Quotes from Gods and Generals

“And so, pointing fingers become pointing guns, because nobody listens to fingers.”
― Jeff Shaara, quote from Gods and Generals

“Major, I do not know why God does the things He does, but I believe you have the same duty to God as you have always had: to follow the right path, to live your life with a clear conscience.”
― Jeff Shaara, quote from Gods and Generals

“The heavy round face was looking at him, the hard look of a man who had also understood, who had seen all the stupidity, who knew, after all, that the gold stars were often mindless decoration, that the army was led not by symbols, but by the fallible egos and blind fantasies of men.”
― Jeff Shaara, quote from Gods and Generals

“Across the river he could see the burnt and crushed buildings of Fredericksburg, the debris piled along the streets, the scattered ruins of people's lives, lives that were changed forever. His men had done that. Not all of it, of course. The whole corps had seemed to go insane, had turned the town into some kind of violent party, a furious storm that blew out of control, and he could not stop it. The commanders had ordered the provost guards at the bridges to let no goods leave the town, nothing could be carried across the bridges, and so what the men could not keep, what they could not steal, they had just destroyed. And now, he thought, the people will return, trying to rescue some fragile piece of home, and they will find this...and they will learn something new about war, more than the quiet nightmare of leaving your home behind. They will learn that something happens to men, men who have felt no satisfaction, who have absorbed and digested defeat after bloody stupid defeat, men who up to now have done mostly what they were told to do. And when those men begin to understand that it is not anything in them, no great weakness or inferiority, but that it is the leaders, the generals and politicians who tell them what to do, that the fault is there, after a while they will stop listening. Then the beast, the collective anger, battered and bloodied, will strike out, will respond to the unending sights of horror, the deaths of friends and brothers, and it will not be fair or reasonable or just, since there is no intelligence in the beast. They will strike out at whatever presents itself, and here it was the harmless and innocent lives of the people of Fredericksburg.”
― Jeff Shaara, quote from Gods and Generals

“To his left he saw the other regiments, men from New York, Pennsylvania, Michigan. Men like these, he thought, just farmers and shopkeepers, and now we are soldiers, and now we are about to die.”
― Jeff Shaara, quote from Gods and Generals

“We got a duty . . . we all got the same duty, all of us, Major.” Armistead”
― Jeff Shaara, quote from Gods and Generals

“I always have felt that we are a nation that is very different . . . unique, perhaps. We were founded by thinking men, brilliant men, men who designed a system where conflicts were resolved in debate, where the decision of the majority would prevail. These men had confidence in that majority, they had faith that the design of the system would, by definition, ensure that reasonable men would reach reasonable conclusions, and so we would govern ourselves, all of us, by this new type of system, a system where our conflicts and differences would be resolved by civilized means. There is no other system like this, anywhere.”
― Jeff Shaara, quote from Gods and Generals

“Is that not what a commander must do, earn respect, give them discipline and . . . love them?”
― Jeff Shaara, quote from Gods and Generals

“I always had the faith that this country would elect those who knew best, who could follow the best course through any situation.”
― Jeff Shaara, quote from Gods and Generals

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Popular quotes

“Gundar's smile broadened at the memory of that evening as he recalled how his rough-and-tumble sailors had stayed on their best manners, humbly asking their table companions to pass the meat, please, or requesting just a little more ale in their drinking mugs. These were men who were accustomed to cursing heartily, tearing legs off roast boar wih their bare hands and occasionally swilling ale traight from the keg. Their attempts at mingling with polite society would have made the basis of some great stories back in Skandia.”
― John Flanagan, quote from The Siege of Macindaw

“What a mess. Truths are messy and lies are messy, and I don’t care what Da said, it’s impossible to cut a person into pielike pieces, neat and tidy.”
― Victoria Schwab, quote from The Archived

“And, ah! his castle. The faery solitude of the place, with its turrets of mistly blue, its courtyard, its spiked gate, his castle that lay on the very bosom of the sea with seabirds mewing about its attics, the casements opening onto the green and purple, evanescent departures of the ocean, cut off by the tide from land for half a day . . . that castle, at home neither on the land nor on the water, a mysterious, amphibious place, contravening the materiality of both earth and waves, with the melancholy of a mermaiden who perches on her rocks and waits, endlessly, for a lover who had drowned far away, long ago. That lovely, sad, sea-siren of a place.”
― Angela Carter, quote from The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories

“Apparently textbooks were an endangered species here in Bixby, Oklahoma. ”
― Scott Westerfeld, quote from The Secret Hour

“every heterosexual boy—and probably some gay ones, too, so look out, because that’s just going to end in disaster—you ever meet is going to fall madly in love with you. He may not admit it, but it’s true. So you have to take responsibility for that and not do things to encourage him—unless, of course, you want him to fall in love with you. Because it’s cruel to play with boys’ emotions in that way, because no matter what anyone else says, men are the weaker sex.’ Didn’t your mother tell you that?”
― Meg Cabot, quote from Airhead

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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.