“The past is another land, and we cannot go to visit. So, if I say there were dragons, and men who rode upon their backs, who alive has been there and can tell me that I'm wrong?”
― Cressida Cowell, quote from How to Be a Pirate
“K-k-keep your helmet on. T-t-toothless doing his BEST.”
― Cressida Cowell, quote from How to Be a Pirate
“OUTCASTS! R-R-RUN FOR YOUR LIVES, YOU S-S-SSTUPID H-H-HUMANS!!!”
― Cressida Cowell, quote from How to Be a Pirate
“Does this look like a dragon who would poo in a helmet???”
― Cressida Cowell, quote from How to Be a Pirate
“If you were a fanciful person, you might have said that it was almost as if that box was looking for Hiccup.
But we are not fanciful people, and that would be ridiculous.”
― Cressida Cowell, quote from How to Be a Pirate
“I dream of an Heir who shall be a Dragon-Whisperer, a Swordfighter, a Man who talks with Monsters and who will harness the power of Thor's thunder itself...”
― Cressida Cowell, quote from How to Be a Pirate
“after Alvin we would be on board the other boat by now … Didn’t”
― Cressida Cowell, quote from How to Be a Pirate
“I promise,' said Alvin, 'word of a Treacherous.”
― Cressida Cowell, quote from How to Be a Pirate
“Imagine if you had spent the whole first part of your life trying to walk on your hands. The clumsiness of it, always falling over, always stumbling, always the last at everything. Imagine the joy of discovering that in fact you could walk on your feet after all.”
― Cressida Cowell, quote from How to Be a Pirate
“Another fact that allowed Fascism to gain power over men was their blindness. A man cannot believe that he is about to be destroyed. The optimism of people standing on the edge of the grave is astounding.”
― Vasily Grossman, quote from Life and Fate
“Sylvia loved secrets and even if she didn't have any secrets she made sure that you thought she did. Amelia had no secrets, Amelia knew nothing. When she grew up she planned to know everything and to keep it all a secret.”
― Kate Atkinson, quote from Case Histories
“In matters of grave importance, style, not sincerity is the vital thing.”
― Oscar Wilde, quote from The Importance of Being Earnest and Other Plays
“within the capitalist system all methods for raising the social productiveness of labour are brought about at the cost of the individual labourer; all means for the development of production transform themselves into means of domination over, and exploitation of, the producers; they mutilate the labourer into a fragment of a man, degrade him to the level of an appendage of a machine, destroy every remnant of charm in his work and turn it into a hated toil; they estrange from him the intellectual potentialities of the labour process in the same proportion as science is incorporated in it as an independent power; they distort the conditions under which he works, subject him during the labour process to a despotism the more hateful for its meanness; they transform his life-time into working-time, and drag his wife and child beneath the wheels of the Juggernaut of capital. But all methods for the production of surplus-value are at the same time methods of accumulation; and every extension of accumulation becomes again a means for the development of those methods. It follows therefore that in proportion as capital accumulates, the lot of the labourer, be his payment high or low, must grow worse. The law, finally, that always equilibrates the relative surplus population, or industrial reserve army, to the extent and energy of accumulation, this law rivets the labourer to capital more firmly than the wedges of Vulcan did Prometheus to the rock. It establishes an accumulation of misery, corresponding with accumulation of capital. Accumulation of wealth at one pole is, therefore, at the same time accumulation of misery, agony of toil slavery, ignorance, brutality, mental degradation, at the opposite pole, i.e., on the side of the class that produces its own product in the form of capital.”
― Karl Marx, quote from Capital, Vol 1: A Critical Analysis of Capitalist Production
“We are caught,” continued the good doctor, “in the iron treads of a technological juggernaut. A mindless machine. With a breeder reactor for a heart.”
― Edward Abbey, quote from The Monkey Wrench Gang
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.