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

“If we do not do something to-day, how can we expect to do it to-morrow? If we can do it to-day, we must; nobody can put it off till to-morrow, because to-morrow we could do something else. We always think we have time.”
― P.D. Ouspensky, quote from The Fourth Way

“Franklin’s inquisitive mind craved stimulation, consistently gravitating toward whatever community of intellects asked the most intriguing questions; his expansive temperament sought souls that resonated with his own generosity and sense of virtue. In five years in England he had found more of both than in a lifetime in America. “Of all the enviable things England has,” he told Polly Stevenson, “I envy most its people. Why should that petty island, which compared to America is but like a stepping stone in a brook, scarce enough of it above water to keep one’s shoes dry; why, I say, should that little island enjoy in almost every neighbourhood more sensible, virtuous and elegant minds than we can collect in ranging 100 leagues of our vast forests?” He left such people reluctantly and, he trusted, temporarily.”
― H.W. Brands, quote from The First American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin

“Here are some other people I don’t trust as far as I can throw a truckload of pianos.”
― James Patterson, quote from Middle School: The Worst Years of My Life

“الجانب الوحيد الايجابي في طبيعة نظام ما بعد الشمولية وفي غياب سياسة طبيعية وضبابية تعمل على وجود فرصة في تغيير سياسي ناجز هو أنها تدفعنا إلى أن نتدبر أمورنا على خلفية ملابساتها العميقة, ونفكر في مستفبلنا في إطار رؤى طويلة المدى وشاملة للعالم الذي نحن جزء منه. إن ضرورة أن نتأكد على الدوام أن صراع الإنسان مع النظام يدور على مستوى أعمق من مستوى السياسة المباشرة, يحدد على ما يبدو وجهة هذا التفكير.”
― Václav Havel, quote from The Power of the Powerless

“The Buddha isn’t a god or deity to be worshipped. He was a rebel and an overthrower, the destroyer of ignorance, the great physician who discovered the path to freedom from suffering. The Buddha left a legacy of truth for us to experience for ourselves. The practices and principles of his teachings lead to the direct experience of liberation. This is not a faith-based philosophy, but an experiential one. The point of the spiritual revolution is not to become a good Buddhist, but to become a wise and compassionate human being, to awaken from our life of complacency and ignorance and to be a buddha.”
― Noah Levine, quote from Against the Stream: A Buddhist Manual for Spiritual Revolutionaries

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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.