“When I grow up, I'd like to be dangerous.”
― Kirsten Miller, quote from Inside the Shadow City
“You big crybaby," I whispered into his ear. "Now you know why your mom warned you not to hit girls. Sometimes they hit back.”
― Kirsten Miller, quote from Inside the Shadow City
“I've always found that one of the biggest benefits of being a girl is that most people refuse to take you seriously. While boys must be constantly monitored and are always the first suspects when anything goes wrong, everyone expects girls to do what they're told. It may seem a little insulting at first, but low expectations can be a blessing in disuise. If you're smart, you can use people's foolishness to your own advantage. It's amazing what you can get away with when no one bothers watching.”
― Kirsten Miller, quote from Inside the Shadow City
“You in the back," said the principal. "Don't think you can hide. Tell me. What would you like to be?"
"Dangerous," said the hidden girl, without a second's hesitation.”
― Kirsten Miller, quote from Inside the Shadow City
“If by now you're a little confused, don't be too hard on yourself. Life is confusing, and anyone who claims that she has all the answers has probably uncovered the wrong ones.”
― Kirsten Miller, quote from Inside the Shadow City
“Quiet people keep thier secrets to themselves. That's what makes them interesting...and usually worth the wait.”
― Kirsten Miller, quote from Inside the Shadow City
“What are you getting at? I demanded. Are you saying you know somthing about me? For a moment she was quiet. Her pale eyeswandered across my face as if she was searching for somthing she had seen before.
"Let's see. I know your short on friends. I also know your a little strange. I figure you must be pretty bored, or you wouldn't have spent your time following me around. But I know a few other things that might make me think you're interesting."
I couldn't tell wether I should be frightened or flatered. No one had ever said that about me before.
"Is that good or bad?" I asked.
"That, Mrs. Fishbein, is entirely up to you”
― Kirsten Miller, quote from Inside the Shadow City
“To those of you who are sticklers for safety and approach life with all the caution of amateur beekeepers, I can offer no excuse for what I did then. I’ll admit that a more mature human being would never have let her curiosity take control. Thankfully, I was twelve years old and fully prepared to meet the challenge at hand.”
― Kirsten Miller, quote from Inside the Shadow City
“If you think the person you're following has spotted you, turn and have a nice chat with a stranger on the street. The stranger may think you're a lunatic, but the person you're tailing will think you're harmless.”
― Kirsten Miller, quote from Inside the Shadow City
“Confidence is the force that runs the world. Mixed with a dose of charm, it has the power to produce everything from prom queens to presidents.”
― Kirsten Miller, quote from Inside the Shadow City
“Jij bent uitgekozen omdat jij de enige was die Kiki niet zelf hoefde te zoeken. Jij hebt háár gevonden. Dat maakt jou heel bijzonder. - Varoesjka”
― Kirsten Miller, quote from Inside the Shadow City
“Holes of this sort are rare in New York City, where the earth is sealed beneath a layer of asphalt, and one can go for years without catching sight of actual dirt.”
― Kirsten Miller, quote from Inside the Shadow City
“Is dat dan niet gevaarlijk?' vroeg Didi.
'Dat is een interessante vraag uit de mond van een meisje dat bijna haar eigen huis heeft opgeblazen,' antwoordde Kiki.
'Daar zit wat in,' zei Didi bedachtzaam.”
― Kirsten Miller, quote from Inside the Shadow City
“I think I have a vague idea what you were driving at,” she said. “We all of us somehow caught. We born this way or that way and we don’t know why. But we caught anyhow. I born Berenice. You born Frankie. John Henry born John Henry. And maybe we wants to widen and bust free. But no matter what we do we still caught. Me is me and you is you and he is he. We each one of us somehow caught all by ourself. Is that what you was trying to say?” “I don’t know,” F. Jasmine said. “But I don’t want to be caught” “Me neither,” said Berenice. “Don’t none of us. I’m caught worse than you is.” F. Jasmine understood why she had said this, and it was John Henry who asked in his child voice: “Why?” “Because I am black,” said Berenice. “Because I am colored. Everybody is caught one way or another. But they done drawn completely extra bounds around all colored people. They done squeezed us off in one corner by ourself. So we caught that first-way I was telling you, as all human beings is caught. And we caught as colored people also. Sometimes a boy like Honey feel like he just can’t breathe no more. He feel like he got to break something or break himself. Sometimes it just about more than we can stand.”
― Carson McCullers, quote from The Member of the Wedding
“When I have run out of words to copy, I look out the window at this strange place called India. Inside the train, the people around me are snoring. I don't understand how they can close their eyes when there is so much to see.”
― Patricia McCormick, quote from Sold
“There is no water, so things are bad. If there were water, it would be better. But there is no water.”
― T.S. Eliot, quote from The Waste Land and Other Poems
“Man is manifestly not the measure of all things. This universe is shot through with mystery. The very fact of its being, and of our own, is a mystery absolute, and the only miracle worthy of the name. The consciousness that animates us is itself central to this mystery and ground for any experience we may wish to call “spiritual.” No myth needs to be embraced for us to commune with the profundity of our circumstance. No personal God need be worshipped for us to live in awe at the beauty and immensity of creation. No tribal fictions need be rehearsed for us to realize, one fine day, that we do, in fact, love our neighbors, that our happiness is inextricable from their own, and that our interdependence demands that people everywhere be given the opportunity to flourish. The days of our religious identities are clearly numbered. Whether the days of civilization itself are numbered would seem to depend, rather too much, on how soon we realize this.”
― Sam Harris, quote from The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason
“Leo gestured to the empty core. “The syncopator goes here. It’s a multi-access gyro-valve to regulate flow. The dozen glass tubes on the outside? Those are filled with powerful, dangerous stuff. That glowing red one is Lemnos fire from my dad’s forges. This murky stuff here? That’s water from the River Styx. The stuff in the tubes is going to power the ship, right? Like radioactive rods in a nuclear reactor. But the mix ratio has to be controlled, and the timer is already operational.”
Leo tapped the digital clock, which now read 65:15. “That means without the syncopator, this stuff is all going to vent into the chamber at the same time, in sixty-five minutes. At that point, we’ll get a very nasty reaction.”
Jason and Piper stared at him. Leo wondered if he’d been speaking English. Sometimes when he was agitated he slipped into Spanish, like his mom used to do in her workshop. But he was pretty sure he’d used English.”
― Rick Riordan, quote from The Demigod Diaries
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.