Quotes from Eye of the Needle

Ken Follett ·  339 pages

Rating: (105.4K votes)


“The trouble with being inspired to perform the impossible was that the inspiration gave you no clues to the practical means.”
― Ken Follett, quote from Eye of the Needle


“Blenkinsop sighed. "As usual, those of you who can think of better ways to win the war are invited to write directly to Mr. Winston Churchill, number 10 Downing Street, London South-West-One. Now, are there any questions, as opposed to stupid criticisms?”
― Ken Follett, quote from Eye of the Needle


“Our whole strategy must be to prevent the Allies from securing a beachhead, because once they achieve that, the battle is lost…perhaps even the war.”
― Ken Follett, quote from Eye of the Needle


“War was grueling and oppressive and frustrating and uncomfortable, but one had friends. If peace brought back loneliness, Godliman thought he would not be able to live with it.”
― Ken Follett, quote from Eye of the Needle


“Villages in the English countryside were cut off by the snow,”
― Ken Follett, quote from Eye of the Needle



“Around most of its coast the cliffs rise out of the cold sea without the courtesy of a beach. Angered by this rudeness the waves pound on the rock in impotent rage: a ten-thousand-year fit of bad temper that the island ignores with impunity.”
― Ken Follett, quote from Eye of the Needle


“I haven’t had the opportunity to discover the merits of monogamy.”
― Ken Follett, quote from Eye of the Needle


About the author

Ken Follett
Born place: in Cardiff, The United Kingdom
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“Hail to thee, Alabama, thou verdant trollop!”
― Joshilyn Jackson, quote from Gods in Alabama


“I obeyed, but my crime was that I did not look obedient.”
― Tehmina Durrani, quote from My Feudal Lord


“When a child disappears, the space she’d occupied is immediately filled with dozens of people. And these people—relatives, friends, police officers, reporters from both TV and print—create a lot of energy and noise, a sense of communal intensity, of fierce and shared dedication to a task.

“But amid all that noise, nothing is louder than the silence of the missing child. It’s a silence that’s two and a half to three feet tall, and you feel it at your hip and hear it rising up from the floorboards, shouting to you from corners and crevices and the emotionless face of a doll left on the floor by the bed.

“It’s a silence that’s different from the one left at funerals and wakes. The silence of the dead carries with it a sense of finality; it’s a silence you know you must get used to. But the silence of a missing child is not something you want to get used to; you refuse to accept it, and so it screams at you.

“The silence of the dead says, Goodbye.

“The silence of the missing says, Find me.”
― Dennis Lehane, quote from Gone, Baby, Gone


“That’s basically the cherry on top of this week’s sundae of suck.”
― Seanan McGuire, quote from Ashes of Honor


“The final mystery is oneself. When one has weighed the sun in the balance, and measured the steps of the moon, and mapped out the seven heavens star by star, there still remains oneself. Who can calculate the orbit of his own soul?”
― Oscar Wilde, quote from De Profundis


Interesting books

Vernon God Little
(25.3K)
Vernon God Little
by D.B.C. Pierre
Plum Island
(36.8K)
Plum Island
by Nelson DeMille
Map of Bones
(49.1K)
Map of Bones
by James Rollins
Blood Destiny
(2.9K)
Blood Destiny
by Tessa Dawn
My Family and Other Animals
(26.6K)
My Family and Other...
by Gerald Durrell
The Invention of Wings
(210.2K)
The Invention of Win...
by Sue Monk Kidd

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.