“Destiny is a good thing to accept when it's going your way. When it isn't, don't call it destiny; call it injustice, treachery, or simple bad luck.”
― Joseph Heller, quote from God Knows
“But how can one be warm alone?”
― Joseph Heller, quote from God Knows
“That's another thing that pisses me off about that Michelangelo statue of me in Florence. He's got me standing there uncircumcised! Who the fuck did he think I was?”
― Joseph Heller, quote from God Knows
“It takes very little to make us [women] happy, and more than is contained in heaven and earth to keep us that way”
― Joseph Heller, quote from God Knows
“Some Promised Land. The honey was there, but the milk we brought in with our goats. To people in California, God gives a magnificent coastline, a movie industry, and Beverly Hills. To us He gives sand. To Cannes He gives a plush film festival. We get the PLO. Our winters are rainy, our summers hot. To people who didn't know how to wind a wristwatch He gives underground oceans of oil. To us He gives hernia, piles, and anti-Semitism.”
― Joseph Heller, quote from God Knows
“You’ve got to have a God. Without God, you might turn to something really crazy, like witchcraft, or religion.”
― Joseph Heller, quote from God Knows
“First impressions die slowly, bad impressions take even longer”
― Joseph Heller, quote from God Knows
“Moses has the Ten Commandments, it's true, but I've got much better lines - King David”
― Joseph Heller, quote from God Knows
“Cap’n don’t like us tellin’ tales,” another man added.
“That’s just ‘round his girl, is all,” the storyteller replied.
Camille ceased breathing and widened her eyes. They were right about her father banning such rubbish aboard his ships, but she’d never known she was the reason for it. Why did he feel the need to protect her from them? The few parts of stories she had managed to overhear were entertaining but obvious malarkey to scare young sailors ut of their wits.
“If he thinks she’s too fine for them, he shouldn’t bring her along,” Lucius said, his sneer reaching through to his tone of voice.
“This is her last time, ain’t it?” another sailor asked.
Her stomach cramped at the unwelcome reminder.
“If it is, I wager it’ll be Kildare’s, too. He won’t stick ‘round no more,” another chuckled. Camille’s ears perked at Oscar’s name, then reddened at the sailor’s implication that Oscar was there only for her. It was absurd.
“Good,” Lucius replied. “Who will be our new first mate?”
What were they going on about? Oscar was a perfect first mate. Her father had groomed him for it. Oscar couldn’t just…leave.
“Well, it won’t be you, Drake. You can’t even make a shroud knot!”
The sailors in the fo’c’sle burst out in laughter. Grabbing her chance to leave, Camille took off down the corridor until their laughter faded with the sighs of the ship.”
― Angie Frazier, quote from Everlasting
“The part of her that should have been disgusted was numb.”
― Fuyumi Ono, quote from The Twelve Kingdoms: Sea of Shadow
“El polizonte era capaz de anonadarlo, a fuerza de denuncias. Por ejemplo, vería a tu gato vagabundeando y te denunciaría por dejar tus animales errantes...;”
― Anton Chekhov, quote from Racconti
“the cat unsheathes its claws
the world turns”
― Sylvia Plath, quote from Plath: Poems
“Intoxicated with her success and his awed eyes, and with the way the wind rushed by and flicked delicate strands of saliva across her cheeks, Will spread out her arms, spun in a pirouette. Shumba chose that moment to stumble over a rabbit hole and with a terrific crash, that sounded and resounded for miles and miles of flei, Will fell into the long grass.”
― Katherine Rundell, quote from The Girl Savage
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.