Quotes from Dying to Know You

Aidan Chambers ·  288 pages

Rating: (2.1K votes)


“Sometimes the course of our lives depends on what we do or don't do in a few seconds, a heartbeat, when we either seize the opportunity, or just miss it. Miss the moment and you never get a chance again.”
― Aidan Chambers, quote from Dying to Know You


“However much you love somebody, you should always keep a part of yourself to yourself. Never give it all. You can never be yourself otherwise.”
― Aidan Chambers, quote from Dying to Know You


“She was--I keep using the past tense; I ought to say she is--one of those people who, at first sight, look plain, are quiet, unassertive, unmemorable even. But who, when they start to talk and you get to know them, become more and more attractive and impressive, and you see that in fact they are beautiful. Not conventionally beautiful, not celebrity beautiful, but beautiful all through.”
― Aidan Chambers, quote from Dying to Know You


“I don’t actually think “true love” is such a good term because love can only be true. If it isn’t true it can’t be love.”
― Aidan Chambers, quote from Dying to Know You


“And trust dies from ifs and buts”
― Aidan Chambers, quote from Dying to Know You



“Life is not like a novel, but a novel can be like life. The best ones always are.”
― Aidan Chambers, quote from Dying to Know You


“The plain unwelcome fact is that sometimes life stymies you.”
― Aidan Chambers, quote from Dying to Know You


“Rooms are a fixed size, which can't be altered without pulling down walls and building new ones. They should be unchanging in shape and proportions. But sometimes they do change depending on who's in them.”
― Aidan Chambers, quote from Dying to Know You


“I sometimes wonder whether most people choose their hobbies because they lust after the gear more than for the benefits of the activities themselves.”
― Aidan Chambers, quote from Dying to Know You


“But the bit I liked best was where it said it's impossible to define love because it takes so many forms and is so complicated.”
― Aidan Chambers, quote from Dying to Know You



“In all our times together so far, this was the first time I felt we were enjoying ourselves, without strain or any sense of difference of age or deference, concession or inequality. It was, I thought afterwards, the first time we had met as ourselves, untrammelled, unguarded and in tune.”
― Aidan Chambers, quote from Dying to Know You


“Unfortunately, ..., all too often a joke tells the truth.”
― Aidan Chambers, quote from Dying to Know You


“when I am talking to myself, whom am I talking to and who is doing the talking? Are we all in fact two people, not one? Are we all One and Another? What I know is that I have an 'everyday self,' the one who does things, says things, deals with the ups and downs of daily life, and another, an 'inner self,' the one I think of as my real self, the self who observes everything my everyday self does and comments and judges, praises and dispraises, considers what would be best to do and not to do, and assesses the results.”
― Aidan Chambers, quote from Dying to Know You


“No, but still, the fact is, at least this is how it seems to me, everybody has to learn about it [love] from scratch for themselves. And we all make the same mistakes time and again while we're learning.”
― Aidan Chambers, quote from Dying to Know You


About the author

Aidan Chambers
Born place: in Chester le Street, County Durham, England, The United Kingdom
Born date December 27, 1934
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“Far above him a few white clouds were racing windily after a pale gibbous moon. Drink all morning, they said to him, drink all day. This is life!”
― Malcolm Lowry, quote from Under the Volcano


“But of course, those who live in memories are never really dead”
― Kate Morton, quote from The House at Riverton


“On September 16,1978, there was an eclipse of the moon in Riyadh. Late one afternoon it became visible: a dark shadow moving slowly across the face of the pale moon in the darkening blue sky. There was a frantic knocking on the door.When I opened it, our neighbor asked if we were safe. He said it was the Day of Judgment, when the Quran says the sun will rise from the west and the seas will flood, when all the dead will rise and Allah's angels will weigh our sins and virtue, expediting the good to Paradise and the bad to Hell. Though it was barely twilight, the muezzin suddenly called for prayer—not one mosque calling carefully after the other, as they usually did, but all the mosques clamoring all at once, all over the city. There was shouting across the neighborhood. When I looked outside I saw people praying in the street. Now more neighbors came knocking,asking us to pardon past misdeeds. They told us children to pray for them, because children's prayers are answered most. The gates of Hell yawned open before us. We were panicked.... but the next morning, the sun was safely in its usual place, fat and implacable, and the world wasn't ending after all.”
― Ayaan Hirsi Ali, quote from Infidel


“If you sincerely believed in God, how could you form one thought, speak one sentence, without mentioning Him?”
― Neal Stephenson, quote from Anathem


“Youth hasn't got anything to do with chronological age. It's times of hope and happiness.”
― Wallace Stegner, quote from Crossing to Safety


Interesting books

Macbeth (Wordsworth Classics)
(558K)
Macbeth (Wordsworth...
by William Shakespeare
Dama s psičkom
(3.9K)
Dama s psičkom
by Anton Chekhov
A Promise of Fire
(12.3K)
A Promise of Fire
by Amanda Bouchet
How to Be a Bawse: A Guide to Conquering Life
(8K)
How to Be a Bawse: A...
by Lilly Singh
P.S. I Like You
(23.8K)
P.S. I Like You
by Kasie West
The Drifters
(6.3K)
The Drifters
by James A. Michener

About BookQuoters

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.