“The truth is life is full of joy and full of great sorrow, but you can't have one without the other.”
― Andre Dubus III, quote from House of Sand and Fog
“it's almost easier being down and alone than when you re up and no one s there to share the view with you”
― Andre Dubus III, quote from House of Sand and Fog
“Dat's what they say of this cauntry back home, Kath: 'America, the land of milk and honey.' Bot they never tell you the milk's gone sour and the honey's stolen.”
― Andre Dubus III, quote from House of Sand and Fog
“The ocean to my right was maroon, the sky above it silver. There were sand trails through the thick purple ice plant that grew along the roadside... but now the sky is the color of peaches...
It was a ball of bright saffron sinking into the sea, turning the water purple, the sky orange and green.”
― Andre Dubus III, quote from House of Sand and Fog
“For our excess we lost everything.”
― Andre Dubus III, quote from House of Sand and Fog
“Sometimes in this life, only one or two opportunities are put before us and we must seize them no matter the risk.”
― Andre Dubus III, quote from House of Sand and Fog
“If there is no snake at your feet, do not lift rocks at the side of the road.”
― Andre Dubus III, quote from House of Sand and Fog
“And that's what I wanted: obliteration. Decimation. Just an instant smear of me right out of all this rising and falling and nothing changing that feels like living.”
― Andre Dubus III, quote from House of Sand and Fog
“this I know of life’s difficult times: there is always a time for them to begin and a time for them to end, and the man who knows this knows he must thank God for each day he has suffered because that is always one day closer to the sun, the real sun.”
― Andre Dubus III, quote from House of Sand and Fog
“if there is no feet at your feet, do not lift rocks at the side of the road.”
― Andre Dubus III, quote from House of Sand and Fog
“Soraya-joon, I have done all that I could. Do not be sorry for us. Your mother and I await you upon your return. We love you more than we have loved life. After your dear brother name your first son. Live here if you like, but if you sell it take no less than one hundred thousand dollars. ~Bawbaw”
― Andre Dubus III, quote from House of Sand and Fog
“It’s easy K. on one side of the page you got your costs and on the other side your benefits. All you do is mark which one is which, then you weigh one side against the other and you get your decision just like that. that’s all you ever have to do. i live by this.”
"But what if you don’t know the difference between a benefit and a cost? what if you’ve never been very good at telling a plus from a minus?”
― Andre Dubus III, quote from House of Sand and Fog
“Lester wanted to rise up out of this like a cloud, to drift over the valley and shore to the Pacific, to dissolve into its huge green expanse like rain.”
― Andre Dubus III, quote from House of Sand and Fog
“And so, there in the penitentiary, Juan's education began. He didn't want to be a puto weakling, so he worked hard at learning to read. His earthly body was locked up, but his mind was set free as a young eagle soaring through the heavens.”
― Victor Villaseñor, quote from Rain of Gold
“Mom taught me not to look away from the worst but to believe that we can all do better. She never wavered in her conviction that books are the most powerful tool in the human arsenal, that reading all kinds of books, in whatever format you choose - electronic (even though that wasn't for her) or printed, or audio - is the grandest entertainment, and also is how you take part in human conversation. Mom taught me that you can make a difference in the world and that books really do matter: they're how we know what we need to do in life, and how we tell others. Mom also showed me, over the course of two years and dozens of books and hundreds of hours in hospitals, that books can be how we get closer to each other, and stay close, even in the case of a mother and son who were very close to begin with, and even after one of them has died.”
― Will Schwalbe, quote from The End of Your Life Book Club
“At least you're learning a thing or two about wine. Good to hear you're making such an effort to improve yourself."
"Does the U.S. attorney know how much you like spending your Saturday nights eavesdropping on private conversations?" Nick asked.
"The U.S. attorney knows exactly how I like spending my Saturday nights.”
― Julie James, quote from A Lot like Love
“The buffalo were taking leave of the earth and all they loved,” said the old chiefs and hunters after years had passed and they could tell what split their hearts. “The buffalo went crazy with grief to see the end of things. Like us, they saw the end of things and like many of us, many today, they did not care to live.”
― Louise Erdrich, quote from The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse
“No one can really claim to know politics properly until he has stayed up all night writing a speech for delivery the following day. While the world sleeps, the orator paces by lamplight, wondering what madness ever brought him to this occupation in the first place. Arguments are prepared and discarded. The exhausted mind ceases to have any coherent grip upon the purpose of the enterprise, so that often--usually an hour or two after midnight--there comes a point where failing to turn up, feigning illness, and hiding at home seem the only realistic options. And then, somehow, just asa panic and humiliation beckon, the parts cohere, and there it is: a speech. A second-rate orator now retires gratefully to bed. A Cicero stays up and commits it to memory.”
― Robert Harris, quote from Imperium: A Novel of Ancient Rome
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.