“We’re too much ourselves. Afraid of letting go of what we are, in case we are nothing, and holding on so tight, we lose everything else.”
― Clive Barker, quote from Imajica
“A man kills the thing he loves, and he must die a little himself.”
― Clive Barker, quote from Imajica
“I haven't even had a life I could call my own, and you're ready to slot me into the grand design. Well, I don't think I want to go. I want to be my own design.”
― Clive Barker, quote from Imajica
“Study nothing except in the knowledge that you already knew it. Worship nothing except in adoration of your true self. And fear nothing except in the certainty that you are your enemy's begetter and its only hope of healing.”
― Clive Barker, quote from Imajica
“Perhaps sunlight had always been luminous, and doorways signs of greater passage than that of one room to another. But she’d not noticed it until now.”
― Clive Barker, quote from Imajica
“It was the pivotal teaching of Pluthero Quexos, the most celebrated dramatist of the Second Dominion, that in any fiction, no matter how ambitious its scope or profound its theme, there was only ever room for three players. Between warring kings, a peacemaker; between adoring spouses, a seducer or a child. Between twins, the spirit of the womb. Between lovers, Death. Greater numbers might drift through the drama, of course -- thousands in fact -- but they could only ever be phantoms, agents, or, on rare occasions, reflections of the three real and self-willed beings who stood at the center. And even this essential trio would not remain intact; or so he taught. It would steadily diminish as the story unfolded, three becoming two, two becoming one, until the stage was left deserted.”
― Clive Barker, quote from Imajica
“His body and his mind went about their different businesses. The former, freed from conscious instruction, breathed, rolled, sweated, and digested. The latter went dreaming.”
― Clive Barker, quote from Imajica
“Make a fist. Lightly. Leave enough room for a breath to pass through. Good. Good. All magic proceeds from breath. Remember that.”
― Clive Barker, quote from Imajica
“Her skin was flawless and always cool, always pale; her body was long, like her hair, like her fingers, like her laughter; and her eyes, oh, her eyes, had every season of leaf in them: the twin greens of spring and high summer, the golds of autumn, and, in her rages, black midwinter rot.”
― Clive Barker, quote from Imajica
“Despite his intent, tears sprang to his eyes, and he went into her embrace, both of them sobbing freely, like enemies joined by a common loss or lovers about to be parted. Or else souls who could not remember whether they were lovers or enemies and were weeping at their own confusion.”
― Clive Barker, quote from Imajica
“Look at him." The Autarch glanced back at the captive as he spoke. He's got seconds left to live. But the leech gave him a taste and he wants it back again."
"A taste of what?"
"Of the womb, Rosengarten. He said it was like being in the womb. We're all cast out. Whatever we build, wherever we hide, we're cast out.”
― Clive Barker, quote from Imajica
“The sight of her had pierced him, making her the enterer, had she but known it, and him the entered. Perhaps she had known, on reflection. Perhaps she’d fled from his passivity, from his ease beneath the spike of her beauty. If so, he would undo her revulsion with tonight’s business. Here,”
― Clive Barker, quote from Imajica
“You still love her, don’t you?” Pie said, once they were out and walking. “Of course I love her,” Estabrook said. “That’s why I want her dead.” “There’s no resurrection, Mr. Estabrook. Not for you, at least.” “It’s not me who’s dying,” he said. “I think it is,” came the”
― Clive Barker, quote from Imajica
“Remember, Lucius, that everything you learn is already a part of you, even to the Godhead Itself. Study nothing except in the knowledge that you already knew it. Worship nothing except in adoration of your true self. And fear nothing"--there the Maestro stopped and shuddered, as though he had a presentiment--"fear nothing except in the certainty that you are your enemy's begetter and its only hope of healing. For everything that does evil is in pain. Will you remember those things?”
― Clive Barker, quote from Imajica
“What marked this place as another Dominion was the people in the streets outside, some human, many not, all retreating from the wind or the commotions it carried.”
― Clive Barker, quote from Imajica
“IT WAS THE PIVOTAL teaching of Pluthero Quexos, the most celebrated dramatist of the Second Dominion, that in any fiction, no matter how ambitious its scope or profound its theme, there was only ever room for three players. Between warring kings, a peacemaker; between adoring spouses, a seducer or a child. Between twins, the spirit of the womb. Between lovers, Death. Greater numbers might drift through the drama, of course—thousands in fact—but they could only ever be phantoms, agents, or, on rare occasions, reflections of the three real and self-willed beings who stood at the center. And even this essential trio would not remain intact; or so he taught. It would steadily diminish as the story unfolded, three becoming two, two becoming one, until the stage was left deserted.”
― Clive Barker, quote from Imajica
“You’ve got blood on your hands, and you smell of coitus.”
― Clive Barker, quote from Imajica
“This was the substance of every moment, she realized: the body - never certain if the next lungful would be its last - hovering for a tiny time between cessation and continuance. And in that space out of time, between a breath expelled and another drawn, the miraculous was easy, because neither flesh nor reason has laid their edicts there.”
― Clive Barker, quote from Imajica
Clive Barker
Born place: in Liverpool, The United Kingdom
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“Yo! You’re my dope dealer not my thesis adviser. If I wanted your opinion about my dissertation, I’d have asked for it, Motherfucker!”
― Mark Leyner, quote from The Tetherballs of Bougainville
“Sooner or later even the most ambitious glutton must crawl away and seek the solace of the vomitorium.”
― Clive Barker, quote from Coldheart Canyon
“For those of us with a bookish bent, reading is a reflexive response to everything. This is how we deal with the world and anything that comes our way. We have always known that there is a book for every occasion and every obsession. When in doubt, we are always looking things up.”
― Diane Schoemperlen, quote from Our Lady of the Lost and Found: A Novel of Mary, Faith, and Friendship
“How grave a disappointment it must be to our great President, who has exerted himself so to bring the German people to reason, to make them understand the horror that they alone have brought deliberately upon the world! Alas! Far from it. Indeed, they have attempted with insidious propaganda to undermine the morale of our troops….” A little storm of muttered epithets went through the room. The Reverend Dr. Skinner elevated his chubby pink palms and smiled benignantly…"to undermine the morale of our troops; so that the most stringent regulations have had to be made by the commanding general to prevent it. Indeed, my friends, I very much fear that we stopped too soon in our victorious advance; that Germany should have been utterly crushed. But all we can do is watch and wait, and abide by the decision of those great men who in a short time will be gathered together at the Conference at Paris….”
― John Dos Passos, quote from Three Soldiers
“When the guy kissed her, Cassidy felt a stab of pain that was close to physical, and therefore within the penumbra of hurts he told himself he could bear.”
― quote from Once a Runner
The Dumb House
Old Filth
Moon Rising
Eleanor and Park
Destined for Doon
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.
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