“The better you look, the more you see.”
― Bret Easton Ellis, quote from Glamorama
“Baby, when you were young and your heart was an open book, you used to say live and let live. You know you did, you know you did, you know you did.”
― Bret Easton Ellis, quote from Glamorama
“What? Did we end up hating each other? Did we end up the way we thought we always knew would? Did I end up wearing khakis because of that fucking ad?”
― Bret Easton Ellis, quote from Glamorama
“At first she was so inexpressive and indifferent that I wanted to know more about her. I envied that blankness - it was the opposite of helplessness or damage or craving or suffering or shame. But she was never really happy and already, in a matter of days, she had reached a stage in our relationship where she no longer really cared about me or any thoughts or ideas I might have had.”
― Bret Easton Ellis, quote from Glamorama
“How is your father?” she asks disinterestedly.
“A contrivance,” I mutter. “A plot device.”
― Bret Easton Ellis, quote from Glamorama
“Baby, Andy once said that beauty is a sign of intelligence.'
She turns slowly to look at me. 'Who, Victor? Who? Andy who?' She coughs, blowing her nose. 'Andy Kaufman? Andy Griffith? Who in the hell told you this? Andy Rooney?'
'Warhol,' I say softly, hurt. 'Baby...”
― Bret Easton Ellis, quote from Glamorama
“The Dave Matthews Band’s “Crash into Me” played over the montage, not that the lyrics had anything to do with the images the song was played over but it was “haunting”, it was “moody”, it was “summing things up”, it gave the footage an “emotional resonance” that I guess we were incapable of capturing ourselves. At first my feelings were basically so what? But then I suggested other music: “Hurt” by Nine Inch Nails, but I was told that the rights were sky-high and that the song was “too ominous” for this sequence; Nada Surf’s “Popular” had “too many minor chords”, it didn’t fit the “mood of the piece,” it was – again – “too ominous.” When I told them I seriously did not think things could get any more fucking ominous than they already were, I was told, “Things get very much more ominous, Victor,” and then I was left alone.”
― Bret Easton Ellis, quote from Glamorama
“Everything suddenly seems displaced, subtle gradations erase borders, but it’s more forceful than that.”
― Bret Easton Ellis, quote from Glamorama
“Confusion and hopelessness don't necessarily cause a person to act.”
― Bret Easton Ellis, quote from Glamorama
“Café Flore is packed, shimmering, every table filled. Bentley notices this with a grim satisfaction but Bentley feels lost. He’s still haunted by the movie Grease and obsessed with legs that he always felt were too skinny though no one else did and it never hampered his modeling career and he’s still not over a boy he met at a Styx concert in 1979 in a stadium somewhere in the Midwest, outside a town he has not been back to since he left it at eighteen, and that boy’s name was Cal, who pretended to be straight even though he initially fell for Bentley’s looks but Cal knew Bentley was emotionally crippled and the fact that Bentley didn’t believe in heaven didn’t make him more endearing so Cal drifted off and inevitably became head of programming at HBO for a year or two. Bentley sits down, already miked, and lights a cigarette. Next to them Japanese tourists study maps, occasionally snap photos. This is the establishing shot.”
― Bret Easton Ellis, quote from Glamorama
“Around here, ‘tomorrow night’ means anywhere from five days to a month. Jesus,”
― Bret Easton Ellis, quote from Glamorama
“when you were young and your heart was an open book you used to say live and let live.”
― Bret Easton Ellis, quote from Glamorama
“I was born in Nature's wide domain! The trees were all that sheltered my infant limbs, the blue heavens all that covered me. I am one of Nature's children. I have always admired her. She shall be my glory: her features, her robes, and the wreath about her brow, the seasons, her stately oaks, and the evergreen — her hair, ringlets over the earth — all contribute to my enduring love of her. And wherever I see her, emotions of pleasure roll in my breast, and swell and burst like waves on the shores of the ocean, in prayer and praise to Him who has placed me in her hand. It is thought great to be born in palaces, surrounded with wealth — but to be born in Nature's wide domain is greater still! I”
― Kent Nerburn, quote from The Wisdom of the Native Americans: Including The Soul of an Indian and Other Writings of Ohiyesa and the Great Speeches of Red Jacket, Chief Joseph, and Chief Seattle
“the difficulties of making temperature experiments [on fully grown alligators] would be great and can be best left to the imagination.”)”
― Brian Switek, quote from Written in Stone: Evolution, the Fossil Record, and Our Place in Nature
“A good bureaucracy is the best tool of oppression ever invented.”
― Frank Herbert, quote from The Jesus Incident
“Hopefully one day wars will only be fought in movies and may the best producer win”
― quote from Return to Stantasyland
“Once more unto the breach," Wellington grumbled in the stillness of the carriage.
Eliza looked up from the address Douglas had given her. "Sorry, Welly, what was that?"
"Shakespeare. I always recite it just before placing my career in harm's way, or have you not noticed that when we began casually stepping out of Ministry protocol?"
"And here I thought you were whispering sweet nothings in my ear when you were spontaneously breaking out into passages from Romeo and Juliet yesterday."
"You failed to notice I was reciting the scene at Juliet's tomb.”
― quote from The Janus Affair
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.