“Seriously, how many times can a person break before the only things left are shattered fragments too small to piece back together?”
― Jay McLean, quote from Kick, Push
“And there’s nothing sadder, nothing harder in the world than watching the person you love fall apart right before your eyes—and you can’t say or do anything to change it.”
― Jay McLean, quote from Kick, Push
“There’s a big difference between being happy and being selfish. Choose to be happy. Fire truck the rest.”
― Jay McLean, quote from Kick, Push
“You said that life's just like skating; I just need to kick forward and take a chance, push off the ground and follow through. And when everything works out, I'll coast.”
― Jay McLean, quote from Kick, Push
“Tommy’s three years old today, that means you raised him for three years. You. And you did an amazing job because look at him,” she says, pointing to the pictures. “Look how beautiful he is. How happy he is. You did that, Josh. You gave him a life worth smiling about.” She pauses a beat. “We’re not just here to celebrate Tommy’s birthday. We’re all here to celebrate you.”
― Jay McLean, quote from Kick, Push
“There are some sacrifices greater than love. And some loves greater than any sacrifice. Tommy’s greater than both.”
― Jay McLean, quote from Kick, Push
“Do you have a safe place, Becca?”
I release a shaky breath, but I can’t seem to look away. “Yes,” I whisper. And I hesitate, just for a moment, from telling him the truth. “You.”
― Jay McLean, quote from Kick, Push
“There are so many things in my future that absolutely terrify me, but loving you for the rest of it isn’t one of them.”
― Jay McLean, quote from Kick, Push
“You know what’s worse than your landlady calling you out on wearing cologne purely because you want to impress her granddaughter? I’ll tell you what. Being in the confined space of a truck while your son tells said granddaughter about how you paid him five moneys for him to tell you about what she said about you. Yeah. That’s happening.”
― Jay McLean, quote from Kick, Push
“Some things will always be beautiful, even in the face of death.”
― Jay McLean, quote from Kick, Push
“And real life—it was a fucking asshole.”
― Jay McLean, quote from Kick, Push
“When you spend your whole life faking happiness, it becomes a second emotion.”
― Jay McLean, quote from Kick, Push
“Year—I can’t even find it in myself to look forward to the next day, let alone three hundred and sixty-five of them. ”
― Jay McLean, quote from Kick, Push
“Please, please be patient with me. Because I really don’t want to let go of this. And you—I don’t want to let go of you.” My voice drops to a whisper. “Of us.”
― Jay McLean, quote from Kick, Push
“I don’t want my past to determine my future—and my future is you, Josh.”
― Jay McLean, quote from Kick, Push
“You and Tommy…” She places my hand over her heart. “…you own me in here.” And even as I feel her heart beat against my palm, I wonder if she knows that she just made mine stop.”
― Jay McLean, quote from Kick, Push
“I press my lips to hers, trying, hoping, that it’s enough, that somehow, through a single kiss she’ll be able to feel it: how much she means to me. How much I appreciate her. How much I love that she didn’t just want me. She wanted us. All three of us.”
― Jay McLean, quote from Kick, Push
“She’s disintegrated my armor with her existence, and now she has all of me.
Every single part.
I let her see me.
I let her love me.
And I let myself believe, just for a moment, I understood why.”
― Jay McLean, quote from Kick, Push
“He punches the steering wheel. And then he breaks. The boy I love breaks. And there’s nothing sadder, nothing harder in the world than watching the person you love fall apart right before your eyes—and you can’t say or do anything”
― Jay McLean, quote from Kick, Push
“And I decide then and there that he may possibly be my favorite person in the entire world.”
― Jay McLean, quote from Kick, Push
“You never have to be afraid of me, Becca, I’ll never hurt you. And as long as I’m around, no one else will either.”
― Jay McLean, quote from Kick, Push
“I’ll always love you,” I tell her. “You’ll always belong to me, Becca.”
― Jay McLean, quote from Kick, Push
“I never thought I’d find someone like you. Someone who’d put up with me having a son and wanting to be part of both our lives. Why do you do it, Becca?” I ask, my heart pounding against my chest.
“Because, Josh. You and Tommy…” She places my hand over her heart. “…you own me in here.” And even as I feel her heart beat against my palm, I wonder if she knows that she just made mine stop.”
― Jay McLean, quote from Kick, Push
“Our raw imperfections make us real and make us human but they don't make us.”
― Jay McLean, quote from Kick, Push
“It's a hard emotion to explain— what it feels like to fake every single moment of your life. To breathe but to not exist. To smile but to not be happy. To nod and agree but to not really care.”
― Jay McLean, quote from Kick, Push
“So here we are, lying side by side, hand in hand, listening to music on the middle of a basketball court with nothing but darkness surrounding us and I swear it, my world has never looked so bright. “Becca?”
― Jay McLean, quote from Kick, Push
Jay McLean
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“It’s a fact of our culture that the loudest mouths get the most airplay, and the loudmouths are saying that in times of crisis it’s treasonous to question our leaders.”
― Barbara Kingsolver, quote from Small Wonder
“Not altogether a fool," said G., "but then he's a poet, which I take to be only one remove from a fool."
"True," said Dupin, after a long and thoughtful whiff from his meerschaum, "although I have been guilty of certain doggerel myself.”
― Edgar Allan Poe, quote from The Purloined Letter
“I think that once you're born, the thing you have to do is find out who you are and live that life as well as you can. You can't spend your time wondering how things would have been if you were someone different.”
― Fuyumi Ono, quote from The Twelve Kingdoms: Skies of Dawn
“Because you’re a straight, Laura.” “Stop calling me that!” Laura said. “What makes you so different?” “Look at you,” Carlotta said. “You’re educated. You’re smart. You’re beautiful. You’re married to a goddamn architect. You have a wonderful baby and friends in high places.” Her eyes narrowed; she began to hiss. “Then look at me. I’m a cracker. Ugly. No family. Daddy used to beat me up. I never finished school—I can’t hardly read and write. I’m diselxic, or whatever they call it. You ever wonder what happens to people who can’t read and write? In your fucking beautiful Net world with all its fucking data? No, you never thought of that, did you? If I found a place for myself, it was in the teeth of people like you.”
― Bruce Sterling, quote from Islands in the Net
“Of course there is a slight chance that somebody might want to give the Celestial Bookmaker a heart attack.”
― Barry Hughart, quote from The Chronicles of Master Li and Number Ten Ox
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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.
