“But if monsters could look like humans, and humans could look like monsters, how could anyone ever really be sure that the right people stood on the outside of all those cages?”
― Rachel Vincent, quote from Menagerie
“A wolf will growl to warn you that it's angry and a bull will paw the ground before charging. Rattlesnakes rattle, cats moan and hiss, and hyenas grunt and cackle. But a man will smile right in your face as he drives a knife into your heart.”
― Rachel Vincent, quote from Menagerie
“What have you eaten today?"
"Humble pie, my own words, and a little crow. All three taste like shit.”
― Rachel Vincent, quote from Menagerie
“An hour ago, I would have sworn that a man's body wouldn't fit in a standard trash bag, and that even if it did, it'd be too heavy to lift."
"Pieces always fit better than the whole," he said. "And a corpse weighs less after you drain the blood."
"Spoken like a true psychopath.”
― Rachel Vincent, quote from Menagerie
“Drea, why don't you turn a circle and give us a good look?" the talker said, his chest all puffed out, as if he'd had something to do with making me perform.
"Fuck you," I said, nice and clear, in spite of my fuller voice, so everyone could hear.
A couple of teens near the back of the crowd laughed, but the mothers scowled and covered their children's ears.
"Sorry about that, ladies and gentlemen," the talker called with an amiable chuckle. "Most of our exhibits were born and raised in the carnival, and they hear a lot of rough language."
"Most of our handlers are full of shit," I added, drawing more laughter from the back of the crowd. "I learned to cuss the same place all of your kids did. In middle school.”
― Rachel Vincent, quote from Menagerie
“His rage fed my reckless euphoria. He couldn't stand having his authority challenged, and that made him easy to manipulate.
I was in chains, but he was losing control.”
― Rachel Vincent, quote from Menagerie
“If you cut off my hands, I'll write with my feet, and if you cut off my feet, I'll write with my nose, and if you cut that off, you may as well cut my whole head off, because no matter how you slice and dice me, you can't control what I think, or what I feel. You can keep me locked up for the rest of my life, however brief that may be. But you will never, ever own me.”
― Rachel Vincent, quote from Menagerie
“But wanting something didn't give one the right to have it.”
― Rachel Vincent, quote from Menagerie
“I don't believe every cryptid should be allowed to roam free, just like I don't believe every human should be allowed to roam free. We have psychos, too. People kill their coworkers. Kids kill their classmates. Parents kill their own children. Those people are every bit as monstrous as the worst cryptid predator you can ever point to, yet they're human, just like we are.”
― Rachel Vincent, quote from Menagerie
“Welcome to the menagerie, where beauty and grace shine from every cage and peek from every shadow. You’ve never seen anything like the exotic wonders within, so keep your eyes open, ladies and gentlemen, because in our world of spectacle and illusion, what you see isn’t always what you get.”
― Rachel Vincent, quote from Menagerie
“People weren't just angry about it. They were still afraid. Fear is a powerful, often irrational emotion, and mass fear... has the power to shake any society to its core. As long as the world remembered, they would live in fear of all cryptids-- regardless of whether or not any individual among us was truly dangerous.
Of course, not everyone supported stripping cryptids of all right. But dissenters were few among a dangerous and violent many, and most ignored the problem.
Submission was the only solution they could conceive of to fix my problem. But with the imprint of Clyde's fist still throbbing in my stomach I was less interested in fixing a problem than in becoming one.”
― Rachel Vincent, quote from Menagerie
“She won't serve her dish cold," the oracle mumbled, almost with giddy joy as chill bumps rose all over her skin. "And two graves won't be near enough...”
― Rachel Vincent, quote from Menagerie
“There is a kind of poetry, bad and good, in everything, everywhere we look.”
― Ali Smith, quote from Hotel World
“THE WISDOM OF SURRENDER It is the quality of your consciousness at this moment that is the main determinant of what kind of future you will experience, so to surrender is the most important thing you can do to bring about positive change. Any action you take is secondary. No truly positive action can arise out of an unsurrendered state of consciousness. To some people, surrender may have negative connotations, implying defeat, giving up, failing to rise to the challenges of life, becoming lethargic, and so on. True surrender, however, is something entirely different. It does not mean to passively put up with whatever situation you find yourself in and to do nothing about it. Nor does it mean to cease making plans or initiating positive action. SURRENDER IS THE SIMPLE but profound wisdom of yielding to rather than opposing the flow of life. The only place where you can experience the flow of life is the Now, so to surrender is to accept the present moment unconditionally and without reservation. It is to relinquish inner resistance to what is. Inner resistance is to say “no” to what is, through mental judgment and emotional negativity. It becomes particularly pronounced when things “go wrong,” which means that there is a gap between the demands or rigid expectations of your mind and what is. That is the pain gap. If you have lived long enough, you will know that things “go wrong” quite often. It is precisely at those times that surrender needs to be practiced if you want to eliminate pain and sorrow from your life. Acceptance of what is immediately frees you from mind identification and thus reconnects you with Being. Resistance is the mind. Surrender is a purely inner phenomenon. It does not mean that on the outer level you cannot take action and change the situation. In fact, it is not the overall situation that you need to accept when you surrender, but just the tiny segment called the Now. For example, if you were stuck in the mud somewhere, you wouldn't say: “Okay, I resign myself to being stuck in the mud.” Resignation is not surrender. YOU DON'T NEED TO ACCEPT AN UNDESIRABLE OR UNPLEASANT LIFE SITUATION. Nor do you need to deceive yourself and say that there is nothing wrong with it. No. You recognize fully that you want to get out of it. You then narrow your attention down to the present moment without mentally labeling it in any way. This means that there is no judgment of the Now. Therefore, there is no resistance, no emotional negativity. You accept the “isness” of this moment. Then you take action and do all that you can to get out of the situation. Such action I call positive action. It is far more effective than negative action, which arises out of anger, despair, or frustration. Until you achieve the desired result, you continue to practice surrender by refraining from labeling the Now”
― Eckhart Tolle, quote from Practicing the Power of Now: Essential Teachings, Meditations, and Exercises from the Power of Now
“...Often the hardest person to fight for is... yourself. But you must. Your heart is needed. You must be present and engaged in order to love well and fight on behalf of others. Without you, much will be lost." Chapter 11 "Warrior Princess”
― John Eldredge, quote from Captivating: Unveiling the Mystery of a Woman's Soul
“Forget Romeo and Juliet. This was much closer to The Taming of the Shrew.”
― Julia Quinn, quote from What Happens in London
“The American Negro has the great advantage of having never believed the collection of myths to which white Americans cling: that their ancestors were all freedom-loving heroes, that they were born in the greatest country the world has ever seen, or that Americans are invincible in battle and wise in peace, that Americans have always dealt honorably with Mexicans and Indians and all other neighbors or inferiors, that American men are the world's most direct and virile, that American women are pure. Negroes know far more about white Americans than that; it can almost be said, in fact, that they know about white Americans what parents—or, anyway, mothers—know about their children, and that they very often regard white Americans that way. And perhaps this attitude, held in spite of what they know and have endured, helps to explain why Negroes, on the whole, and until lately, have allowed themselves to feel so little hatred. The tendency has really been, insofar as this was possible, to dismiss white people as the slightly mad victims of their own brainwashing.”
― James Baldwin, quote from The Fire Next Time
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.