“One tribe moves out and one tribe stays. History broadens, and philosophy shifts, develops a rift, splits one population from the other . . . and a schism happens, minor or major. It’s the way humankind has always proliferated. We go over the next hill, live a few hundred years, change our languages to accommodate things we never saw before—and before we know it, our cousins think we have an accent. Or we think they have a strange attitude. And we don’t really understand our cousins any longer.”
― C.J. Cherryh, quote from Downbelow Station
“What the visual media could not carry into living rooms, the general public could not long remain exercised about.
Statistically, a majority of the electorate could not or did not read complicated issues;
no pictures, no news; no news, no event; no great sympathy on the part of the public nor sustained interest from the media: safe politics for the Company.”
― C.J. Cherryh, quote from Downbelow Station
“A bizarre hysteria, perhaps, that point which many reached here, when anger was all that mattered. It led to self-destruction.”
― C.J. Cherryh, quote from Downbelow Station
“Their minds were geared to the old problems and to their own problems and their own politics.”
― C.J. Cherryh, quote from Downbelow Station
“It was a scientific success, bringing back data enough to keep the analysts busy for years… but there was no glib, slick way to explain the full meaning of its observations in layman’s terms. In public relations the mission was a failure; the public, seeking to understand on their own terms, looked for material benefit, treasure, riches, dramatic findings.”
― C.J. Cherryh, quote from Downbelow Station
“Well, I know better what I don’t want. I don’t want somebody who’s always nagging me to be something I’m not. And I don’t want somebody who thinks she knows what’s best for me and who maneuvers around trying to get me to do things her way.”
Kate frowned. “Nobody wants anyone like that. It’s like saying, ‘I don’t want someone who’ll poke me in the eye with a sharp stick.’ Forget what you don’t want. What do you want?”
― Jennifer Crusie, quote from Manhunting
“I will love you as a cufflink loves to drop from its shirt and explore the party for itself.”
― Lemony Snicket, quote from The Beatrice Letters
“Wilderness An area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain. —Howard Zahniser Perhaps”
― Eric Blehm, quote from The Last Season
“Men call women faithless, changeable, and though they say it in jealousy of their own ever-threatened sexual honor, there is some truth in it. We can change our life, our being; no matter what our will is, we are changed. As the moon changes yet is one, so we are virgin, wife, mother, grandmother. For all their restlessness, men are who they are; once they put on the man's toga they will not change again; so they make a virtue of that rigidity and resist whatever might soften it and set them free.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, quote from Lavinia
“Dammit, you’ve got a job to do! He tried to pull energy—confidence—from the faces of the others, even from men who had never done this before.”
― Jeff Shaara, quote from The Steel Wave
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.