M. Delafield, quote from Diary of a Provincial Lady
“(Note: Extreme sensibility of the French sometimes makes them difficult to deal with.)”
― E.M. Delafield, quote from Diary of a Provincial Lady
“The more a thing is perfect, the more it feels pleasure and pain.”
― Dante Alighieri, quote from Dante's Divine Comedy Set: Three-Volume Set
“He wants to tell her that he is not hopeless, that he is not filled with hatred or violence, that he is not a number, a 300 or 600 or any hundred, but just a kid with no one and nothing, and who would do anything to make it otherwise. Just tell me how, he wants to scream. He wants to tell her what it's like to have the same dream night after night, that he's playing tag with his little sister, laughing, happy - then waking up and not knowing if the image in his head is a dim memory, or just something his mind cooked up to fill the black hole. Do you know what it's like to have no past? he wants to ask. And behind it all, like a ringing in his ears, is the question that really nags at him all the time, the one that has haunted him since he was six years old and his family evaporated. He wants to ask it, then and there and for good: What did I do wrong back then? What did I do to deserve this life?”
― Edward Humes, quote from No Matter How Loud I Shout: A Year in the Life of Juvenile Court
“When it comes to you, it's simple : As long as you don't give up, I won't either.”
― Estelle Maskame, quote from Did I Mention I Need You? (Did I Mention I Love You
“The days hardened with cold and boredom like last year's loaves of bread. One began to cut them with blunt knives without appetite, with a lazy indifference.”
― Bruno Schulz, quote from The Street of Crocodiles and Other Stories
“Every night my plan was to make it to dawn and then feel out the options. But that was just it -- there were no options. There had been options, before the baby, but none of them had been pursued. I had not flown to Japan by myself to see what it was like there. I had not gone to nightclubs and said Tell me everything about yourself to strangers. I had not even gone to the movies by myself. I had been quiet when there was no reason to be quiet and consistent when consistency didn't matter. For the last twenty years I had lived as if I was taking care of a newborn baby.”
― Miranda July, quote from The First Bad Man
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.