Quotes from Little Altars Everywhere

“See, she goes places when she reads. I know all about that. When I'm reading, wherever I am, I'm always somewhere else.”
― Rebecca Wells, quote from Little Altars Everywhere

“Sidda can't help herself. She just loves books. Loves the way they feel, the way they smell, loves the black letters marching across the white pages...”
― Rebecca Wells, quote from Little Altars Everywhere

“Sometimes you just have to reach out and grab what you want, even when they tell you not to. This is something that I've struggled with my whole life long.”
― Rebecca Wells, quote from Little Altars Everywhere

“Listen to me, Siddalee, and listen good: There is no excuse to let your looks go, no matter how poor you are. Cleanliness is next to Godliness, but honey let me tell you, ugliness will get you nowhere.”
― Rebecca Wells, quote from Little Altars Everywhere

“Sometimes I wonder if any of us are cut out for the lives we lead.”
― Rebecca Wells, quote from Little Altars Everywhere

“Zip it kiddo. Don't ever admit you know a thing about cooking or it'll be used against you later in life.”
― Rebecca Wells, quote from Little Altars Everywhere

“There is the truth of history, and there is the truth of what a person remembers. As {she} sat at the edge of {the lake}, memory blossoms floated unbounded, as though breathed, no words spoken. Like birds that fly across national borders, between countries at war at each other.”
― Rebecca Wells, quote from Little Altars Everywhere

“Books are living things with blood and bones, and it breaks our heart when people dissect them.”
― Rebecca Wells, quote from Little Altars Everywhere

“You cannot escape from life. Life is not a book. You can't just set it down on the coffee table and walk away from it when it gets boring or you get tired.”
― Rebecca Wells, quote from Little Altars Everywhere

“Sidda can't help herself, She just loves books. Loves the way they feel, the way they smell, loves those black letters marching across the white pages.”
― Rebecca Wells, quote from Little Altars Everywhere

“Sometimes you just have to reach out and grab what you want, even when they tell you not to.”
― Rebecca Wells, quote from Little Altars Everywhere

“When I'm reading, wherever I am, I'm always somewhere else.”
― Rebecca Wells, quote from Little Altars Everywhere

“hear anything about my lessons. When I try to show her Charlene’s numbers from The Pajama”
― Rebecca Wells, quote from Little Altars Everywhere

“to let anything connected with Charlene get criticized, so I said, Mama, you’re just jealous because you can’t dance like Charlene. Mama said, Shut your filthy mouth. Then I said, Shut your filthy mouth.”
― Rebecca Wells, quote from Little Altars Everywhere

“this architect who everyone misunderstands. I completely forget to ask what she and Charlene are going to laugh about. One evening Mama takes Baylor and Little Shep and Lulu and me to Fred’s Hamburger Drive-In where we eat at least”
― Rebecca Wells, quote from Little Altars Everywhere

“supposed to walk off my block, Sherry says, like a real whiny-baby.”
― Rebecca Wells, quote from Little Altars Everywhere

“want to be grown-up and drive my own convertible and live in a different town where nobody knows Mama or Daddy.”
― Rebecca Wells, quote from Little Altars Everywhere

“hope they remember that when they get older. When they count up the things I did and didn’t do. I never gave the drinking a second”
― Rebecca Wells, quote from Little Altars Everywhere

“far as I knew. Never thought one way or the other when Mama used to take her “naps” in the middle of Christmas or Thanksgiving dinner. Never said to myself, Mama’s not napping, she’s passed-out drunk. Never even questioned”
― Rebecca Wells, quote from Little Altars Everywhere

“sadness usually does, as soon as I sat down and began to listen. The small press had a correspondingly”
― Rebecca Wells, quote from Little Altars Everywhere

“Siddalee looked at me like: You liar, Daddy, you big liar. I don’t know why I’m thinking”
― Rebecca Wells, quote from Little Altars Everywhere

