“I’d rather be happy and odd than miserable and ordinary,' she said, sticking her chin in the air.”
― Michelle Magorian, quote from Good Night, Mr. Tom
“It occurred to him that strength was quite different from toughness and that being vulnerable wasn't quite the same as being weak.”
― Michelle Magorian, quote from Good Night, Mr. Tom
“Miss Thorne said no more. Poor boy, she thought, away from his loving home and now dumped with an irritable old man. Tom”
― Michelle Magorian, quote from Good Night, Mr. Tom
“I expect you think I’m a bit forward,’ remarked Zach. ‘Wot?”
― Michelle Magorian, quote from Good Night, Mr. Tom
“I know the tells of those who blame others, those who are unable to see that they themselves, and not the others, are the common thread in all their bad relationships.”
― Teju Cole, quote from Open City
“He laughed again, a humorless, evil noise that would have made fingernails on a chalkboard sound like a symphony of elegant beauty.”
― Steve McHugh, quote from Born of Hatred
“She thought she’d hit rock bottom when she’d passed out in a disgusting gas station toilet, a needle stuck in her arm, lying in a puddle of someone else’s urine for hours until the owner discovered her and called the police. But this—an arm’s length from a crazy man who wanted to snack on her—this was the all time low.”
― Jack Kilborn, quote from Trapped
“Es gibt nur eine Art und Weise, eine andere Kultur zu verstehen. Sie zu leben. In sie einzuziehen, darum zu bitten, als Gast geduldet zu werden, die Sprache zu lernen. Irgendwann kommt dann vielleicht das Verständnis. Es wird dann immer wortlos sein. In dem Moment, in dem man das Fremde begreift, verliert man den Drang, es zu erklären. Ein Phänomen erklären heißt, sich davon entfernen.”
― Peter Høeg, quote from Miss Smilla's Feeling For Snow
“In 1967, the second resolution to the cat problem was formulated by Nobel laureate Eugene Wigner, whose work was pivotal in laying the foundation of quantum mechanics and also building the atomic bomb. He said that only a conscious person can make an observation that collapses the wave function. But who is to say that this person exists? You cannot separate the observer from the observed, so maybe this person is also dead and alive. In other words, there has to be a new wave function that includes both the cat and the observer. To make sure that the observer is alive, you need a second observer to watch the first observer. This second observer is called “Wigner’s friend,” and is necessary to watch the first observer so that all waves collapse. But how do we know that the second observer is alive? The second observer has to be included in a still-larger wave function to make sure he is alive, but this can be continued indefinitely. Since you need an infinite number of “friends” to collapse the previous wave function to make sure they are alive, you need some form of “cosmic consciousness,” or God. Wigner concluded: “It was not possible to formulate the laws (of quantum theory) in a fully consistent way without reference to consciousness.” Toward the end of his life, he even became interested in the Vedanta philosophy of Hinduism. In this approach, God or some eternal consciousness watches over all of us, collapsing our wave functions so that we can say we are alive. This interpretation yields the same physical results as the Copenhagen interpretation, so this theory cannot be disproven. But the implication is that consciousness is the fundamental entity in the universe, more fundamental than atoms. The material world may come and go, but consciousness remains as the defining element, which means that consciousness, in some sense, creates reality. The very existence of the atoms we see around us is based on our ability to see and touch them.”
― Michio Kaku, quote from The Future of the Mind: The Scientific Quest to Understand, Enhance, and Empower the Mind
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.