“To love someone enough to let them go, you had to let them go forever or you did not love them that much.”
― Diana Wynne Jones, quote from Fire and Hemlock
“Being a hero means ignoring how silly you feel.”
― Diana Wynne Jones, quote from Fire and Hemlock
“Only thin, weak thinkers despise fairy stories. Each one has a true, strange fact hidden in it, you know, which you can find if you look.”
― Diana Wynne Jones, quote from Fire and Hemlock
“I've often noticed" Fiona said, "that when people say, 'This can't happen in this day and age', they say it because it is happening.”
― Diana Wynne Jones, quote from Fire and Hemlock
“The truth between two people always cuts two ways.”
― Diana Wynne Jones, quote from Fire and Hemlock
“I don’t think I will get married,” Polly said as she stood up. “I’m going to train to be a hero instead.”
― Diana Wynne Jones, quote from Fire and Hemlock
“But most dragons seem to have interesting personalities--besides probably having quite good reasons for what they do, if only one could understand them”
― Diana Wynne Jones, quote from Fire and Hemlock
“Happiness isn't a thing. You can't go out and get it like a cup of tea. It's the way you feel about things.”
― Diana Wynne Jones, quote from Fire and Hemlock
“Mr. Lynn gave her one of his considering looks. "People are strange," he said. "Usually they're much stranger than you think. Start from there and you'll never be unpleasantly surprised. Do you fancy doughnuts?”
― Diana Wynne Jones, quote from Fire and Hemlock
“Polly finished her huge narrative during the summer term. The day after she had finished it, she went round with the oddest mixture of feelings, pride at having got it done, sick of the sight of it and glad it was over, and completely lost without it.”
― Diana Wynne Jones, quote from Fire and Hemlock
“If you were able to hear lime juice, it would sound like violins.”
― Diana Wynne Jones, quote from Fire and Hemlock
“You've rotted your mind with reading books.”
― Diana Wynne Jones, quote from Fire and Hemlock
“Only thin, weak thinkers despise fairy stories.”
― Diana Wynne Jones, quote from Fire and Hemlock
“That is the path of Wickedness, though some call it the Road to Heaven.”
― Diana Wynne Jones, quote from Fire and Hemlock
“The art of presenting oneself, he had once told Sybil, lies in creating an immediate shock which is countered by a slow retreat into custom. People never quite recover from my cravats, but they will never find the equal of my tailor. To be memorable is all, when it comes to dress.”
― Timothy Findley, quote from Pilgrim
“It may sound reactionary, I know. But we can all feel it. We've changed the way we think of ourselves as citizens. We don't think of ourselves as citizens in the old sense of being small parts of something larger and infinitely more important to which we have serious responsibilities. We do still think of ourselves as citizens in the sense of being beneficiaries--we're actually conscious of our rights as American citizens and the nation's responsibilities to us and ensuring we get our share of the American pie. We think of ourselves now as eaters of the pie instead of makers of the pie. So who makes the pie?
...
Something has happened where we've decided on a personal level that it's all right to abdicate our individual responsibility to the common good and let government worry about the common good while we all go about our individual self-interested business and struggle to gratify our various appetites.”
― David Foster Wallace, quote from The Pale King
“You won’t tell her I told you about not being able to read, will you? She hides it really well.” He inhales deeply. “I already knew. I’ve seen her read to Hayley.” He looks into my face. “Is that why you spoke to her?” I went eight years without saying a word. And she made me want to talk again. I nod. “She couldn’t read what I wrote down.” “You talked to her all along didn’t you?” He smiles, but it’s only a half-smile. “Pretty much from the day that I met her,” I admit. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.” I feel bad now. I went years without speaking. “You guys all made it really easy for me to retreat and not speak since you all learned to sign.” “You’re fucking deaf, dumbass. What else were we going to do?” A lot of deaf families never learn sign language. “I’m sorry,” I repeat. “It was easier being quiet.” “She doesn’t make anything easy for you, does she?” “What? She makes everything easy for me. I didn’t even choose to talk. It just happened.” I smile. She turns me inside out. “I love her so fucking much.” “I know you want to be a man about this, but her father’s going to fight you the whole way.” “I know.” I wish that wasn’t the case. “But I feel like I need to be open with him.” “You’re going to get a fat fucking headache from banging your head against that wall.” “She had to wear a scarf to school today to cover up her neck.” “Fucker,” Paul swears.”
― quote from Smart, Sexy and Secretive
“up to twist her belly into knots. When it did, she’d just have to find a way to uncoil them until there was time, until there was a place. She had a whole checklist of priorities ahead of that one. On”
― Nora Roberts, quote from High Noon
“He was falling between glacial walls, he didn't know how anyone could fall so far away from everyone else in the world. So far to fall, so cold all the way, so steep and dark between those morphine-coloured walls...”
― Nelson Algren, quote from The Man With the Golden Arm
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.