Quotes from Heavy Sand

“One thing is sure:the idea that each nation is racially pure is a myth, especially a nation with a history of four thousand years.”
― Anatoli Rybakov, quote from Heavy Sand

“I think a man can either believe in God or not believe, he can get faith and he can lose it but there is only one God for the true believer, and that is the one he carries in his heart.”
― Anatoli Rybakov, quote from Heavy Sand

“Friends and acquaintances in this day and age don't write at all, or if they do it's only to let you know they're still alive,which explains the craze for greeting cards of all kinds!”
― Anatoli Rybakov, quote from Heavy Sand

“Sometimes the bigger the apartment, the harder it is to find room to put up an extra person for the night.”
― Anatoli Rybakov, quote from Heavy Sand

“There was something religious in grandmother's face, not in any sanctimoniously devout or ecstatic sense,but a look full of religious feeling, serenity and resignation.”
― Anatoli Rybakov, quote from Heavy Sand

“My descendants will manage without my portrait' she smiled. Anyway they'll have plenty of photographs of me. To this our famous conductor replied that a photograph only gives the outward appearance of the person,whereas a painting reveals the inner world.”
― Anatoli Rybakov, quote from Heavy Sand

“Byelorussian songs, if you've ever heard them are slightly monotonous, even mournful yet they do have a certain melancholy charm and compassion about them.”
― Anatoli Rybakov, quote from Heavy Sand

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Popular quotes

“How first loves and touches didn’t come close to being given the rare privilege of being someone’s last kiss.”
― Jack L. Pyke, quote from Backlash

“Villainy can win against one library, but not against an organization of readers.”
― Lemony Snicket, quote from Why Is This Night Different from All Other Nights?

“Are you sure you’re all right?” Oscar asked.
“I’m sure.” The sound of their voices disturbed the night, and her dishonesty disturbed her. How could she be all right? She’d been abducted at knifepoint. She’d heard the chanting again and seen the eerie black skeletal face on the bathwater’s surface. What were those things, if not part of the Umandu curse?
“Are you sure he didn’t touch you?” Oscar asked, the softness of his question poles apart from the anger and irritation he’d shown all day. It was obvious he didn’t want to go chasing after Umandu, but she couldn’t imagine the prospect of bringing her father back to life would make him so sour.
Camille sat up, holding the thin blanket around her neck. An odd thought struck her: They were on land, alone in a room, and they hadn’t yet struggled with an awkward stretch of silence. Camille liked the change and hoped it stuck.
Oscar lay on the floor, beneath the double windows. He had one arm over his chest, the other behind his head. He saw her and pushed himself up, his own covers loose around his waist. He still wore his clothes, and she grinned, knowing it was for her benefit only. He’d be sweating rivers tonight in the heavy heat. Oscar wrapped his arm around one knee.
“You have no idea what went through my mind tonight when I found that bathtub empty,” he whispered. “I can’t let anything happen to you, Camille.”
She sat up a little straighter, hoping he wouldn’t pledge his protection just to honor his dead captain. “I didn’t mean to make you worry, Oscar. But my safety isn’t your burden.”
Though she couldn’t see him clearly in the shadowed room, Camille felt his eyes on her.
“You’re not a burden, Camille. Not to me.”
She searched his dark outline. A patch of moonlight fell on a swath of bare skin on the curve of his neck. It glistened with sweat, and she felt her own skin fire with the charged silence growing between them. She didn’t know how to respond; he wouldn’t look away.
“He didn’t touch me,” she whispered instead, answering his original question. She lay back and turned onto her side, disappointed she hadn’t found something more to say. Something to make the moment last a hair longer.
Oscar’s covers rustled as he settled back as well.
“That was smart of him,” he replied, and said no more.”
― Angie Frazier, quote from Everlasting

“The part of her that should have been disgusted was numb.”
― Fuyumi Ono, quote from The Twelve Kingdoms: Sea of Shadow

“There is always, for some reason, an element of sadness mingled with my thoughts of human happiness, and, on this occasion, at the sight of a happy man I was overcome by an oppressive feeling that was close upon despair. It was particularly oppressive at night. A bed was made up for me in the room next to my brother’s bedroom, and I could hear that he was awake, and that he kept getting up and going to the plate of gooseberries and taking one. I reflected how many satisfied, happy people there really are! ‘What a suffocating force it is! You look at life: the insolence and idleness of the strong, the ignorance and brutishness of the weak, incredible poverty all about us, overcrowding, degeneration, drunkenness, hypocrisy, lying... Yet all is calm and stillness in the houses and in the streets; of the fifty thousand living in a town, there is not one who would cry out, who would give vent to his indignation aloud. We see the people going to market for provisions, eating by day, sleeping by night, talking their silly nonsense, getting married, growing old, serenely escorting their dead to the cemetery; but we do not see and we do not hear those who suffer, and what is terrible in life goes on somewhere behind the scenes... Everything is quiet and peaceful, and nothing protests but mute statistics: so many people gone out of their minds, so many gallons of vodka drunk, so many children dead from malnutrition... And this order of things is evidently necessary; evidently the happy man only feels at ease because the unhappy bear their burdens in silence, and without that silence happiness would be impossible. It’s a case of general hypnotism. There ought to be behind the door of every happy, contented man some one standing with a hammer continually reminding him with a tap that there are unhappy people; that however happy he may be, life will show him her laws sooner or later, trouble will come for him—disease, poverty, losses, and no one will see or hear, just as now he neither sees nor hears others. But there is no man with a hammer; the happy man lives at his ease, and trivial daily cares faintly agitate him like the wind in the aspen-tree—and all goes well.”
― Anton Chekhov, quote from Racconti

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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.