“this dream where I just tell it all, and then this special-made vacuum cleaner comes and sucks all the crap out of my lungs. Stops me from drowning. Clean oxygen reaches deep in my chest like it hasn’t for so goddamn long. In the dream I tell it all, and I breathe like a baby. I forget to worry about the next breath, just trust it’s gonna come. Siddalee asks too many questions. I don’t know where the child gets those thoughts. She pins me to the wall with all the stuff she asks. Sometimes I wish she’d lose her voice. And sometimes I want to go and sit in front of her and ask her questions. I’d like to say: What do you want me to do? Tell me what to do—step by step—to get out of the mess we’re in here in this house. But I know it’s foolishness”
― Rebecca Wells, quote from Little Altars Everywhere

“thinking: I don’t want my little girl to come out blind or gouged up. I’m not cheap, I’m scared. It’s the story of my life: not stingy, just a goddamn coward.”
― Rebecca Wells, quote from Little Altars Everywhere

“I was near, even though she couldn’t see me. But then I’m always expecting too much from the girl, wanting her to know things she can’t”
― Rebecca Wells, quote from Little Altars Everywhere

“Well, I could have predicted that something like this was going to happen. You can’t go anywhere with Mama without things getting nuts. If it’s going along too smooth she will invent something just to stir things up. Sometimes we’ll be downtown”
― Rebecca Wells, quote from Little Altars Everywhere

“social structure of Troop 55. There are”
― Rebecca Wells, quote from Little Altars Everywhere

“Edythe, I finally say, Why don’t you go on back to your bunk and eat your boogers for a midnight snack like you always do at home? Well, that comment really sends my friends, and I’m a big hit. But then I see Edythe’s face. It’s like something has fallen on it and crumpled it in. Somehow she looks so familiar that I can feel her bones inside my own body. And I start to feel sort of sick. She turns and walks away and”
― Rebecca Wells, quote from Little Altars Everywhere

“sits on the bedspread between her and Necie. I can smell that nail polish in the clean cool air of the woods. The minute Mama opens her mouth I realize she’s had at least four drinks. Her voice is loose and deep and content and amused, and she says: Edythe, don’t you ever”
― Rebecca Wells, quote from Little Altars Everywhere

“Honestly, Edythe, Mama says, like she’s going to give her the most important advice in the world, If you continue acting this way, you will be unpopular for the rest of your life. I wish I could go someplace far away”
― Rebecca Wells, quote from Little Altars Everywhere

About the author

Popular quotes

“The question you should be asking isn't, "What do I want?" or "What are my goals?" but "What would excite me?”
― Timothy Ferriss, quote from The 4-Hour Workweek

“Do you see how an act is not, as young men think, like a rock that one picks up and throws, and it hits or misses, and that's the end of it. When that rock is lifted, the earth is lighter; the hand that bears it heavier. When it is thrown, the circuits of the stars respond, and where it strikes or falls, the universe is changed. On every act the balance of the whole depends. The winds and seas, the powers of water and earth an light, all that these do, and all that the beasts and green things do, is well done, and rightly done. All these act within the Equilibrium. From the hurricane and the great whale's sounding to the fall of a dry leaf an the gnat's flight, all they do is done within the balance of the whole.

But we, insofar as we have power over the world and over one another, we must learn to do what the leaf and the whale and the wind do of their own nature. We must learn to keep the balance. Having intelligence, we must not act in ignorance. Having choice, we must not act without responsibility.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, quote from The Farthest Shore

“Cynthia was originally from Sierra Leone, and I loved the way those two dusky words rolled off her tongue. As we drove along I found myself fascinated with the deep “Oooooohhs” and “Aaaahhhhss” that made up her conversational speech patterns”
― Karl Wiggins, quote from Grit: The Banter and Brutality of the Late-Night Cab

“καὶ οὗτος ἄρα καὶ ἄλλος πᾶς ὁ ἐπιθυμῶν τοῦ μὴ ἐτοίμου ἐπιθυμεῖ”
― Plato, quote from The Symposium

“I feel very lucky to know you—and as far as I have seen, to know you is literally to love you.”
― quote from This Star Won't Go Out: The Life and Words of Esther Grace Earl

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.