“That's what innocence is, you know. A blissful oblivion of what's coming, of what you'll lose and what you'll gain, and what kind of person you'll grow up to be.”
― Laura Wiess, quote from Leftovers
“Time is not your friend. It doesn't care if you live fast or die slow, if you are or if you aren't. It was here before you arrived and it will go on after you leave. Time doesn't care who wins or who loses, if your life span is full or empty, honorable or shameful. Time is indifferent. It simply doesn't give a shit.”
― Laura Wiess, quote from Leftovers
“See, guys freak out. They hit critical mass and blast nuclear, white-hot anger out over the world like walking flamethrowers. But girls freak in. They absorb the pain and bitterness and keep right on sponging it up until they drown.”
― Laura Wiess, quote from Leftovers
“Ignorance of the outcome doesn't exempt you from the consequences.”
― Laura Wiess, quote from Leftovers
“It's just that instead of erupting and annihilating our tormentors, we destroy ourselves instead.”
― Laura Wiess, quote from Leftovers
“We mutinied quietly, using every lesson we’d been taught by every person who’d ever used us for their own benefit.”
― Laura Wiess, quote from Leftovers
“Yeah, I know I've changed. Nothing gets to me anymore.
Well, okay, except for stuff in the past. Back then I was all innocent and trusting and didn't know anything. Now I know plenty and you can't fucking touch me.”
― Laura Wiess, quote from Leftovers
“We're not afraid of the dark. Our nightmares were born on sultry, summer afternoons.”
― Laura Wiess, quote from Leftovers
“Maybe it's true that shared trauma brings people closer together-a common hardship, a battle to survive-because when times are quiet people relax and go their own separate ways. They're lulled into believing they've got everything under control and don't need what they did before.”
― Laura Wiess, quote from Leftovers
“No step is a safe one, so it's safer to take none at all.”
― Laura Wiess, quote from Leftovers
“I tore the crusts off my grilled cheese sandwich and set them aside to throw out for the birds. Their motives were pure -- hunger, thirst, shelter -- and they didn't mind leftovers.”
― Laura Wiess, quote from Leftovers
“You told us once not to be in such a hurry to grow up, but I don't see any way we could have avoided it. There was always someone out there ready to carve away another chunk of our innocence. Maybe because theirs was already gone and they couldn't stand the sight of our ignorant happiness. Because that's what innocence is, you know. A blissful oblivion of what's coming, of what you'll lose and what you'll gain, and what kind of person you'll grow up to be.”
― Laura Wiess, quote from Leftovers
“Being user friendly doesn't mean you're going to be loved.”
― Laura Wiess, quote from Leftovers
“... real life isn't like the movies. The victim doesn't usually win. She just endures.”
― Laura Wiess, quote from Leftovers
“So sometimes what takes you down can be used to raise you up again.”
― Laura Wiess, quote from Leftovers
“Therefore, while our eyes wait to see the destined final day, we must call no one happy who is of mortal race, until he has crossed life's border, free from pain.”
― Sophocles, quote from The Complete Plays
“The person staring back at me was a stranger. Someone who had taken the girl I was two years ago and stripped her down only to rebuild a different person. Now I was strong, I was capable and smart. They were the good qualities. But I was also calculated, manipulative and selfish. These were the things I promised myself I wouldn't be. After I found him. After we put this right.”
― Jessica Shirvington, quote from Disruption
“Birth is but the beginning of a trajectory to death; for all their love, parents cannot halt it and in a sense have “given us to death” merely by giving us birth.”
― quote from The Upanishads: Translations from the Sanskrit
“When you break the heart of the philosopher, you must apply great force and cunning strategy, but when the deed is completed, the heart lies in great stony ruin at your feet. If you succeed in breaking it, the job is done once and for all. It will not be repaired.”
― Charles Baxter, quote from The Feast of Love
“…when the dying sun bled the blue sky orange.”
― Jeanette Winterson, quote from Sexing the Cherry
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.