“I feel free and strong. If I were not a reader of books I could not feel this way. Whatever may happen to me, thank God that I can read, that I have truly touched the minds of other men.”
― Walter Tevis, quote from Mockingbird
“Reading is too intimate,' Spofforth said. 'It will put you too close to the feelings and ideas of others. It will disturb and confuse you.”
― Walter Tevis, quote from Mockingbird
“Reading is the subtle and thorough sharing of the ideas and feelings by underhanded means. It is a gross invasion of Privacy and a direct violation of the Constitutions of the Third, Fourth, and Fifth Age. The Teaching of Reading is equally a crime against Privacy and Personhood. One to five years on each count.”
― Walter Tevis, quote from Mockingbird
“It all began, I suppose, with learning to build fires—to warm the cave and keep the predators out. And it ended with time-release Valium.”
― Walter Tevis, quote from Mockingbird
“I am human. I talk and I listen and I read.”
― Walter Tevis, quote from Mockingbird
“When literacy died, so had history.”
― Walter Tevis, quote from Mockingbird
“New York is nearly a grave. The Empire State Building is its gravestone.”
― Walter Tevis, quote from Mockingbird
“If I cannot read and learn and have things that are worth thinking about, I would rather immolate myself than go on living. Synthetic”
― Walter Tevis, quote from Mockingbird
“They were willing to accept their stringent piety, and silence, and sexual restraints, all unthinkingly, along with a few platitudes about Jesus and Moses and Noah; they were overwhelmed, however, at the effort it would require to understand the literature that was the real source of their religion. I”
― Walter Tevis, quote from Mockingbird
“The Age of Technology has rusted.”
― Walter Tevis, quote from Mockingbird
“It feels terrible. Being in love feels terrible. I”
― Walter Tevis, quote from Mockingbird
“¨Yet the one I think of most often_¨”
― Billy Collins, quote from Picnic, Lightning
“What all the ads and whorescopes seemed to imply was that if only you took proper care of your smells, your hair, your boobs, your eyelashes, your armpits, your crotch, your stars, your scars, your choice of Scotch in bars - you would meet a beautiful powerful, potent, and rich man who would satisfy every longing, fill every hole, make your heart skip a beat (or stand still), make you misty, and fly you to the moon (preferably on gossamer wings), where you would live totally satisfied forever.”
― Erica Jong, quote from Fear of Flying
“She couldn’t run away from him. She’d be running from her own heart.”
― Kerrelyn Sparks, quote from All I Want for Christmas is a Vampire
“Moomintroll's mother and father always welcomed all their friends in the same quiet way, just adding another bed and putting another leaf in the dining-room table. And so Moominhouse was rather full -- a place where everyone did what they liked and seldom worried about tomorrow. Very often unexpected and disturbing things used to happen, but nobody ever had time to be bored, and that is always a good thing.”
― Tove Jansson, quote from Finn Family Moomintroll
“My death, Daniel, is not important. No individual death among human beings is important. Someone who dies leaves his work behind and that does not entirely die. It never entirely dies as long as humanity exists.”
― Isaac Asimov, quote from Robots and Empire
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.