“[Grace talking to Billy.] "It's like people who want to feel only happy but not sad," she said. "It never works. You either feel things or you don't. You don't get to pick and choose. At least, I don't think so.”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, quote from Don't Let Me Go
“The people with the least to give always give the most. Haven’t you noticed that?”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, quote from Don't Let Me Go
“You want to be OK right now, so you trade that for having a good life in the long run. It’s a bad trade, but people do it all the time. That’s all addiction really is. It’s trading away the future so you can feel OK right now.”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, quote from Don't Let Me Go
“It’s just words. How can words be dangerous?”
“You have a lot to learn about the world, baby girl. Nothing is more dangerous than words.”
“That’s stupid. What about a gun? A gun can kill you dead.”
“Only your body,” Billy said. “It can’t kill your soul. Words can kill your soul.”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, quote from Don't Let Me Go
“Accepting things. That’s what the talk was about. About how insane it is to try to pretend something isn’t a certain way, or that you can make it another way, just because you don’t like it.”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, quote from Don't Let Me Go
“That’s all addiction really is. It’s trading away the future so you can feel OK right now.”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, quote from Don't Let Me Go
“See, this is why I was by myself all those years. Because as soon as you let people in, they start depending on you. And then, if you can’t be everything they think you should be, you’ve let them down. It’s easier not to have anybody around at all.”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, quote from Don't Let Me Go
“it gets to be an addiction. You want to be OK right now, so you trade that for having a good life in the long run. It’s a bad trade, but people do it all the time. That’s all addiction really is. It’s trading away the future so you can feel OK right now.”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, quote from Don't Let Me Go
“Hard work can sometimes substitute for natural ability, but natural ability almost never makes up for not being willing to do the work.”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, quote from Don't Let Me Go
“[Rayleen talking to Billy.] "Grace is thriving here, and I dare anybody to challenge that. Anybody who has a problem with that can come take it up with me."
"Thank God," Billy said, "because I really hate it when people come take things up with ME.”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, quote from Don't Let Me Go
“Like I told you before, it gets to be an addiction. You want to be OK right now, so you trade that for having a good life in the long run. It’s a bad trade, but people do it all the time. That’s all addiction really is. It’s trading away the future so you can feel OK right now.”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, quote from Don't Let Me Go
“That’s stupid. What about a gun? A gun can kill you dead.” “Only your body,” Billy said. “It can’t kill your soul. Words can kill your soul.”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, quote from Don't Let Me Go
“It’s like people who want to feel only happy but not sad,” she said. “It never works. You either feel things or you don’t. You don’t get to pick and choose. At least, I don’t think so.”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, quote from Don't Let Me Go
“Hmm,” he said. “Like the world is big again. No. Not again. Like I only thought it had gotten small while I was inside, but now I see it was big the whole time, just waiting out there. Waiting for me to come back.”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, quote from Don't Let Me Go
“This was the other thing Grace had noticed about grown-ups. In addition to being afraid of each other, it was hard to wring any information out of them. At least, if it was information about them. If it was about what kids ought to do, then they were nothing but words.”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, quote from Don't Let Me Go
“Addict logic,” Yolanda said, not missing a beat. “Life viewed through resentment.”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, quote from Don't Let Me Go
“You have a lot to learn about the world, baby girl. Nothing is more dangerous than words.” “That’s stupid. What about a gun? A gun can kill you dead.” “Only your body,” Billy said. “It can’t kill your soul. Words can kill your soul.”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, quote from Don't Let Me Go
“Just because I don’t think normally doesn’t mean I don’t know normal thinking when I hear it.”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, quote from Don't Let Me Go
“Don’t waste any energy on anything but what’s in front of you.”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, quote from Don't Let Me Go
“Nothing is more dangerous than words. Words can kill your soul.”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, quote from Don't Let Me Go
“like a mask, and in his other hand he held an open can of”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, quote from Don't Let Me Go
“It’s just that this might be the last train to happy. And you want to make sure to get on it.” Felipe”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, quote from Don't Let Me Go
“Shades of me, he thought. Did other people react so violently to the overwhelm of their emotion? News to him. He’d lived his life quite sure he was the only one. Billy”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, quote from Don't Let Me Go
“It’s like people who want to feel only happy but not sad,” she said. “It never works. You either feel things or you don’t. You don’t get to pick and choose. At least, I don’t think so.” Billy”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, quote from Don't Let Me Go
“How can it be good to know nothing?” “It’s not. But if you know nothing, it’s good to know that you know nothing.” “Oh,” Grace said. “Yeah, I guess.” “Because as long as you think you know everything, nothing changes.”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, quote from Don't Let Me Go
“Accepting things. That’s what the talk was about. About how insane it is to try to pretend something isn’t a certain way, or that you can make it another way, just because you don’t like it. And how that seems to be the one thing that makes addicts use drugs, and pretty much ruins everybody’s lives. This thing about refusing to just accept the way things are when you can’t change them anyway.”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, quote from Don't Let Me Go
“But when I was inside, I was always OK. So I just started staying inside. Like I told you before, it gets to be an addiction.”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, quote from Don't Let Me Go
“Esta bien,” Clara called back. They sat in silence a while longer. “You seem pretty relaxed,” she said to Billy. “Pretty”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, quote from Don't Let Me Go
“You want to be OK right now, so you trade that for having a good life in the long run. It’s a bad trade, but people do it all the time. That’s all addiction really is. It’s trading away the future so you can feel OK right now. That’s what your mom is doing. And that’s what got me. There’s really quite a lot of it going around.” Billy”
― Catherine Ryan Hyde, quote from Don't Let Me Go
“That’s the place to get to—nowhere. One wants to wander away from the world’s somewheres, into our own nowhere.”
― D.H. Lawrence, quote from Women in Love
“I breathed the book before I saw it; tasted the book before I read it.”
― Paul Harding, quote from Tinkers
“It was Alec who brought their lips together.
Seregil's first reaction was disbelief. But Alec was insistent, clumsy but determined. It lasted an instant, an eternity, that one awkward kiss, and it spoke silent volumes of bewildered honesty.
The moment that followed was too fragile for words.”
― quote from Stalking Darkness
“إن الروح بحاجة لأن ترتعش لكي تستيقظ”
― Elif Shafak, quote from The Bastard of Istanbul
“In Mesoamerica, timekeeping provided the stimulus that accounting gave to the Middle East. Like contemporary astrologers, the Olmec, Maya, and Zapotec believed that celestial phenomena like the phases of the moon and Venus affect daily life. To measure and predict these portents requires careful sky watching and a calendar. Strikingly, Mesoamerican societies developed three calendars: a 365-day secular calendar like the contemporary calendar; a 260-day sacred calendar that was like no other calendar on earth; and the equally unique Long Count, a one-by-one tally of the days since a fixed starting point thousands of years ago.”
― Charles C. Mann, quote from 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus
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.