Quotes from Gun, With Occasional Music

“Some people have things written all over their faces; the big guy had a couple of words misspelled in crayon on his.”
― Jonathan Lethem, quote from Gun, With Occasional Music

“Apologies aren't something you want to get in the habit of practicing in the mirror”
― Jonathan Lethem, quote from Gun, With Occasional Music

“I jotted the name down mentally on that tattered notepad I call a memory. The pen skipped.”
― Jonathan Lethem, quote from Gun, With Occasional Music

“But the day I can't shrug off a twinge of self-pity, is the day I'm washed up for keeps.”
― Jonathan Lethem, quote from Gun, With Occasional Music

“Nobody said anything while I opened the bag and took out the egg salad sandwich. It was one of those funny moments when a bit of normal human activity embarrasses everybody out of their bluster and hostility, and roles are momentarily laid aside.”
― Jonathan Lethem, quote from Gun, With Occasional Music

“I'd underestimated him. I assumed anyone who started out gut-punching you in an elevator couldn't have all that much else in his arsenal. For instance, I had no idea he could smile, let alone at such an inappropriate time.”
― Jonathan Lethem, quote from Gun, With Occasional Music

“I was playing it existential, and maybe a bit stupid, but it was the only way I knew how to play it.”
― Jonathan Lethem, quote from Gun, With Occasional Music

“The dentist swiveled on his heels and disappeared, leaving me there to massage my jaw back into feeling after its brief, masochistic marriage to the top of my wooden desk.”
― Jonathan Lethem, quote from Gun, With Occasional Music

“He couldn't be more than twenty-five, but he obviously lived enough to have things to regret. He looked like he'd taken a long fall a short time ago. Pieces of the man he'd been were jumbled up with the new guy, the lost soul.”
― Jonathan Lethem, quote from Gun, With Occasional Music

“The clouds were still bunched up in the sky like a gang on a street corner, and it looked to me like they had the sun pretty effectively intimidated.”
― Jonathan Lethem, quote from Gun, With Occasional Music

“Sometimes it’s better not to think in questions, but I can’t seem to get out of the habit.”
― Jonathan Lethem, quote from Gun, With Occasional Music

“How’s it feel to be a worthless jumbo diddly-ass puppetool?”
― Jonathan Lethem, quote from Gun, With Occasional Music

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Popular quotes

“The prophet Jeremiah said that ‘from the least to the greatest, all are greedy for gain,’18 and the prophet Isaiah said, ‘all of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags.’19 Our good deeds are stained with self-interest and our demands for justice are mixed with lust for vengeance. Ironically, it’s the best people who most readily recognize and admit their own shortcomings and sin.”
― Lee Strobel, quote from The Case for Faith: A Journalist Investigates the Toughest Objections to Christianity

“That perfected machines may one day succeed us is, I remember, an extremely commonplace notion on Earth. It prevails not only among poets and romantics but in all classes of society. Perhaps it is because it is so widespread, born spontaneously in popular imagination, that it irritates scientific minds. Perhaps it is also for this very reason that it contains a germ of truth. Only a germ: Machines will always be machines; the most perfected robot, always a robot. But what of living creatures possessing a certain degree of intelligence, like apes? And apes, precisely, are endowed with a keen sense of imitation.…”
― Pierre Boulle, quote from Planet of the Apes

“Desidererò sempre una felicità fuori della mia portata? si chiese d'un tratto. Oppure imparerò con il tempo a vivere appagata all'interno delle nebbie che ci circondano?”
― Marion Zimmer Bradley, quote from The King Stag

“I don’t like cops. I mean, it’s all well and good that they’re out there defending us against anarchy and all, but most of the cops I’ve met are suspicious of everything and everyone. Every little thing needs to have a motive behind it. As a rule I find them cynical and too analytical, very one-plus-one-equals-two types. There’s no way a cop would take me at my word. I mean, I could just see myself walking up to the police counter and saying, "Hey, I have some information about a murder. I’m a psychic, so please take me seriously." They’d laugh in my face as they locked me up in the looney bin.

And what if I was right? What if the information I had did help them? You can bet that instead of taking my gift seriously they’d think I had something to do with the crime. No, I don’t want any part of it. There’s no way I can prove how I got my information, and cops are big on proof. They’d want some evidence as to how I knew such and such. Well, in my profession, proof is a hard thing to come by. I live in an intangible world. I don’t know why I know things, I just do, and that doesn’t translate well in the world of your average lawman.”
― Victoria Laurie, quote from Abby Cooper, Psychic Eye

“A flame that burns twice as bright lasts half as long.”
“You remind me of that flame Firebrand,” Riley murmured. “You burn so hot, and so bright, you set everything around you on fire. Just be careful that the people around you don’t get singed,” he said in a low voice. “Or that you don’t burn too hot, too quickly. The brightest flames are usually the ones that are extinguished first.”
― Julie Kagawa, quote from Rogue

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About BookQuoters

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.