“... He was particularly disgruntled to see what he had taken for a bundle of old rags on the tracks outside was a human body. He did not say "Not again" (what he said was "Shit on this"), but "Not again" was what he meant.”
― Peter Straub, quote from Ghost Story
“...nobody can protect anybody else from vileness. Or from pain. All you can do is not let it break you in half and keep on going until you get to the other side.”
― Peter Straub, quote from Ghost Story
“The mind was a trap--it was a cage that slammed down over you.”
― Peter Straub, quote from Ghost Story
“The day was a long bolt of gray cloth; endless.”
― Peter Straub, quote from Ghost Story
“I do know that nobody can protect anybody else from vileness. Or from pain. All you can do is not let it break you in half and keep on going until you get to the other side.”
― Peter Straub, quote from Ghost Story
“And I found a statement by Hawthorne which helped to explain his method: “I have sometimes produced a singular and not unpleasing effect, so far as my own mind was concerned, by imagining a train of incidents in which the spiritual mechanism of the faery legend should be combined with the characters and manners of everyday life.”
― Peter Straub, quote from Ghost Story
“it didn’t have a real ending. It just slipped backward when other things happened.”
― Peter Straub, quote from Ghost Story
“But you do not reject the supernatural out of hand,' Sears said. 'I don't know if I do or do not,' I said. 'Like most people.”
― Peter Straub, quote from Ghost Story
“Students set up desks where you could sign petitions for legalizing marijuana or declare yourself in favor of homosexuality and the protection of whales; students thronged by.”
― Peter Straub, quote from Ghost Story
“and rising extremely unlike Phoebus with the dawn to prepare the schoolhouse.”
― Peter Straub, quote from Ghost Story
“On the warm stone walls, climbing roses were just coming into bloom and great twisted branches of honeysuckle and clematis wrestled each other as they tumbled up and over the top of the wall. Against another wall were white apple blossoms on branches cut into sharp crucifixes and forced to lie flat against the stone. Below, the huge frilled lips of giant tulips in shades of white and cream nodded in their beds. They were almost finished now, spread open too far, splayed, exposing obscene black centers. I've never had my own garden but I suddenly recognized something in the tangle of this one that wasn't beauty. Passion, maybe. And something else. Rage. ”
― Meg Rosoff, quote from How I Live Now
“What is it about you that demolishes my mind?”
― Judith McNaught, quote from Perfect
“Hippo in a skirt: this was a comic reference to one of Solomon's principal wives, the one from Moab. Childish? Yes. But in the days before printing we had limited opportunities for satire.”
― Jonathan Stroud, quote from The Ring of Solomon
“Describe snow to someone who's lived in the desert. Depict the colour blue for a blind man. Almost impossible to fashion the word.”
― Andrea Levy, quote from Small Island
“Take a moment from time to time to remember that you are alive. I know this sounds a trifle obvious, but it is amazing how little time we take to remark upon this singular and gratifying fact. By the most astounding stroke of luck an infinitesimal portion of all the matter in the universe came together to create you and for the tiniest moment in the great span of eternity you have the incomparable privilege to exist.”
― Bill Bryson, quote from I'm a Stranger Here Myself: Notes on Returning to America after Twenty Years Away
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.