“You know, my Friends, how long since in my House For a new Marriage I did make Carouse: Divorced old barren Reason from my Bed, And took the Daughter of the Vine to Spouse. —The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, EDWARD J. FITZGERALD translation”
― Tim Powers, quote from Last Call
“Somebody’s killing the moon, the goddess; some woman has apparently taken on the—what would the word be—goddess-hood and somebody’s killing her. I think it’s too late for her, and I don’t know the circumstances, but she’s got a child, a little girl. An infant, in fact, to judge by how close Venus was to the moon when we saw it.” Here”
― Tim Powers, quote from Last Call
“The waitress's eyes were wide. "Beat you off?”
― Tim Powers, quote from Last Call
“The Flamingo, as Siegel named his hotel, was a castle in the wasteland with a lot of tamed water nearby. And”
― Tim Powers, quote from Last Call
“This baby is a daughter of the goddess, and so she’s a T-H-R-E-A-T to them, you bet. A big threat. She could bounce the King, if she grows up, which…certain persons…would like her not to do. And there’s other people who want her to grow up but would want to, what, be her manager, you know? Boss her, use her. Climb into the tower by means of her Rapunzel hair, yes, sir. Right into that tower.” Scott”
― Tim Powers, quote from Last Call
“I mean, do you believe in God or what? “ “Not the name-brand God they serve here.” Tim said. “That old guy with the beard, granting wishes out of the clouds to whoever says the most rosaries. That’s bullshit. I believe in everything.”
― Chris Fuhrman, quote from The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys
“Most people, when directly confronted by evidence that they are wrong, do not change their point of view or course of action but justify it even more tenaciously. Even irrefutable evidence is rarely enough to pierce the mental armor of self-justification. When we began working on this book, the poster boy for "tenacious clinging to a discredited belief" was George W. Bush. Bush was wrong in his claim that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, he was wrong in claiming that Saddam was linked with Al Qaeda, he was wrong in predicting that Iraqis would be dancing joyfully in the streets to receive the American soldiers, he was wrong in predicting that the conflict would be over quickly, he was wrong in his gross underestimate of the financial cost of the war, and he was most famously wrong in his photo-op speech six weeks after the invasion began, when he announced (under a banner reading MISSION ACCOMPLISHED) that "major combat operations in Iraq have ended.”
― Carol Tavris, quote from Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts
“More importantly, our software worked. I don't just mean that it didn't bump, or that it performed according to the written specifications, or that it was efficient in producing reports. It really worked”
― Eliyahu M. Goldratt, quote from The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement
“Bad stories can create good people, and I wanted to protect them from those bad stories so they could live with the good person they'd created without ever worrying about what I had to go through to become that person. I kept those secrets because I needed to . . . and sometimes it's OK to make those kinds of decisions for the sake of your own happiness.”
― Carrie Hope Fletcher, quote from On the Other Side
“I was still hesitant to let myself let go, because I still believed in the fragility of happiness.”
― Ishmael Beah, quote from A Long Way Gone
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.