“On the girl's brown legs there were many small white scars. I was thinking, Do those scars cover the whole of you, like the stars and the moons on your dress? I thought that would be pretty too, and I ask you right here please to agree with me that a scar is never ugly. That is what the scar makers want us to think. But you and I, we must make an agreement to defy them. We must see all scars as beauty. Okay? This will be our secret. Because take it from me, a scar does not form on the dying. A scar means, I survived.”
― Chris Cleave, quote from Little Bee
“We must see all scars as beauty. Okay? This will be our secret. Because take it from me, a scar does not form on the dying. A scar means, 'I survived'.”
― Chris Cleave, quote from Little Bee
“Sad words are just another beauty. A sad story means, this storyteller is alive. The next thing you know something fine will happen to her, something marvelous, and then she will turn around and smile.”
― Chris Cleave, quote from Little Bee
“I could not stop talking because now I had started my story, it wanted to be finished. We cannot choose where to start and stop. Our stories are the tellers of us. ”
― Chris Cleave, quote from Little Bee
“I ask you right here please to agree with me that a scar is never ugly. That is what the scar makers want us to think. But you and I, we must make an agreement to defy them. We must see all scars as beauty. Okay? This will be our secret. Because take it from me, a scar does not form on the dying. A scar means, I survived.”
― Chris Cleave, quote from Little Bee
“I’m telling you, trouble is like the ocean. It covers two thirds of the world.”
― Chris Cleave, quote from Little Bee
“A scar does not form on the dying. A scar means, I survived.”
― Chris Cleave, quote from Little Bee
“To be well in your mind you have first to be free.”
― Chris Cleave, quote from Little Bee
“You travel here and you travel there, trying to get out from under the cloud, and nothing works, and then one day you realize you've been carrying the weather around with you.”
― Chris Cleave, quote from Little Bee
“Life is extremely short and you cannot dance to current affairs.”
― Chris Cleave, quote from Little Bee
“Wouldn't that be funny, if the oil rebels were playing U2 in their jungle camps, and the government soldiers were playing U2 in their trucks. I think everyone was killing everyone else and listening to the same music... That is a good trick about this world, Sarah. No one likes each other, but everyone likes U2.”
― Chris Cleave, quote from Little Bee
“However long the moon disappears, someday it must shine again.”
― Chris Cleave, quote from Little Bee
“Death, of course, is a refuge. It's where you go when a new name, or a mask and cape, can no longer hide you from yourself. It's where you run to when none of the principalities of your conscience will grant you asylum.”
― Chris Cleave, quote from Little Bee
“It was the month of May and there was warm sunshine dripping through the holes between the clouds, like the sky was a broken blue bowl and a child was trying to keep honey in it.”
― Chris Cleave, quote from Little Bee
“We were exiles from reality that summer. We were refugees from ourselves.”
― Chris Cleave, quote from Little Bee
“Horror in your country is something you take a dose of to remind yourself that you are not suffering from it.”
― Chris Cleave, quote from Little Bee
“On the girl’s brown legs there were many small white scars. I was thinking, Do those scars cover the whole of you, like the stars and moons on your dress? I thought that would be pretty too, and I ask you right here please to agree with me that a scar is never ugly. That is what the scar makers want us to think. But you and I, we must make an agreement to defy them. We must see all scars a s beauty. Okay? This will be our secret. Because take it from me, a scar does not form on the dying. A scar means, ‘I survived’.
In a few breaths’ time I will speak some sad words to you. But you must hear them as we have agreed to see scars now. Sad words are just another beauty. A sad story means the storyteller is alive. The next thing you know, something fine will happen to her, something marvellous, and then she will turn round and smile.”
― Chris Cleave, quote from Little Bee
“I was carrying two cargoes. Yes, one of them was horror, but the other one was hope.”
― Chris Cleave, quote from Little Bee
“I know that the hopes of this whole human world can fit inside one soul.”
― Chris Cleave, quote from Little Bee
“If I could not smile, I think my situation would be even more serious.”
― Chris Cleave, quote from Little Bee
“This is the forked tongue of grief again. It whispers in one ear: return to what you once loved best, and in the other ear it whispers, move on.”
