“When I propose a candidate for a job I don't do it because the person in question is the best but because he is the one the client will employ. I provide them with a head that is good enough, placed on a body they want. [...] The world is full of people who pay serious money for bad pictures by good artists. And mediocre heads on tall bodies.”
― Jo Nesbø, quote from Headhunters
“An artist who maintains that he has been misunderstood is almost always a bad artist who, I’m afraid to say, has been understood.”
― Jo Nesbø, quote from Headhunters
“They had studied law, information technology and art history as part of their beauty treatment, they had let Norwegian taxpayers finance years at university just so that they could end up as overqualified, stay-at-home playthings and sit here exchanging confidences about how to keep their sugar daddies suitably happy, suitably jealous and suitably on their toes.”
― Jo Nesbø, quote from Headhunters
“most likely because the majority of the receptionists have gone home, to a sick partner according to statistics, in the country with the shortest working hours in the world, the biggest health budget and the highest proportion of sick leave.”
― Jo Nesbø, quote from Headhunters
“that it was impossible to get rid of it without”
― Jo Nesbø, quote from Headhunters
“We all drink according to how thirsty we are’.”
― Jo Nesbø, quote from Headhunters
“For instance? Well, for instance, what it means to be a man. In a city. In a century. In transition. In a mass. Transformed by science. Under organized power. Subject to tremendous controls. In a condition caused by mechanization. After the late failure of radical hopes. In a society that was no community and devalued the person. Owing to the multiplied power of numbers which made the self negligible. Which spent military billions against foreign enemies but would not pay for order at home. Which permitted savagery and barbarism in its own great cities. At the same time, the pressure of human millions who have discovered what concerted efforts and thoughts can do. As megatons of water shape organisms on the ocean floor. As tides polish stones. As winds hollow cliffs. The beautiful supermachinery opening a new life for innumerable mankind. Would you deny them the right to exist? Would you ask them to labor and go hungry while you yourself enjoyed old-fashioned Values? You—you yourself are a child of this mass and a brother to all the rest. or else an ingrate, dilettante, idiot. There, Herzog, thought Herzog, since you ask for the instance, is the way it runs.”
― Saul Bellow, quote from Herzog
“Even in the most wretched life, there’s hope.”
― Michelle Moran, quote from Cleopatra's Daughter
“.بیرت دەکەم؛ بەڵام چی تر وا ناڵێم”
― Marguerite Duras, quote from Hiroshima Mon Amour
“Non è vero che non credi all'amore, mamma. Ci credi tanto da straziarti perché ne vedi così poco, e perché quello che vedi non è mai perfetto. Tu sei fatta d'amore. Ma è sufficiente credere all'amore se non si crede alla vita?”
― Oriana Fallaci, quote from Letter to a Child Never Born
“My dad’s name is Jim, and my mother thought their names starting with the same letter was just further proof that they belonged together. So she named each of her babies a ‘J’ name to fit the mold. She wasn’t terribly original, because in Levan you’ll find families with all ‘K’ names, all ‘B’ names, all ‘Q’ names. You name the letter, and we’ve got it. People even have ‘themes’ for their children’s names - giving them monikers like Brodeo and Justa Cowgirl. I’m not kidding.
So in my family we were all J’s - Jim, Janelle, Jacob, Jared, Johnny, and Josie Jo Jensen-the “J Crew.” The only problem with that was that whenever my mom needed one of us she had to run through the litany of ‘J’ names before she stumbled on the right one. I don’t know why I remember this, small as it was, but in the days and weeks before my mom died, I don’t ever remember her tripping over any of our names. Perhaps the distracting details of daily life that had once made her tongue tied dissolved in their insignificance, and she gave her rapt attention to our every word, our every expression, our every move.”
― Amy Harmon, quote from Running Barefoot
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.