“If you want to really relax sometime, just fall to rock bottom and you'll be a happy man. Most all troubles come from having standards.”
― Thomas Berger, quote from Little Big Man
“You got to knock a man down and put your knife at his throat before he'll hear you, like I did to that trooper. The truth seems hateful to most everybody.”
― Thomas Berger, quote from Little Big Man
“The truth is always made up of little particulars which sound ridiculous when repeated.”
― Thomas Berger, quote from Little Big Man
“Believe me, the real romantic person is him who ain't done anything but imagine. If you have actually participated in disasters, like me, you get conservative.”
― Thomas Berger, quote from Little Big Man
“I expect Custer was crazy enough to believe he would win, being the type of man who carries the whole world within his own head and thus when his passion is aroused and floods his mind, reality is utterly drowned.”
― Thomas Berger, quote from Little Big Man
“It was strange how in no time at all everybody went from fear to being excruciatingly bored, and the very women who yesterday had been helpless victims and just minutes earlier were howling in fright, now began to advance on him threatening with their fists and saying: 'Git on out of here, you old skunk!' Which shows something about the way a female is put together; she will suffer any outrage so long as it is interesting, but bore her and she don't know fear.”
― Thomas Berger, quote from Little Big Man
“I love her still, for if you know anything about that kind of feeling, you know how close it is connected to hopelessness and thus is about the only thing in civilization that don't degenerate with time.”
― Thomas Berger, quote from Little Big Man
“The buffalo eats grass, I eat him, and when I die, the earth eats me and sprouts more grass. Therefore nothing is ever lost, and each thing is everything forever, though all things move.”
― Thomas Berger, quote from Little Big Man
“When you run into a story of more than three against one and one winning, then you have heard a lie.”
― Thomas Berger, quote from Little Big Man
“You might have thought the colonel would be interested in my experiences of five years’ barbarism, but he wasn’t. I wasn’t long in discovering that it is a rare person in the white world who wants to hear what the other fellow says, all the more so when the other fellow really knows what he is talking about.”
― Thomas Berger, quote from Little Big Man
“…What it means is you will fight until you’re all used up. Far from being sour, life is so sweet you will live it to the hilt and be consumed by it.”
― Thomas Berger, quote from Little Big Man
“For he was big, and I don’t care what you say, for every inch a man grows over five foot five, his brain diminishes proportionately. All my life I have had a prejudice against overgrown louts.”
― Thomas Berger, quote from Little Big Man
“Hickok and the others now returned from looking at the saloon sign, and this suck-up who had been talking to me, he asked what happened and another man says: “He put all ten inside the hole of the O, by God!” And everybody was whistling and gasping at the wonder of it—well, not exactly everybody, for there was other scouts and gun-handlers around, people like Jack Gallagher, Billy Dixon, Old Man Keeler, and more who was well known in them days, and they looked thoughtful so as not to display jealousy. As elsewhere in life, there are specialists on one hand, and the audience on the other.”
― Thomas Berger, quote from Little Big Man
“Most of the people I have really cared about in this world, I have elected to the position. I have a belief that a man’s real relatives are scattered throughout the universe, and seldom if ever belong to his immediate kin.”
― Thomas Berger, quote from Little Big Man
Thomas Berger
Born place: in Cincinnati, Ohio, The United States
Born date July 20, 1924
See more on GoodReads
“Most girls take one look at you and swoon. You've never had to really work for someone's affection or put effort into maintaining it. In many ways, your natural gifts have done you a disservice-- they've stunted your sensitivity and charm! You've never had to develop insight into what will make a girl laugh and come to love you for reasons that aren't handsome or heroic. That's why smees are experts on the subtle arts of courtship and seduction; nothing comes easy to us, but we do understand and live by the Lover's Maxim."
"And what on earth is the Lover's Maxim?" asked Maz, feeling very uninformed.
The smee cleared his throat. "If you can't be handsome, be rich. If you can't be rich, be strong. If you cant be strong, be witty."
"But what if you can't be witty?" Max wondered.
"Learn the guitar.”
― Henry H. Neff, quote from The Maelstrom
“Ein solches Glück hatte ich stets bis zu meinem fünfzigsten Lebensjahr, wenn ich in Bedrängnis geriet. Sobald ich rechtschaffene Leute fand, die sich für die Geschichte des Unglücks interessierten, das mich bedrückte, und ich sie ihnen erzählte, flösste ich ihnen jene Freundschaft ein, die nötig war, um sie mir günstig und hilfreich zu stimmen. Der Kunstgriff, den ich dabei anwandte, bestand darin, dass ich die Sache wahrheitsgetreu erzählte, ohne gewisse Einzelheiten auszulassen, zu deren Erwähnung man Mut braucht. Darin liegt das ganze Geheimnis, und wenige wissen es anzuwenden, weil die Menschheit zum grössten Teil aus Feiglingen besteht; ich weiss aus Erfahrung, dass die Wahrheit ein Talisman ist, dessen Zauberkräfte nie versagen, vorausgesetzt, dass man sie nicht an Spitzbuben verschwendet. Ich glaube, wer seine Schuld einem gerechten Richter zu gestehen wagt, wird leichter freigesprochen als ein Unschuldiger, der Ausflüchte sucht.”
― Giacomo Casanova, quote from The Story of My Life
“When you control a man's thinking you do not have to worry about his actions. You do not have to tell him not to stand here or go yonder. He will find his 'proper place' and will stay in it. You do not need to send him to the back door. He will go without being told. In fact, if there is no back door, he will cut one for his special benefit. His education makes it necessary.”
― Carter G. Woodson, quote from The Mis-Education of the Negro
“Once there, he was met by Rosa, who greeted him with a lingering kiss. “Put your dagger back in its sheath,” she smiled as their bodies pressed together. “You’re the one who made me draw it. And you’re the one,” he added knowingly, “with its sheath.” She took his hand. “Come on, then.”
― Oliver Bowden, quote from Assassin's Creed: Renaissance
“اننا عادة ما نولد لكي نحب هؤلاء الذين يصيبوننا بالجراح اكثر من غيرهم
رباعية الإسكندرية - بلتازار”
― Lawrence Durrell, quote from Balthazar
The Eternal Ones
Altered
Journey to Ixtlan
Only Ever Yours
Storm of SteelBookQuoters 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.
