“Brisbane is so sleepy, so slatternly, so sprawlingly unlovely… It is simply the most ordinary place in the world…It was so shabby and makeshift … a place where poetry could never occur.”
― David Malouf, quote from Johnno
“Still the fact remains, he had me hooked. As he had, of course, from the beginning. I had been writing my book about Johnno from the moment we met.”
― David Malouf, quote from Johnno
“I might grow old in Brisbane, but I would never grow up.”
― David Malouf, quote from Johnno
“The hundred possibilities a situation contains may be more significant than the occurrence of any of them, and metaphor truer in the long run than fact.”
― David Malouf, quote from Johnno
“Now as I began to sort through his “effects” it occurred to me how little I had really known him … I had forced upon my father the character that fitted most easily with my image of myself; to have had to admit to any complexity in him would have compromised my own.”
― David Malouf, quote from Johnno
“Which meant he was alone here. Even more alone than he’d realized. He took a deep breath. He wasn’t alone. The Force was with him.”
― Timothy Zahn, quote from Choices of One
“Even better to take a walk in your enemy's shoes. 'Tis the best way to control their footsteps.”
― A.G. Howard, quote from The Moth in the Mirror
“But, when the days of golden dreams had perished,
And even Despair was powerless to destroy,
Then did I learn how existence could be cherished,
Strengthened, and fed without the aid of joy;
Then did I check the tears of useless passion,
Weaned my young soul from yearning after thine;
Sternly denied its burning wish to hasten
Down to that tomb already more than mine!
And, even yet, I dare not let it languish,
Dare not indulge in memory's rapturous pain;
Once drinking deep of that divinest anguish,
How could I seek the empty world again?”
― Emily Brontë, quote from The Complete Poems of Emily Bronte [with Biographical Introduction]
“A society that puts equality—in the sense of equality of outcome—ahead of freedom will end up with neither equality nor freedom. The use of force to achieve equality will destroy freedom, and the force, introduced for good purposes, will end up in the hands of people who use it to promote their own interests.9”
― Thomas Sowell, quote from The Quest for Cosmic Justice
“life has a way of forcing decisions on those who vacillate.”
― Nelson Mandela, quote from Long Walk to Freedom: Autobiography of Nelson Mandela
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.