Quotes from Knots and Crosses

“It was the laughter of birthdays, of money found in an old pocket.”
― Ian Rankin, quote from Knots and Crosses

“His eyes beheld beauty not in reality but in the printed word. Standing in the waiting-room, he realized that in his life he had accepted secondary experience -- the experience of reading someone else's thoughts -- over real life. ”
― Ian Rankin, quote from Knots and Crosses

“...trapped in limbo, believing in a lack of belief, but not necessarily lacking the belief to believe.”
― Ian Rankin, quote from Knots and Crosses

“Rebus reminded himself to stop praying. Perhaps if he stopped praying, God would take the hint and stop being such a bastard to one of his few believers on this near-godforsaken planet.”
― Ian Rankin, quote from Knots and Crosses

“My father was a slave to capitalist ideology. He didn't know what he was doing."
"You mean you went to an expensive school?”
― Ian Rankin, quote from Knots and Crosses

“Was it all inevitable, John?" Reeve was pushing his fingers across the floor of the cell, seated on his haunches. I was lying on the mattress.

Yes," I said. "I think it was. Certainly, it's written that way. The end of the book is there before the beginning's hardly started.”
― Ian Rankin, quote from Knots and Crosses

“Often he declined invitations, because to accept meant that he had to dust off his brogues, iron a shirt, brush down his best suit, take a bath, and splash on some cologne. He had also to be affable, to drink and be merry, to talk to strangers with whom he had no inclination to talk and with whom he was not being paid to talk. In other words, he resented having to play the part of a normal human animal.”
― Ian Rankin, quote from Knots and Crosses

“Strangulation. It was a fearful way to go, wrestling, kicking your way towards oblivion, panic, the fretful sucking for air, and the killer behind you most likely, so that you faced the fear of something totally anonymous, a death without knowledge of who or why. Rebus had been taught methods of killing in the SAS. He knew what it felt like to have the garotte tighten on your neck, trusting to the opponent’s prevailing sanity. A fearful way to go.”
― Ian Rankin, quote from Knots and Crosses

“all eyes turned towards him, entered the”
― Ian Rankin, quote from Knots and Crosses

“Job, actually. I read it once a long time ago. It seems more frightening now though. The man who begins to doubt, who shouts out against his God, looking for a response, and who gets one. ‘God gave the world to the wicked,’ he says at one point, and ‘Why should I bother?’ at another.” “It sounds interesting. But he goes on bothering?” “Yes, that’s the incredible thing.”
― Ian Rankin, quote from Knots and Crosses

“He felt his arms ache and, looking down, saw that the girl had stopped struggling. There came that point, that sudden, blissful point, when it was useless to go on living, and when the mind and body came to accept that such was the case. That was a beautiful, peaceful moment, the most relaxed moment of one’s life.”
― Ian Rankin, quote from Knots and Crosses

“Fifteen years, and all he had to show were an amount of self-pity and a busted marriage with an innocent daughter hanging between them. It was more disgusting than sad.”
― Ian Rankin, quote from Knots and Crosses

“No sooner had he finished with a case than another two or three appeared in its place. What was the name of that creature? The Hydra, was it? That was what he was fighting. Every time he cut off a head, more popped into his in-tray. Coming back from a holiday was a nightmare. And now they were giving him rocks to push up hills as well.”
― Ian Rankin, quote from Knots and Crosses

“Ah, but it was not a nice world this, not a nice world at all. It was an Old Testament land that he found himself in, a land of barbarity and retribution.”
― Ian Rankin, quote from Knots and Crosses

“Poor girl. She would change. The idealism would vanish once she saw how hypocritical the whole game was, and what luxuries lay outside university. When she left, she’d want it all: the executive job in London, the flat, car, salary, wine-bar. She would chuck it all in for a slice of pie.”
― Ian Rankin, quote from Knots and Crosses

“Also, he was more discriminating now than he had been then, back in the old days when he would read a book to its bitter end whether he liked it or not. These days, a book he disliked was unlikely to last ten pages of his concentration.”
― Ian Rankin, quote from Knots and Crosses

“Rebus remembered that the premature withdrawal of the penis during intercourse for contraceptive reasons was often referred to as ‘getting off at Haymarket.”
― Ian Rankin, quote from Knots and Crosses

“There was a ring at the door. He did not answer. They would go away, and he would be alone again with his grief, his impotent anger, and his undusted possessions.”
― Ian Rankin, quote from Knots and Crosses

About the author

Popular quotes

“War is Man’s greatest fall from grace, of course, especially perhaps when we feel a moral imperative to fight it and find ourselves twisted into ethical knots. We can never doubt (ever) the courage of those men in the Halifaxes and Stirlings and Lancasters but the bombing war was undoubtedly a brutish affair, a crude method employing a blunt weapon, continually hampered by the weather and lack of technology (despite massive advances that war always precipitates). The large gap between what was claimed for the results of the bombing campaign and what was actually achieved was never fully understood at the time, and certainly not, I suspect, by those men flying the bombers.”
― Kate Atkinson, quote from A God in Ruins

“It was lovely wine, soft and full of flowers.”
― Anne Rivers Siddons, quote from Colony

“We had always known that ours is a small country and that America is very big. But even as a seven-year-old, I was surprised that so many Americans has never noticed us on the map. Perhaps it's like driving a Yugo and realizing that the eighteen-wheeler can's see you.”
― Firoozeh Dumas, quote from Funny in Farsi: A Memoir of Growing Up Iranian in America

“—Sí, mas lo importante no es la edad sino el talento —contestó Jonah—. Existe el talento común, y aparte, existe el talento. Para tenerlo, debes nacer con él, y además, necesitas practicar en serio. No solo cuatro horas al día sino ocho. Todos los días.”
― Morgan Rice, quote from Turned

“It’s disgusting,” Kat said, still holding a hand over her nose. “I mean—oh!” Her foot slipped and she started to fall from the steps. Only Deep’s strong hand under her arm saved her. He pulled her back to her feet and gave her a quick shake. “Try not to injure yourself while we’re here—all right, sweetheart?” Kat stiffened and lifted her chin. “What do you care what happens to me? You just want to be free of me, right?” Deep’s black eyes flashed. “Just because I don’t want to be bonded to you doesn’t mean I don’t care if you—” “If I kill myself?” Kat finished for him, without thinking. To her surprise, instead of snapping out a sarcastic retort, Deep turned pale. “Don’t say that.” His voice was low and hoarse and for a moment, his eyes looked almost haunted. “Why not?” Kat stared at him, again having that niggling feeling that there was something important she ought to remember. But Deep only shook his head, and the moment passed.”
― Evangeline Anderson, quote from Sought

Interesting books

About BookQuoters

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.