“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
“The man who believes that the secrets of the world are forever hidden lives in mystery and fear. Superstition will drag him down. The rain will erode the deeds of his life. But that man who sets himself the task of singling out the thread of order from the tapestry will by the decision alone have taken charge of the world and it is only by such taking charge that he will effect a way to dictate the terms of his own fate.”
― Cormac McCarthy, quote from Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West
“She said she knew we were safe with you, and always would be, because once, when she asked you to, you'd given up the thing you most wanted."
Archer received this strange communication in silence. His eyes remained unseeingly fixed on the thronged sunlit square below the window. At length he said in a low voice: "She never asked me.”
― Edith Wharton, quote from The Age of Innocence
“Here’s what I think: the only reason I’m not ordinary is that no one else sees me that way.”
― R.J. Palacio, quote from Wonder
“I… What are you saying, Zsadist?" she stammered, even though she'd heard every word.
He glanced back down at the pencil in his hand and then turned to the table. Flipping the spiral notebook to a new page, he bent way over and labored on top of the paper for quite a while. Then he ripped the sheet free.
His hand was shaking as he held it out. "It's messy."
Bella took the paper. In a child's uneven block letters there were three words: I LOVE YOU
Her lips flattened tight as her eyes stung. The handwriting got wavy and then disappeared.
"Maybe you can't read it," he said in a small voice. "I can do it over."
She shook her head. "I can read it just fine. It's… beautiful."
"I don't expect anything back. I mean… I know that you don't… feel that for me anymore. But I wanted you to know. It's important that you knew.”
― J.R. Ward, quote from Lover Awakened
“Things aren't different. Things are things.”
― William Gibson, quote from Neuromancer
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.