“These are hard times. The world hurts. We live in fear and forget to walk with hope. But hope has not forgotten you. So ask it to dinner. It's probably hungry and would appreciate the invitation.”
― Libba Bray, quote from Going Bovine
“People always think they know other people, but they don’t. Not really. I mean, maybe they know things about them, like they won’t eat doughnuts or they like action movies or whatever. But they don’t know what their friends do in their rooms alone at night or what happened to them when they were kids or if they feel fucked up and sad for no reason at all.”
― Libba Bray, quote from Going Bovine
“In a world like this one, only the random makes sense.”
― Libba Bray, quote from Going Bovine
“She never utters a sound even when she's crying, and that makes me a little sad. Doesn't seem right. When you cry, people should hear you. The world should stop.”
― Libba Bray, quote from Going Bovine
“You can never know about about your own destiny: are the people you meet there to play a part on your oun destiny, or do you exist just to play a role in theirs?”
― Libba Bray, quote from Going Bovine
“So, now I've been to see a drug counselor who told me I need to lay off the drugs and talk about my feelings, and a shrink who heard what I had to say and immediately put me on drugs.”
― Libba Bray, quote from Going Bovine
“The dark does not weep for itself because there is no light. Rather, it accepts that it is the dark.”
― Libba Bray, quote from Going Bovine
“I'm just saying it's not all sand castles and ninjas.”
― Libba Bray, quote from Going Bovine
“You’ve been assigned an identity since birth. Then you spend the rest of your life walking around in it to see if it really fits. You try on all these different selves and abandon just as many. But really it’s about dismantling all that false armor, getting down to what’s real.”
― Libba Bray, quote from Going Bovine
“Dude, this is a stoner conversation and we're not even high”
― Libba Bray, quote from Going Bovine
“Think: who has vans, huh? Soccer moms and serial killers.”
― Libba Bray, quote from Going Bovine
“Maybe that's what real friendship is -- getting so used to people that you need to be annoyed by them.”
― Libba Bray, quote from Going Bovine
“In our travels, we have come across many equations--math for understanding the universe, for making music, for mapping stars, and also for tipping, which is important. Here is our favorite equation: Us plus Them equals All of Us. It is very simple math. Try it sometime. You probably won’t even need a pencil.”
― Libba Bray, quote from Going Bovine
“You've influenced the world not because you wanted to hug it and cuddle it and call it sweet thing, but because one day you wanted to beat the crap out of somebody but you didn't. You made a painting instead.”
― Libba Bray, quote from Going Bovine
“I can be whatever.
You can be whatever.
We can be whatever.
Whatever, together.”
― Libba Bray, quote from Going Bovine
“- 'Music opens your soul, makes you ready.'
- 'Ready for what?'
- He smiles big. 'Exactly.”
― Libba Bray, quote from Going Bovine
“Dammit!"
"What?" Gonzo sounds panicked.
"We're out of gas."
"You're Shithenging me."
"I Shithenge you not.”
― Libba Bray, quote from Going Bovine
“The best day of my life happened when I was five and almost died at Disney World. I'm sixteen now, so you can imagine that's left me with quite a few days of major suckage.”
― Libba Bray, quote from Going Bovine
“But as soon as the thought enters my mind, another one swims in and eats the first one like a shark. Fuck that, it burps.”
― Libba Bray, quote from Going Bovine
“We've left the moment. It's gone. We're somewhere else now, and that's okay. We've still got that moment with us somewhere, deep in our memory, seeping into our DNA. And when our cells get scattered , whenever that happens, this moment will still exist in them. Those cells might be the building block of something new. A planet or star or a sunflower, a baby. Maybe even a cockroach. Who knows? Whatever it is, it'll be a part of us, this thing right here and now, and we'll be a part of it.”
― Libba Bray, quote from Going Bovine
“Look, I know this seems a little half-assed...' 'No, dude. I'd be thrilled if this plan were half-assed. This is, like, no-assed.' 'You're right. It's the most no-assed thing I've ever done in my life.”
― Libba Bray, quote from Going Bovine
“Board the cows! We've come to enslave your marigolds. ”
― Libba Bray, quote from Going Bovine
“How do people stay in love, anyway? Is it a choice? Or is it like those plants we studied in biology that mutate into something new and totally different but are still part of the same plant family?”
― Libba Bray, quote from Going Bovine
“Jeez, someone needs to push the reset button on this planet.”
― Libba Bray, quote from Going Bovine
“To live is to love, to love is to live.”
― Libba Bray, quote from Going Bovine
“You don't know me, dude," he says, not smiling this time. Gonzo examines his cards, prepping for his next move. "People always think that they know other people, but they don't. Not really. I mean, maybe they know things about them, like they won't eat doughnuts or they like action movies or whatever. But they don't know what their friends do in their rooms alone at night or what happened to them when they were kids or if they feel ****ed up for no reason at all.”
― Libba Bray, quote from Going Bovine
“There's no such thing as nothing. In every nothing, there's a something. In fact, there could be everything!”
― Libba Bray, quote from Going Bovine
Libba Bray
Born place: in Montgomery, Alabama, The United States
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“Övgüler yerindeydi de, yerinde olmayan sinirlerimdi.”
― Virginia Woolf, quote from A Writer's Diary
“Did you ever read my words, or did you merely finger through them for quotations which you thought might valuably support an already conceived idea concerning some old and distorted connection between us?”
― Audre Lorde, quote from Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches
“Coldness in everything. It comes from a long way off; it gets into everything. One must get out of the way before it reaches the core. If it does that, one won't feel even the coldness any more. Do you see what I mean?”
― Christa Wolf, quote from The Quest for Christa T.
“To understand creativity is to conquer the boundaries of time and space.”
― William Joyce, quote from Nicholas St. North and the Battle of the Nightmare King
“I was sixteen, and I honestly believed I was due a love story.”
― Sara Barnard, quote from Beautiful Broken Things
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The DinnerBookQuoters 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.
