“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
Aidan Chambers
Born place: in Chester le Street, County Durham, England, The United Kingdom
Born date December 27, 1934
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“Because way down deep they know that civilized people have to preserve rare birds.”
― E.L. Konigsburg, quote from Silent to the Bone
“Scarily, cadmium is not even the worst poison among the elements. It sits above mercury, a neurotoxin. And to the right of mercury sit the most horrific mug shots on the periodic table—thallium, lead, and polonium—the nucleus of poisoner’s corridor.”
― Sam Kean, quote from The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements
“My belief is firm in a law of compensation. The true rewards are ever in proportion to the labor and sacrifices made.”
― Nikola Tesla, quote from My Inventions
“Of course, the morning, every morning, was full of such incidents. That was family life. They were all able to get through the day without receiving any particular wounds; every such thing left its tiny scar, but their infant skins healed with wonderful quickness.”
― Christina Stead, quote from The Man Who Loved Children
“No, Mr. Honda, I have forgotten none of the blessings that were mine in the other world. But I fear I have never heard the name Kiyoaki Matsugae. Don’t you suppose, Mr. Honda, that there never was such a person? You seem convinced that there was; but don’t you suppose that there was no such person from the beginning, anywhere? I couldn’t help thinking so as I listened to you.”
“Why then do we know each other? And the Ayakuras and the Matsugaes must still have family registers.”
“Yes, such documents might solve problems in the other world. But did you really know a person called Kiyoaki? And can you say definitely that the two of us have met before?”
“I came here sixty years ago.”
“Memory is like a phantom mirror. It sometimes shows things too distant to be seen, and sometimes it shows them as if they were here.”
“But if there was no Kiyoaki from the beginning—” Honda was groping through a fog. His meeting here with the Abbess seemed half a dream. He spoke loudly, as if to retrieve the self that receded like traces of breath vanishing from a lacquer tray. “If there was no Kiyoaki, then there was no Isao. There was no Ying Chan, and who knows, perhaps there has been no I.”
For the first time there was strength in her eyes.
“That too is as it is in each heart.”
― Yukio Mishima, quote from The Decay of the Angel
Every Which Way But...
The Birth of Venus
Dance Dance Dance
Shadow's Edge
From Hell
Code Name VerityBookQuoters 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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