“No one can hurt you as badly as the people you love.”
― Ransom Riggs, quote from Library of Souls
“It had become one of the defining truths of my life that, no matter how I tried to keep them flattened, two-dimensional, jailed in paper and ink, there would always be stories that refused to stay bound inside books. It was never just a story. I would know: a story had swallowed my whole life.”
― Ransom Riggs, quote from Library of Souls
“To some it might’ve seemed callous, the way she boxed up her pain and set it aside, but I knew her well enough now to understand. She had a heart the size of France, and the lucky few whom she loved with it were loved with every square inch—but its size made it dangerous, too. If she let it feel everything, she’d be wrecked. So she had to tame it, shush it, shut it up. Float the worst pains off to an island that was quickly filling with them, where she would go to live one day.”
― Ransom Riggs, quote from Library of Souls
“An opportunist disguised as a friend can be every bit as dangerous as an outright enemy.”
― Ransom Riggs, quote from Library of Souls
“And it occured to me, standing there, just breathing with her, quiet settling around us, that those might be the three most beautiful words in the English language. We have time.”
― Ransom Riggs, quote from Library of Souls
“Maybe," she said. "Maybe. But now you're making promises you might not be able to keep, and that's how people in love get very badly hurt.”
― Ransom Riggs, quote from Library of Souls
“Early in life we recognize certain talents in ourselves, and we focus on those to the exclusion of others. It’s not that nothing else is possible, but that nothing else was nurtured.”
― Ransom Riggs, quote from Library of Souls
“She had this amazing capacity to turn sadness into anger and anger into action, which meant nothing ever kept her down for long.”
― Ransom Riggs, quote from Library of Souls
“Doubt is the pinprick in the life raft.”
― Ransom Riggs, quote from Library of Souls
“What a beautiful day to go to hell”
― Ransom Riggs, quote from Library of Souls
“Emma laughed darkly. "It's a completely mad idea, I know. But my brain is a hope-making engine."
"I'm so glad," I said. "Mine is a worst-case-scenario generator."
"We need each other, then."
"Yes. But we already knew that, I think.”
― Ransom Riggs, quote from Library of Souls
“These strange-looking people weren’t peculiars. They were nerds. We were very much in the present.”
― Ransom Riggs, quote from Library of Souls
“I felt like one of those mythical heroes who fights his way back from the underworld only to realize that the world above is every bit as damned as the one below.”
― Ransom Riggs, quote from Library of Souls
“There was, in fact, a street sign to that effect—the first I’d seen in all of Devil’s Acre. Louche Lane, it read in fancy handwritten script. Piracy discouraged.
“Discouraged?” I said. “Then what’s murder? Frowned upon?”
“I believe murder is ‘tolerated with reservations.’ ”
“Is anything illegal here?” Addison asked.
“Library late fines are stiff. Ten lashes a day, and that’s just for paperbacks.”
“There’s a library?”
“Two. Though one won’t lend because all the books are bound in human skin and quite valuable.”
― Ransom Riggs, quote from Library of Souls
“Maybe lots of people go through life never knowing they’re peculiar.”
― Ransom Riggs, quote from Library of Souls
“There was something sweet about holding a tangible thing that had been touched and marked upon by someone I loved.”
― Ransom Riggs, quote from Library of Souls
“Ahh,” Sharon said airily from the corner, “the sweet lies lovers tell …”
― Ransom Riggs, quote from Library of Souls
“my brain is a hope-making engine.”
― Ransom Riggs, quote from Library of Souls
“Early in life we recognize certain talents in ourselves, and we focus on those to the exclusion of others. It's not that nothing else is possible, but that nothing else was nurtured.”
― Ransom Riggs, quote from Library of Souls
“I was the perfect automaton: blessed with ability but cursed with ignorance.”
― Ransom Riggs, quote from Library of Souls
“The trouble with the merely unwise/deeply stupid line is that you often don’t know which side you’re on until it’s too late.”
― Ransom Riggs, quote from Library of Souls
“I hate fleeing as much as anyone,” I said, “but Emma and I look like nineteenth-century axe murderers, and you’re a dog who wears glasses. We’re bound to be noticed.”