― Chris Cleave, quote from Little Bee
“That is the trouble with happiness-all of it is built on top of something that men want.”
― Chris Cleave, quote from Little Bee
“At some point you just have to turn around and face your life head on.”
― Chris Cleave, quote from Little Bee
“I planned how I would kill myself in the time of Churchill (stand under bombs), Victoria (throw myself under a horse), and Henry the Eighth (marry Henry the Eighth)- Little Bee”
― Chris Cleave, quote from Little Bee
“On our honeymoon we talked and talked. We stayed in a beachfront villa, and we drank rum and lemonade and talked so much that I never even noticed what color the sea was. Whenever I need to stop and remind myself how much I once loved Andrew, I only need to think about this. That the ocean covers seven tenths of the earth's surface, and yet my husband could make me not notice it.”
― Chris Cleave, quote from Little Bee
“We cannot choose where to start and stop. Our stories are the tellers of us.”
― Chris Cleave, quote from Little Bee
“And thus love makes fools of us all.”
― Chris Cleave, quote from Little Bee
“Life is savagely unfair. It ignores our deep-seated convictions and places a disproportionate emphasis on the decisions we make in split seconds.”
― Chris Cleave, quote from Little Bee
“They say that in the hour before an earthquake the clouds hang leaden in the sky, the winds slows to a hot breath, and the birds fall quiet in the trees of the town square. Yes but these are the same portents that precede lunchtime, frankly.”
― Chris Cleave, quote from Little Bee
“That is how we lived, happily and without hope. I was very young then, and I did not miss having a future because I did not know I was entitled to one.”
― Chris Cleave, quote from Little Bee
Chris Cleave
Born place: in London, The United Kingdom
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“She was fascinated with words. To her, words were things of beauty, each like a magical powder or potion that could be combined with other words to create powerful spells.”
― Dean Koontz, quote from Lightning
“Nawat grinned. “I was helping to steal soldiers who couldn't keep up.”
“What do you do with them?” she asked, curious. “I haven't heard of bodies being found.”
“Nor will you,” Nawat informed her, sitting on a corner of the worktable. “They were still alive when we gave them to my warriors at the edge of the jungle.”
He picked up Aly's hand and laced his fingers with hers. “My warriors will be able to say they last saw the missing soldiers alive, when the troops went on a visit to the jungle.”
Aly walked her free fingers over their entwined hands. “But why would Crown soldiers visit the jungle?”
“They didn't think they would at first,” Nawat admitted. “So my warriors show them the beauties of the deep jungle. They take away all the things the soldiers have of the civilized world, such as clothes and weapons and armor, so the soldiers will appreciate the jungle with their entire bodies. But my warriors have seen jungle before, so they get bored and leave. The soldiers stay longer.”
“Like the tax collectors,” Aly whispered, awed by the beauty of what he described. “Take away all they have and leave them to survive the jungle. If you're questioned under truthspell, you can say they were alive when you left them. And the only way they could survive naked out there . . .”
Nawat was shaking his head. Aly nodded. “I take it you don't leave them near any trails.”
“They are there to appreciate the jungle that has been untouched by humans,” Nawat told her, a teacher to a student who did not quite understand.
Aly sighed. “I am limp with envy,” she told him. “Simply limp.”
― Tamora Pierce, quote from Trickster's Queen
“What barrier is there that love cannot break?”
― Mahatma Gandhi, quote from The Story of My Experiments With Truth
“I watched his taillights until they got more and more distant and then faded from view entirely. I realized, in that moment, that I hadn't needed to destroy Bryan's sunglasses in the Paradise parking lot. Because it was clear to me now that I'd already broken something.”
― Morgan Matson, quote from Since You've Been Gone
“Men broke into their homes, killed their families, threatened you--and you won't let them do anything for fear you'll be hurt. That's selfish. How would you like it if I took your bow and said I cared too much about you to let you fight?”
― Tamora Pierce, quote from Wild Magic
Aristotle and Dante...
A Wizard of Earthsea
Love Story
Persuasion
Grimm's Fairy Tales
Message in a BottleBookQuoters 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.
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