“Thinkers aren't limited by what they know, because they can always increase what they know. Rather they're limited by what puzzles them, because there's no way to become curious about something that doesn't puzzle you.”
― Daniel Quinn, quote from My Ishmael
“Children don't need learning. They need access to what they want to learn outside the home.”
― Daniel Quinn, quote from My Ishmael
“How easy it is first to leap to a false conclusion about someone and then to view everything he does in light of that conclusion.”
― Daniel Quinn, quote from My Ishmael
“Thinkers aren't limited by what they know, because they can always increase what they know. Rather they're limited by what puzzles them, because there's no way to become curious about something that doesn't puzzle you. If a thing falls outside the range of people's curiosity, then they simply cannot
make inquiries about it. It constitutes a blind spot — a spot of blindness that you can't even know is there until someone draws your attention to it.”
― Daniel Quinn, quote from My Ishmael
“Simple things are almost always the hardest to explain, Julie. Showing someone how to tie a shoelace is easy. Explaining it is almost impossible.”
― Daniel Quinn, quote from My Ishmael
“What's normal is for things to work. What's not normal is for things to fail.”
― Daniel Quinn, quote from My Ishmael
“The community of life that we see here at any given time isn't just a random collection. It's a collection of successes. It's the remainder that is left over when the failures have disappeared.”
― Daniel Quinn, quote from My Ishmael
“The rules that govern competition between species are (and must be) very different from the rules that govern competition within species.”
― Daniel Quinn, quote from My Ishmael
“You wouldn't know from experience that small children are the most powerful learning engines in the known universe.”
― Daniel Quinn, quote from My Ishmael
“We made it back to the airport without getting mugged, stoned, shot at, pounced on, bombed, shelled, garroted, gassed, pitched into, caught in a cross fire, sniped at, blockaded, napalmed, or trip-wired. No one even hit us with a water balloon.”
― Daniel Quinn, quote from My Ishmael
“No invention ever comes into being fully developed in a single step, from nothing.
Ten thousand inventions had to be in place before Edison could invent the electric light-bulb.”
― Daniel Quinn, quote from My Ishmael
“A system based on exchanging products inevitably channels wealth to a few, and no governmental change will ever be able to correct that. It isn’t a defect of the system, it’s intrinsic to the”
― Daniel Quinn, quote from My Ishmael
“My dear, I'm seldom sure of anything. Life at best is a precarious business, and we aren't told that difficult or painful things won't happen, just that it matters. It matters not just to us but to the entire universe.”
― Madeleine L'Engle, quote from An Acceptable Time
“[986a] [1] they assumed the elements of numbers to be the elements of everything, and the whole universe to be a proportion1 or number. Whatever analogues to the processes and parts of the heavens and to the whole order of the universe they could exhibit in numbers and proportions, these they collected and correlated;and if there was any deficiency anywhere, they made haste to supply it, in order to make their system a connected whole. For example, since the decad is considered to be a complete thing and to comprise the whole essential nature of the numerical system, they assert that the bodies which revolve in the heavens are ten; and there being only nine2 that are visible, they make the "antichthon"3 the tenth.We have treated this subject in greater detail elsewhere4; but the object of our present review is to discover from these thinkers too what causes they assume and how these coincide with our list of causes.Well, it is obvious that these thinkers too consider number to be a first principle, both as the material5 of things and as constituting their properties and states.6 The elements of number, according to them, are the Even and the Odd. Of these the former is limited and the latter unlimited; Unity consists of both [20] (since it is both odd and even)7; number is derived from Unity; and numbers, as we have said, compose the whole sensible universe.Others8 of this same school hold that there are ten principles, which they enunciate in a series of corresponding pairs: (1.) Limit and the Unlimited; (2.) Odd and Even; (3.) Unity and Plurality; (4.) Right and Left; (5.) Male and Female; (6.) Rest and Motion; (7.) Straight and Crooked; (8.) Light and Darkness; (9.) Good and Evil; (10.) Square and Oblong.”
― Aristotle, quote from Metaphysics
“When his mouth was on hers, when he could feel her about to shatter yet again, he plunged into her, knocking her over the edge with that first rough stroke.
And still he thought: More.
Even as she shuddered, he shoved her knees up and went deeper inside her. His vision blurred, but through the red haze of lust he could see her eyes. Deep, dark, glazed like glass to throw his own reflection back at him.
"I'm inside you." He panted it out as he pushed them both to madness. "Everything I am. Body, heart, mind."
She struggled through layers of pleasure to say the one thing he needed. Her hands wrapped around his wrists to hold the beat of his blood. "Let go. I'll stay with you."
He pressed his face to her hair, let both heart and mind go, and let body rule them both.”
― J.D. Robb, quote from Betrayal in Death
“There was a guy roasting chestnuts on the street corner, and the smell wafted over, hinting at the coming Winter, but in a good way, in the way that makes you think about Christmas and snow days and fires crackling away in fireplaces.”
― Sarah Dunn, quote from Secrets to Happiness
“It all scares me, and it's all like clothes in a dryer that just keep rolling around in my head from one day to the next.”
― Patrick Carman, quote from Skeleton Creek
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.