Quotes from Harbour

“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 Harbour

“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 Harbour

“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 Harbour

“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 Harbour

“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 Harbour

“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 Harbour

“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 Harbour

“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 Harbour

“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 Harbour

“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 Harbour

“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 Harbour

“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 Harbour

“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 Harbour

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Popular quotes

“Life, for all its wonders, is rather flimsy in the end.”
― Samantha Shannon, quote from The Mime Order

“When we disperse storage of a particular item throughout the house and tidy one place at a time, we can never grasp the overall volume and therefore can never finish. To escape this negative spiral, tidy by category, not by place.”
― Marie Kondō, quote from The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing

“Who can say it’s not what we see with our eyes open that is distorted, and that what’s described here isn’t the true essence of things?” He slowed down outside a door. “Haven’t you ever heard old men sigh that life’s a dream?”
― Ismail Kadare, quote from The Palace of Dreams

“El sacrilegio (1946)
Bartolomé Colón, hermano y lugarteniente de Cristóbal, asiste al incendio de carne humana.
Seis hombres estrenan el quemadero de Haití. EL humo hace toser. Los seis están ardiendo por castigo y escarmiento: han hundido bajo tierra las imágenes de Cristo y la Virgen que fray Ramón Panè les había dejado para su protección y consuelo. Fray Ramón les había enseñado a orar de rodillas, a decir Avemaría y Paternóster y a invocar el nombre de Jesús ante la tentación, la lastimadura y la muerte.
Nadie les ha preguntado por qué enterraron las imágenes. Ellos esperaban que los nuevos dioses fecundaran las siembras de maíz, yuca, boniatos y fríjoles.
El fuego agrega calor al calor húmedo, pegajoso, anunciador de lluvia fuerte.”
― Eduardo Galeano, quote from Genesis

“He gathered a handful of her hair, then wound it around his fist and drew her closer until their faces were inches apart. He hesitated for several heartbeats, then settled his lips against hers, tested the angle, readjusted. He was moderately controlled until he heard a small whimper from her. He backed off, looked down into her eyes, and recognized a desire that equaled his own.
Control was abandoned. He covered her face with wild, random, artless kisses and she was doing the same to him. Then mouths melded and tongues touched, and they kissed with carnal greed.”
― Sandra Brown, quote from Envy

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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.