― Ransom Riggs, quote from Library of Souls
“Just a story. It had become one of the defining truths of my life that, no matter how I tried to keep them flattened, two-dimensional, jailed in paper and ink, there would always be stories that refused to stay bound inside books. It was never just a story. I would know: a story had swallowed my whole life.”
― Ransom Riggs, quote from Library of Souls
“Just because I’m a capitalist doesn’t mean I’m a black-hearted bastard.”
― Ransom Riggs, quote from Library of Souls
“Never mind compassion! Fie on loyalty! If you’re as intelligent and ambitious a fellow as I think you are, then you’ll recognize an extraordinary opportunity for advancement when you see one.”
― Ransom Riggs, quote from Library of Souls
“She had a heart the size of France, and the lucky few whom she loved with it were loved with every square inch—but its size made it dangerous, too. If she let it feel everything, she’d be wrecked. So she had to tame it, shush it, shut it up. Float the worst pains off to an island that was quickly filling with them, where she would go to live one day.”
― Ransom Riggs, quote from Library of Souls
“I didn’t want to kill the hollow any more than I wanted to kill a strange animal. In the course of leading this creature around by the nose, I had gotten close enough to understand that there was more than just void inside it. There was a tiny spark, a little marble of soul at the bottom of a deep pool. It wasn’t hollow—not really.”
― Ransom Riggs, quote from Library of Souls
“Just a story. It had become one of the defining truths of my life that, no matter how I tried to keep them flattened, two-dimensional, jailed in paper and ink, there would always be stories that refused to stay bound inside books. It was never just a story.”
― Ransom Riggs, quote from Library of Souls
“Why did we have more than we knew what to do with, while they had less than they needed to stay alive?”
― Ransom Riggs, quote from Library of Souls
“I believe murder is ‘tolerated with reservations.’ ” “Is anything illegal here?” Addison asked. “Library late fines are stiff. Ten lashes a day, and that’s just for paperbacks.” “There’s a library?” “Two. Though one won’t lend because all the books are bound in human skin and quite valuable.”
― Ransom Riggs, quote from Library of Souls
“إننا بحاجة للآخرين لكي نفهم أنفسنا, وبحاجة إلى حريتهم وإلى سعادتهم إذا أمكن ذلك, لإتمام حياتنا الخاصة”
― Luc Ferry, quote from A Brief History of Thought: A Philosophical Guide to Living
“Its extremely potent active ingredient is an opioid called oxycodone, synthesized from the raw material of opium. The substance was a hot topic among doctors in the Weimar Republic because many physicians quietly took the narcotic themselves. In specialist circles Eukodal was the queen of remedies: a wonder drug. Almost twice as pain-relieving as morphine, which it replaced in popularity, this archetypal designer opioid was characterized by its potential to create very swiftly a euphoric state significantly higher than that of heroin, its pharmacological cousin. Used properly, Eukodal did not make the patient tired or knock him out—quite the contrary.”
― quote from Blitzed: Drugs in Nazi Germany
“Lord, may the pain be ours, And the weakness that it brings, But at least give us the strength, Of not showing it to anyone!”
― Fernando Pessoa, quote from Poems of Fernando Pessoa
“We were in the autumnlands.
Dim as it was, the forest glowed. The golden leaves flashing by blazed like sparks caught in the updraft of a fire. A scarlet carpet unrolled before us, rich and flawless as velvet. Rising from the forest floor, the black, tangled roots breathed a bluish mist that reduced the farthest trees' trunks to ghostly silhouettes, yet left their foliage's luminous hues untouched. Vivid moss speckled the branches like tarnished copper. The crisp spice of pine sap infused the cool air over a musty perfume of dry leaves. A knot swelled in my throat. I couldn't look away. There was too much of it, too fast. I'd never be able to drink it all in...”
― Margaret Rogerson, quote from An Enchantment of Ravens
“Overwhelmed, and suffocating from stuff, we are suffering from an anxiety that I call Stuffocation. Nicodemus,”
― James Wallman, quote from Stuffocation: Living More with Less
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.
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