Quotes from Four Past Midnight

“A woman who would steal your love when your love was really all you had to give was not much of a woman.”
― Stephen King, quote from Four Past Midnight

“I still believe in the resilience of the human heart and the essential validity of love;I still believe that connections between people can be made and that the spirits which inhabit us sometimes touch. I still believe that the cost of these connections is horribly, outrageously high... and I still believe that the value received far outweighs the price which must be paid. (From introductory notes.)”
― Stephen King, quote from Four Past Midnight

“And didn't they say that, although curiosity killed the cat, satisfaction brought the beast back?”
― Stephen King, quote from Four Past Midnight

“Never believe a writer. Listen to them, by all means, but never believe them.”
― Stephen King, quote from Four Past Midnight

“Then his lids closed slowly over his slightly bloodshot eyes, and Mort Rainey, who had yet to discover what true horror was all about, fell asleep.”
― Stephen King, quote from Four Past Midnight

“You never ever asked Lady Luck for a date; she had a way of standing men up just when they needed her the most. But if she showed up on her own ... well, it was wise to drop whatever it was you were doing and take her out and wine her and dine her just as lavishly as you could. That was one bitch who always put out if you treated her right.”
― Stephen King, quote from Four Past Midnight

“still believe, I suppose, in the coming of the White and in finding a place to make a stand ... and defending that place to the death.”
― Stephen King, quote from Four Past Midnight

“I’m not taking that,” Mort said, and part of him was marvelling at what a really accommodating beast a man was: when someone held something out to you, your first instinct was to take it. No matter if it was a check for a thousand dollars or a stick of dynamite with a lit and fizzing fuse, your first instinct was to take it.”
― Stephen King, quote from Four Past Midnight

“Writing, it seems to me, is a secret act—as secret as dreaming—and that was one aspect of this strange and dangerous craft I had never thought about much.”
― Stephen King, quote from Four Past Midnight

“Have I gotten everything right? I doubt it. Not even the great Daniel Defoe did that; in Robinson Crusoe, our hero strips naked, swims out to the ship he has recently escaped....and then fills up his pockets with items he will need to stay alive on his desert island.”
― Stephen King, quote from Four Past Midnight

“while the road of good intentions might end in hell, the people who tried to fill the potholes along the way deserved at least some credit.”
― Stephen King, quote from Four Past Midnight

“I was drunk and half killed with fuckin”
― Stephen King, quote from Four Past Midnight

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Popular quotes

“It's not that there is no small talk...It's that it comes not at the beginning of conversations but at the end...Sensitive people...'enjoy small talk only after they've gone deep' says Strickland. 'When sensitive people are in environments that nurture their authenticity, they laugh and chitchat just as much as anyone else.”
― Susan Cain, quote from Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking

“No beast so fierce but knows some touch of pity. But I know none, and therefore am no beast.”
― William Shakespeare, quote from Richard III

“Speech therapy is an art that deserves to be more widely known. You cannot imagine the acrobatics your tongue mechanically performs in order to produce all the sounds of a language. Just now I am struggling with the letter l, a pitiful admission for an editor in chief who cannot even pronounce the name of his own magazine! On good days, between coughing fits, I muster enough energy and wind to be able to puff out one or two phonemes. On my birthday, Sandrine managed to get me to pronounce the whole alphabet more or less intelligibly. I could not have had a better present. It was as if those twenty-six letters and been wrenched from the void; my own hoarse voice seemed to emanate from a far-off country. The exhausting exercise left me feeling like a caveman discovering language for the first time. Sometimes the phone interrupts our work, and I take advantage of Sandrine's presence to be in touch with loved ones, to intercept and catch passing fragments of life, the way you catch a butterfly. My daughter, Celeste, tells me of her adventures with her pony. In five months she will be nine. My father tells me how hard it is to stay on his feet. He is fighting undaunted through his ninety-third year. These two are the outer links of the chain of love that surrounds and protects me. I often wonder about the effect of these one-way conversations on those at the other end of the line. I am overwhelmed by them. How dearly I would love to be able to respond with something other than silence to these tender calls. I know that some of them find it unbearable. Sweet Florence refuses to speak to me unless I first breathe noisily into the receiver that Sandrine holds glued to my ear. "Are you there, Jean-Do?" she asks anxiously over the air.

And I have to admit that at times I do not know anymore.”
― Jean-Dominique Bauby, quote from The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

“I must say, though, that a man who has staked his whole life on the card of a woman's love and who, when that card is trumped, falls to pieces and lets himself go to the dogs -- a fellow like that is not a man, not a male. You say he's unhappy -- you know best. But all the nonsense hasn't been taken out of him yet. I'm sure he really believes he's a smart fellow just because he reads that rag Galignani and saves a muzhik from a flogging once a month.”
― Ivan Turgenev, quote from Fathers and Sons

“Thomas was still outside, so I knocked once and opened the door without waiting for a response. Loki was in the middle of changing clothes as I came in. He'd already traded his worn slacks for a pair of pajama pants, and he was holding a white T-shirt, preparing to put it on.
He had his back to me, and it was even worse than I'd thought.
"Oh, my god, Loki," I gasped.
"I didn't know you were coming." He turned around to face me, smirking. "Shall I leave the shirt off, then?"
"No, put the shirt on," I said, and I closed the door behind me so nobody could see or overhear us talking.
"You're no fun." He wrinkled his nose and pulled the shirt over his head.
"Your back is horrific."
"And I was just going to tell you how beautiful you look today, but I'm not going to bother now if you're going to talk that way." Loki sat back down on his bed, more lying than sitting.”
― Amanda Hocking, quote from Ascend

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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.