“We don’t know a tenth of what there is to know,” Mr. Pendergast said. “Why we don’t even know a sixth.”
― Robert Morgan, quote from Gap Creek
“There is a smell that lung sickness gives people. It’s the smell of blood and congestion and fever. It’s the smell of blood mixed with air that hangs over a bed and fills a sickroom. It’s the smell of old blood, and blood that is fresh and already old. It’s the smell of a festering wound.”
― Robert Morgan, quote from Gap Creek
“The good Lord made the world so we could earn our joy, Ma said. But it's no guarantee we'll ever be happy.”
― Robert Morgan, quote from Gap Creek
“As I scrubbed the floor I was scrubbing part of the world. And I was scrubbing my mind to make it clear. It was work that made me think clear, and it was work that made me humble. I could never talk fast, and I could never say what I meant to people, or tell them what they meant to me. My tongue was loosened by my feelings. It was with my hands and with my back and shoulders that I could say how I felt. I had to talk with my arms and my strong hands.”
― Robert Morgan, quote from Gap Creek
“I discovered hunger don’t make you resentful. Hunger makes you slow and brooding, like you are just waiting and waiting. You don’t feel like going anywhere or doing anything. Hunger makes you set around, makes you want to go to bed early and sleep late. You don’t want to think about nothing, for if you think you will think about good things to eat. When you’re hungry you don’t want to think at all. You want time to pass. You are waiting for something to happen. You don’t want to waste effort. You are saving the fat on your bones and the strength in your blood. You are saving your breath. When you’re hungry you don’t even daydream a lot. You just drift through the hours and the first thing you know another day is over, another night has gone by. Mostly you want to forget.”
― Robert Morgan, quote from Gap Creek
“There's no hope for a family that quarrels all the time.”
― Robert Morgan, quote from Gap Creek
“The language I have learn'd these forty years, My native English, now I must forego: And now my tongue's use is to me no more Than an unstringed viol or a harp, Or like a cunning instrument cased up, Or, being open, put into his hands That knows no touch to tune the harmony: Within my mouth you have engaol'd my tongue, Doubly portcullis'd with my teeth and lips; And dull unfeeling barren ignorance Is made my gaoler to attend on me. I am too old to fawn upon a nurse, Too far in years to be a pupil now: What is thy sentence then but speechless death, Which robs my tongue from breathing native breath?”
― William Shakespeare, quote from The Annotated Shakespeare: The Comedies, Histories, Sonnets and Other Poems, Tragedies and Romances Complete (Three Volume Set in Slipcase)
“Nothing a woman gives is worth having unless she gives it of her own free will.”
― Sherrilyn Kenyon, quote from Dragonswan
“You terrify me, Soraya.”
“Likewise.”
“But that’s the very reason that I just know.”
“Know what?”
“That this could be the real thing.”
― Vi Keeland, quote from Stuck-Up Suit
“Everybody else possessed the key to popularity and happiness, and his clumsy attempts to find his own key always ended with other children looking at him funny, or calling him names.”
― Belinda Bauer, quote from Rubbernecker
“(Please forgive us, reader. We have once more gone astray with this rightist opportunism—this concept of "guilt," and of the guilty or innocent. It has, after all, been explained to us that the heart of the matter is not personal guilt, but social danger. One can imprison an innocent person if he is socially hostile. And one can release a guilty man if he is socially friendly. But lacking legal training, we can be forgiven, for the 1926 [Soviet Criminal] Code, according to which, my good fellow, we lived for twenty-five years and more, was itself criticized for an "impermissible bourgeois approach," for an "insufficiently class-conscious approach," and for some kind of "bourgeois weighting of punishment in relation to the gravity of what had been committed.")”
― Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, quote from The Gulag Archipelago, 1918-1956: An Experiment in Literary Investigation, Books I-II
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.