“But now? Now? Children in the twentieth and this early twenty-first century hated the Alice books, couldn't read them, and why should they? Their world had strayed into madness long ago. Look at the planet. Rain is acid, poisonous. Sun causes cancer. Sex=death. Children murder other children. Parents lie, leaders lie, the churches have less moral credibility than Benetton ads.
And the faces of missing children staring out from milk cartons-imagine all those poor Lost Boys, and Lost Girls, not in Neverland but lost here, lost now. No wonder Wonderland isn't funny anymore: We live there full-time. We need a break from it.”
― Gregory Maguire, quote from Lost
“How easily Neverland is corrupted into the deserted island of Lord of the Flies. How quickly Tinkerbell regresses to being one of the flies pestering the gouged eye sockets of the pig that the lost boys butcher.”
― Gregory Maguire, quote from Lost
“It was mild monsters like these that made Jack the Ripper go after young women, she decided: who could tolerate yielding the world to someone who behaved as if she had given birth to the very world herself?”
― Gregory Maguire, quote from Lost
“The sun is the biggest metaphor. The sun is the first candle. She can get there by its light.”
― Gregory Maguire, quote from Lost
“How she wanted to put away adult things and go back to seeing through a looking-glass, darkly.”
― Gregory Maguire, quote from Lost
“If you have an ancestor who is a Benedictine monk, we would rather not know it.”
― Gregory Maguire, quote from Lost
“No wonder Wonderland isn't funny to read anymore: We live there full time. We need a break from it.”
― Gregory Maguire, quote from Lost
“The chronic fun of writing, the distraction of it, was not knowing.”
― Gregory Maguire, quote from Lost
“The division of one day from the next must be one of the most profound peculiarities of life on this planet. It is, on the whole, a merciful arrangement. We are not condemned to sustained flights of being, but are constantly refreshed by little holidays from ourselves. . . .”
― Gregory Maguire, quote from Lost
“He thought about the story his daughter was living and the role she was playing inside that story. He realized he hadn't provided a better role for his daughter. He hadn't mapped out a story for his family. And so his daughter had chosen another story, a story in which she was wanted, even if she was only being used. In the absence of a family story, she'd chosen a story in which there was risk and adventure, rebellion and independence.”
― Donald Miller, quote from A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What I Learned While Editing My Life
“A strange occurrence was the sudden appearance of eight emperor penguins from a crack 100 yds. away at the moment when the pressure upon the ship was at its climax. They walked a little way towards us, halted, and after a few ordinary calls proceeded to utter weird cries that sounded like a dirge for the ship. None of us had ever before heard the emperors utter any other than the most simple calls or cries, and the effect of this concerted effort was almost startling.”
― Ernest Shackleton, quote from South: The Story of Shackleton's Last Expedition 1914-1917
“Women do too much shit to impress men who can barely tell the difference.”
― Anna Todd, quote from After We Fell
“I’m so in love with you…” she whispered, so quietly like it was a secret from her soul.”
― Francette Phal, quote from Monster
“Money was not the root of all evil, it was just a vehicle that got you to power.”
― J.J. McAvoy, quote from American Savages
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.