“[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
Catherine Ryan Hyde
Born place: in Buffalo, NY, The United States
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“Sometimes I would get invited to a party or to go out to dinner by one
of them and I would decline. Part of me wanted to go, but those kind of
outings always made me feel even more alienated than usual. Hearing them
talk made me feel lonely and hateful at the same time. Lonely because I
didn't fit in, never did. When I was reminded, it hurt. And hateful
because it reaffirmed what I already knew, that I was alone and on the
outside.”
― Henry Rollins, quote from The Portable Henry Rollins
“It is not important whether what he is chanting is true or not, whether you believe in it or not. Your decision to chant along with him is no measure of your commitment to justice or freedom or whatever lofty principle is at hand. Sometimes, radical slogans are a trap. They are shouted by infiltrators so that a group of students protesting a press crackdown can be depicted as seeking to overthrow the regime. Sometimes they are not traps at all but the frustrated stand of a brave person. But how are you to know? Your objective is to avoid being a pawn, to avoid getting dragged into trouble because you are curious, or believe you are seeing history being made." They”
― Shirin Ebadi, quote from Iran Awakening
“Being worshiped (for most women) is preferable to being defiled, and being looked up to is better than being walked on. It is hard for women to refuse the worship of what otherwise is despised: being female. Woman’s special moral nature has sometimes been used to plead her case: being moral, she will be able to upgrade the morality of the nation if she has the rights of citizenship, the tone of the marketplace if she is employed, the quality of the church if she officiates, the humanism of government if she is in it; being moral, she will be on the side of good. It has also been argued, more loudly and more often, that her moral nature must not be contaminated by vulgar responsibilities; that she has a special moral role to play in making the nation and the world good— she must be in her person the example of good that will civilize and educate men and make the nation moral. One cannot do what men do—not in government, not in the family, not even in religion, not anywhere—and be an example of good.”
― Andrea Dworkin, quote from Right Wing Women
“She lied, sir. She has always lied. I don't think she ever spoke a word of truth. But when she spoke, I believed her.”
― Prosper Mérimée, quote from Carmen
“It's my personal onion theory. See, it's like we've all got layers on layers, going deep inside, to layer ten, that place where we're spiritual and private. But we don't show those deep layers.”
― Dandi Daley Mackall, quote from My Boyfriends' Dogs: The Tales of Adam and Eve and Shirley
The Dinner
A Man
The Shrinking Man
Sorcerer to the Crow...
The Conference of th...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.
