“We live in an age of reproduction. Most of what makes up our personal picture of the world we have never seen with our own eyes--or rather, we've seen it with our own eyes, but not on the spot: our knowledge comes to us from a distance, we are televiewers, telehearers, teleknowers.”
“Freunde müssen einander verstehen um Freunde zu bleiben. Brüder sind immer Brüder.”
“The demand that we love our neighbor as ourselves contains as an axiom the demand that we shall love ourselves, shall accept ourselves as we were created.”
“Cause and effect are never divided between two people.”
“Oh, this yearning to be white, this yearning to have straight hair, this lifelong striving to be different from the way one is created this great difficulty in accepting oneself, I knew it and saw only my own longing from outside, saw the absurdity of our yearning to be different from what we are...”
“Es gibt allerlei Arten, einen Menschen zu morden oder wenigstens seine Seele, und das merkt keine Polizei der Welt. Dann genügt ein Wort, eine Offenheit im rechten Augenblick. Dann genügt ein Lächeln. Ich möchte den Menschen sehen, der nicht durch Lächeln umzubringen ist oder durch Schweigen.”
“Wenn ich so allein bin, siehst du, und mich an alles erinnere, das ist das Schlimmste, daß man allein nicht darüber lachen kann, oder dann ist es nur so ein böses und bitteres Lachen, so daß man später über genau die gleichen Dinge doch wieder heult.”
“Nothing is harder than to accept oneself.”
“Man kann alles erzählen, nur nicht sein wirkliches Leben; – diese Unmöglichkeit ist es, was uns verurteilt zu bleiben, wie unsere Gefährten uns sehen und spiegeln, sie, die vorgeben, mich zu kennen, sie, die sich als meine Freunde bezeichnen und nimmer gestatten, daß ich mich wandle [...].”
“Stiller jo je debelo gledal.
»Tako torej gledaš name!« je rekla Julika. »Si pač naredil podobo o meni, to pač vidim, dokončno podobo za vselej, in konec. Drugače kot takšne, saj to čutim, me zdaj kratko in malo več ne moreš videti. Kajne?« Stiller si je prižgal cigareto. »Jaz sem v zadnjem času tudi o mnogočem premišljevala,« je rekla Julika in pihala snežne kristale s svoje odeje tudi zdaj, ko je govorila sama, »- v zapovedih ne stoji kar tako: ne smeš si ustvariti podobo! Vsaka podoba je greh. Tole je ravno nasprotno kot ljubezen, vidiš, kar zdajle počneš s takim govorjenjem. Ne vem, če to razumeš. Če takega človeka ljubiš, mu vendar pustiš odprto možnost in si kljub vsem spominom kratko in malo pripravljen čuditi se, zmerom znova se čuditi, kako je drugačen, kako različen in ne takšenle, ne dokončna podoba, kakršno si delaš ti o svoji Juliki. Lahko ti rečem samo to: ni tako. Vselej se z govorjenjem v kaj zapičiš – ne smeš si delati podobe o meni! To je vse, kar ti na to lahko rečem.”
“Father, forgive me," he thought, staring into the sky where the light of the sun stared back at him behind the clouds. "Truth does not care if it comforts her. But I do.”
“There is a longing for a return to a time without the need for choices, free of the regret at the inevitable loss that all choice (however wonderful) has entailed.”
“I threatened him with bodily harm. He promised to bring me cake for the rest of my life.”
“Codependency is about normal behaviors taken too far. It’s about crossing lines.”
“But sometimes we crave the love of those we’re afraid to hate.”
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.