“The plane blew up.”
“I wonder what happened to all the other people?”
As soon as I’d spoken, I wished I hadn’t said that. I decided shy people shouldn’t try to make conversation, not even in an emergency. If I manage to talk to strangers at all, nervousness always makes me say the wrong thing.”
― Ann Halam, quote from Dr. Franklin's Island
“But I suppose I’m a typical nerd, good at the details, not very smart at seeing the larger picture. I’d gone in for the competition because I liked my science teacher, and it had been like doing any interesting piece of homework. I had not thought it through. I had never sat myself down and said to myself, hold on, Semirah, what if you win? You are shy. How are you going to survive for three weeks surrounded by total strangers?”
― Ann Halam, quote from Dr. Franklin's Island
“I walked all the way around the zoo, and then came back to a girl with a round face and fluffy hair, who looked like a baby owl. I like owls. I was about to say hello when along came Very Cool Girl, with her beautiful hair swinging. She smiled at me, and so did the baby owl. But oh no…My throat closed up. I simply could not speak. I can’t talk to strangers! I swerved off, and pretended I’d been headed for a nearby drinks machine.”
― Ann Halam, quote from Dr. Franklin's Island
“I’d given up on the animal identities, so I didn’t try to think of one; but I decided I’d sit down, not next to him but a couple of seats away, to drink my can of Coke. I would try to look casually inviting, and maybe we could strike up a conversation. I sat down, giving a sigh that might have been a sort of noncommittal half-hello. He looked up from the game he was playing on his GameBoy and stared at me, narrow-eyed. His expression said very clearly, I’ve got your number, Unpopular Girl. Stay away from me.”
― Ann Halam, quote from Dr. Franklin's Island
“Good morning,” I said awkwardly.
Being shipwrecked doesn’t make shyness any easier.”
― Ann Halam, quote from Dr. Franklin's Island
“We came across a rucksack, wedged in among the coral. It was fastened up, but it seemed to have been invaded by some weird fluffy white sea creature that was trying to get out.
“What’s that?” said Arnie, poking it.
Miranda and I took a second look, and started to giggle. “It’s tampons,” I said. “Expanding widthways when wet—”
“Yecch!”
― Ann Halam, quote from Dr. Franklin's Island
Ann Halam
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“There is no small irony here: An administration which flaunted its intellectual superiority and its superior academic credentials made the most critical of decisions with virtually no input from anyone who had any expertise on the recent history of that part of the world, and it in no way factored in the entire experience of the French Indochina War. Part of the reason for this were the upheavals of the McCarthy period, but in part it was also the arrogance of men of the Atlantic; it was as if these men did not need to know about such a distant and somewhat less worthy part of the world. Lesser parts of the world attracted lesser men; years later I came upon a story which illustrated this theory perfectly. Jack Langguth, a writer and college classmate of mine, mentioned to a member of that Administration that he was thinking of going on to study Latin American history. The man had turned to him, his contempt barely concealed, and said, “Second-rate parts of the world for second-rate minds.”
― David Halberstam, quote from The Best and the Brightest
“Don't let anyone but a soldier tell you how to fight a war.”
― Nick Cole, quote from The Old Man and the Wasteland
“Mother was still brooding over the loss of her offspring many years ago but the same mother could cheerfully look upon the death of a mother bird. She had admiration for her son who had killed that innocent bird. She could partake of the dead mother’s meat with relish. I was baffled by this contradiction in life.”
― Vishnu Sakharam Khandekar, quote from Yayati: A Classic Tale of Lust
“Good," said Jack, "because if you get any closer to that car in front, the driver'll be sticking up a sign asking you to climb up through the back window and give him head before you fuck him up the ass, is all.”
― Jack L. Pyke, quote from Backlash
“The world is full of disappointment," I said.
"Yes," she said, "I heard him say that. And every creature is simply trying to get what it wants, and to make their way through a difficult world. Do you believe that?"
"No," I said. "There's more than that."
"Like what?"
"Like good books," I said, "and good people. And good librarians, who are almost both at once.”
― Lemony Snicket, quote from Why Is This Night Different from All Other Nights?
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Blue-Eyed DevilBookQuoters 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.
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