Quotes from Harbor

John Ajvide Lindqvist ·  500 pages

Rating: (5.4K votes)


“Who can really say how decisions are made, how emotions change, how ideas arise? We talk about inspiration; about a bolt of lightnng from a clear sky, but perhaps everything is just as simple and just as infinitely complex as the processes that make a particular leaf fall at a particularmoment. That point has been reached, that's all. It has to happen, and it does happen.”
― John Ajvide Lindqvist, quote from Harbor


“Land and sea.
We may think of them as opposites; as complements. But there is a difference in how we think of them; the sea, and the land.
If we are walking around in a forest, a meadow or a town, we see our surroundings as being made up of individual elements. There are many different kinds of trees in varying sizes, those buildings, these streets. The meadow, the flowers, the bushes. Our gaze lingers on details, and if we are standing in a forest in the autumn, we become tongue-tied if we try to describe the richness around us. All this exists on land.
But the sea. The sea is something completely different. The sea is one.
We may note the shifting moods of the sea. What the sea looks like when the wind is blowing, how the sea plays with the light, how it rises and falls. But still it is always the sea we are talking about. We have given different parts of the sea different names for navigation and identification, but if we are standing before the sea, there is only one whole. The Sea.
If we are taken so far out in a small boat that no land is visible in any direction, we may catch sight of the sea. It is not a pleasant experience. The sea is a god, an unseeing, unhearing deity that does not even know we exist. We mean less than a grain of sand on an elephant's back, and if the sea wants us, it will take us. That's just the way it is. The sea knows no limits, makes no concessions. It has given us everything and it can take everything away from us.
To other gods we send our prayer: Protect us from the sea.”
― John Ajvide Lindqvist, quote from Harbor


“This wasn't the way he had expected his life to be. It worked, but that was about all. Happiness had got lost somewhere along the way.”
― John Ajvide Lindqvist, quote from Harbor


“A new life? There’s not such thing.

It was only in the magazine headlines that people got a new life. Stopped drinking or taking drugs, found a new love. But the same life.”
― John Ajvide Lindqvist, quote from Harbor


“That's what love looks like. It can happen. Two people can find one another, and then work together to sustain that amorphous, incomprehensible third party that has arisen between them. Love becomes an entity unto itself; the thing that determines how life is to be lived.”
― John Ajvide Lindqvist, quote from Harbor



“It was as if she lived only on clear, salty air, and when the day came for her to pass away, she would probably do exactly that. Just take a step to one side. Dissolve into a north-westerly wind as it whirled around the lighthouse at North Point, then out across the sea.”
― John Ajvide Lindqvist, quote from Harbor


“But love? Who can say what is just a mire of dark needs and desires, and what is true love? Does such a thing exist? Can't it be that if we say, 'I love you' to another person and know that we mean it, then that is love, regardless of the motive?”
― John Ajvide Lindqvist, quote from Harbor


“When it comes to life, all you can change is the equivalent of furniture, paint and windows. Doors, maybe. Change the things that are in too bad a state and hope the core holds.”
― John Ajvide Lindqvist, quote from Harbor


“Att han varit rädd för GB-gubben och rabblat Alfonsramsor, att han börjat bygga med pärlor och att allt han ville var att ligga i hennes säng och läsa Bamse. Jag är så liten.
Äntligen förstod han vad det betydde:
Bär mej.”
― John Ajvide Lindqvist, quote from Harbor


“This time he shouted a little more loudly, and his heart began to beat a little more quickly. It was foolish, of course. There was no chance she could have got lost here.”
― John Ajvide Lindqvist, quote from Harbor



“Pero están atados a la tierra por una cadena invisible y solo pueden escudriñar un mar deshabitado en perpetua calma.”
― John Ajvide Lindqvist, quote from Harbor


“Los breves instantes en los que uno no tiene que comportarse como una persona mayor y responsable. Hay que aprovecharlos.”
― John Ajvide Lindqvist, quote from Harbor


“Es extraño, ¿no? Se puede vivir toda la vida con una persona. Y, sin embargo, no conocerla. No conocerla en realidad.”
― John Ajvide Lindqvist, quote from Harbor


About the author

John Ajvide Lindqvist
Born place: in Blackeberg, Sweden
Born date December 2, 1968
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“Along with the punctuality gene, the liar gene had skipped out on me as well. I was officially the world's worst liar. I could've won and award for it. Whenever I tried to mimic a serious expression, I ended up looking like I was half-retarded”
― Rachel K. Burke, quote from Sound Bites


“ARTICLE 130 If a Bro learns another Bro has been in a traffic accident, he must first ask what type of car he collided with and whether it got totaled before asking if his Bro is okay.”
― Barney Stinson, quote from The Bro Code


“Just so you understand; he's using a scene from Buffy to ask me out!!!!”
― Jenn Cooksey, quote from Shark Bait


“But the Scriptures say that as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is Hashem’s mercy toward us. As far as the east is from the west, so far has Hashem removed our sins from us. We can be forgiven. And then we can begin to live new lives from that day forward.”
― Lynn Austin, quote from While We're Far Apart


“We’ve been warned.” “Exactly. It’s a clever form of the Hegelian dialectic—a psychological tool used to manipulate the masses. In this case, you create a problem, wait for the reaction, and then offer the solution. What people historically fail to realize, though, is that those offering the solution are the same people who caused the problem in the first place. They also fail to realize that no matter what the solution is, it always ends up providing its creators with more power.”
― Brad Thor, quote from Black List


Interesting books

Gods and Kings
(9.6K)
Gods and Kings
by Lynn Austin
I'm Not Her
(4.1K)
I'm Not Her
by Janet Gurtler
Becoming Noah Baxter
(5.9K)
From Russia With Love
(23.6K)
From Russia With Lov...
by Ian Fleming
Possess
(3.5K)
Possess
by Gretchen McNeil
The Parallax View
(1K)
The Parallax View
by Slavoj Žižek

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.