Judith Merkle Riley · 609 pages
Rating: (3.5K votes)
“I could feel something cold stalking my heart. It was fear. They all begin this way, I thought, with pledges of love.”
― Judith Merkle Riley, quote from La Jeune Fille aux Oracles
“When faced with the illogical, one must expand the sphere of logic to include rules of logic for that which is not logic. This is the only possibility in a world that works according to the rules of rationality.”
― Judith Merkle Riley, quote from La Jeune Fille aux Oracles
“Oaths, in my opinion, infernal or not, ought to be short.”
― Judith Merkle Riley, quote from La Jeune Fille aux Oracles
“After all, he meant well. Foreigners never seem to understand how little attraction an island of damp fogs, cut off from civilization, and a provincial little court has for us Parisians, who inhabit the most cultivated, powerful monarchy in the world.”
― Judith Merkle Riley, quote from La Jeune Fille aux Oracles
“Daughter, your presence is a stay and consolation to me. Begin again in the Tenth Book; tell me, how does Aristotle define true happiness?” “Father, he tells us that true happiness is found in contemplation, whereas the common idea of happiness as pleasant amusements is fostered by the courts of tyrants.”
― Judith Merkle Riley, quote from La Jeune Fille aux Oracles
“Why the Romans, Father?” I asked him one afternoon. “Because, my child, they teach us how to bear suffering in a world of injustice where all faith is dead,” he answered.”
― Judith Merkle Riley, quote from La Jeune Fille aux Oracles
“Are you aware of the penalties reserved for freethinkers? I could send you to the block. Good.”
― Judith Merkle Riley, quote from La Jeune Fille aux Oracles
“I mistrust mountebanks—especially of the female variety.”
― Judith Merkle Riley, quote from La Jeune Fille aux Oracles
“Living all alone! The freedom! Rather than being known as the Human Calculator, I’d be That Really Cool Chick Who Lives by Herself and Plays the Guitar Just Like Jewel!
Or I’m sure they’d say that if I actually played the guitar”
― Piper Banks, quote from Geek High
“When faced with one of life’s givens, we might ask: “Why did such a terrible thing happen to a good person like me? I deserve better.” The mindful version of that question is: “Yes this happened. Now what?” We will notice we are happier when we accept what we do not like about life as a given of life. Our mindful yes is an entry into this sheltering paradox. When”
― David Richo, quote from The Five Things We Cannot Change: And the Happiness We Find by Embracing Them
“I had never deserved to be forgiven in the first place when I aas converted. I could do nothing to merit God's favour, His grace, His love. If all I had ever known was unmerited and undeserved grace, how could I then forfeit that which I never earned?... Was I too proud, in some strange, inverted way to humble myself to accept an unmerited forgiveness? I know that it was all of grace, yet my inner being wanted the right to do something to merit it. I was trying to work out my own salvation, to earn God's forgiveness, to prove the sincerity of my repentance...At last I knew that it was true. It was not based on my feeling or on my emotions. It was not dependent on my faith or my obedience. In no way could I merit or deserve it. He loved me. He knew me through and through, better than I knew myself, and yet still, He loved me. Christ died on Calvary to tell me that. Christ lives in Heaven, an unceasing intercessor on my behalf to make that love real to me in my experience.”
― quote from Living Sacrifice: Willing to Be Whittled as an Arrow
“One day a man of the people said to Zen Master Ikkyu: “Master, will you please write for me some maxims of the highest wisdom?” Ikkyu immediately took his brush and wrote the word “Attention.” “Is that all?” asked the man. “Will you not add something more?” Ikkyu then wrote twice running: “Attention. Attention.” “Well,” remarked the man rather irritably, “I really don’t see much depth or subtlety in what you have just written.” Then Ikkyu wrote the same word three times running: “Attention. Attention. Attention.” Half angered, the man demanded: “What does that word ‘Attention’ mean anyway?” And Ikkyu answered gently: “Attention means attention.”11”
― Philip Kapleau, quote from The Three Pillars of Zen
“Keep it. When you have enough of my clothes at your place, I'll have to start staying overnight so I can get dressed."
"Dream on, Savoie."
"Every night, detective.”
― Nancy Gideon, quote from Masked by Moonlight
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.