“I thank God daily for the good fortune of my birth, for I am certain I would have made a miserable peasant.”
― C.S. Forester, quote from Mr. Midshipman Hornblower
“Clairvoyant, Hornblower could foresee that in a year's time, the world would hardy remember the incident. In twenty years, it would be entirely forgotten. Yet those headless corpses up there in Muzillac; those shattered redcoats; those Frenchmen caught in the four-pounder's blast of canister -- they were as dead as if it had been a day in which history had been changed.”
― C.S. Forester, quote from Mr. Midshipman Hornblower
“His self-respect was at its lowest ebb.”
― C.S. Forester, quote from Mr. Midshipman Hornblower
“Harm began to come to Hornblower from that day forth, despite his obedience to orders and diligent study of his duties, and it stemmed from the arrival in the midshipmen’s berth of John Simpson as senior warrant officer.”
― C.S. Forester, quote from Mr. Midshipman Hornblower
“July 4th, 1776,” mused Keene, reading Hornblower’s date of birth to himself.”
― C.S. Forester, quote from Mr. Midshipman Hornblower
“I never intended on kissing Elliot. Married women don’t behave like that, at least not married women like me. It wasn’t proper. But the tide was high, and there was a cold breeze blowing, and Elliot’s arms were draped around my body like a warm shawl, caressing me in places where he shouldn’t have been, and I could scarcely think of much else. It was like how we used to be.”
― Sarah Jio, quote from The Violets of March
“And you gots a Purpose too. Your Purpose gonna show itself when the time be right.”
― quote from The Silence of Bonaventure Arrow
“Burying your talents is a grave mistake.”
― Suzanne Woods Fisher, quote from The Keeper
“We fear discovering that we are more than we think we are. More than our parents/children/teachers think we are. We fear that we actually possess the talent that our still, small voice tells us. That we actually have the guts, the perseverance, the capacity. We fear that we truly can steer our ship, plant our flag, reach our Promised Land. We fear this because, if it’s true, then we become estranged from all we know. We pass through a membrane. We become monsters and monstrous.”
― Steven Pressfield, quote from The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks & Win Your Inner Creative Battles
“It had helped to keep her sane, that writing. Then, when time had begun again and real people had entered it, she'd abandoned it here. Now it's a whisper from the past.
Is that what writing amounts to? The voice your ghost would have, if it had a voice?”
― Margaret Atwood, quote from MaddAddam
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.