“If it’s true that our species is alone in the universe, then I’d have to say the universe aimed rather low and settled for very little.”
― George Carlin, quote from Napalm & Silly Putty
“I'll tell you a little secret about the Blues: it's not enough to know which notes to play, you have to know why they need to be played.”
― George Carlin, quote from Napalm & Silly Putty
“Griddle cakes, pancakes, hot cakes, flapjacks: why are there four names for grilled batter and only one word for love?”
― George Carlin, quote from Napalm & Silly Putty
“Most people with low self-esteem have earned it.”
― George Carlin, quote from Napalm & Silly Putty
“Did you ever eat a whole box of cookies right in a row? Did you ever do that? I don't mean take them into your bedroom or something. I mean open them right up in the kitchen as soon as you get home from the store and eat 'em while you're standing there? Just stare at the toaster while you're eatin' a whole goddamn box of cookies?”
― George Carlin, quote from Napalm & Silly Putty
“A cat will blink when struck with a hammer.”
― George Carlin, quote from Napalm & Silly Putty
“All music is the blues. All of it.”
― George Carlin, quote from Napalm & Silly Putty
“I don’t understand this notion of ethnic pride. “Proud to be Irish,” “Puerto Rican pride,” “Black pride.” It seems to me that pride should be reserved for accomplishments; things you attain or achieve, not things that happen to you by chance. Being Irish isn’t a skill; it’s genetic. You wouldn’t say, “I’m proud to have brown hair,” or “I’m proud to be short and stocky.” So why the fuck should you say you’re proud to be Irish? I’m Irish, but I’m not particularly proud of it. Just glad! Goddamn glad to be Irish!”
― George Carlin, quote from Napalm & Silly Putty
“These are the kinds of thoughts that made it necessary to separate me from the other kids at school.”
― George Carlin, quote from Napalm & Silly Putty
“If free trade can really turn all these Third World countries into thriving economies full of entrepreneurs and investors, who’s gonna clean the fuckin’ toilets around here?”
― George Carlin, quote from Napalm & Silly Putty
“Every sixty seconds, thirty acres of rain forest are destroyed in order to raise beef for fast-food restaurants that sell it to people, giving them strokes and heart attacks, which raise medical costs and insurance rates, providing insurance companies with more money to invest in large corporations that branch out further into the Third World so they can destroy more rain forests.”
― George Carlin, quote from Napalm & Silly Putty
“The spirit is beyond pleasure and pain; it’s outside them. They are swings of opposites. The spiritual is in the here and now. It’s not pleasure nor is it pain. It is its own substance, its own kind.”
― Belsebuub, quote from Gazing into the Eternal: Reflections upon a Deeper Purpose to Living
“Přání: Touha něco vlastnit nebo dokázat. Něco chtít.
Potřeba: Něco, co je důležité, protože je to zásadní, něco nezbytného bez čeho nemůžete žít.
CO POTŘEBUJETE?”
― Joelle Charbonneau, quote from Need
“Nobody wanted your dance,
Nobody wanted your strange glitter, your floundering
Drowning life and your effort to save yourself,
Treading water, dancing the dark turmoil,
Looking for something to give.”
― Ted Hughes, quote from Birthday Letters
“Squeeze! Squeeze! Squeeze! all the morning long; I squeezed that sperm till I myself almost melted into it; I squeezed that sperm till a strange sort of insanity came over me, and I found myself unwittingly squeezing my co-labourers' hands in it, mistaking their hands for the gentle globules. Such an abounding, affectionate, friendly, loving feeling did this avocation beget; that at last I was continually squeezing their hands, and looking up into their eyes sentimentally, as much as to say,—Oh! my dear fellow beings, why should we longer cherish any social acerbities, or know the slightest ill humour or envy! Come; let us squeeze hands all round; nay, let us all squeeze ourselves into each other; let us squeeze ourselves universally into the very milk and sperm of kindness.”
― Herman Melville, quote from Moby-Dick
“The home is the center of life. It is a refuge from the grind of work, the pressure of school, and the menace of the streets. We say that at home, we can “be ourselves.” Everywhere else, we are someone else. At home, we remove our masks.
The home is the wellspring of personhood. It is where our identity takes root and blossoms, where as children, we imagine, play, and question, and as adolescents, we retreat and try. As we grow older, we hope to settle into a place to raise a family or pursue work. When we try to understand ourselves, we often begin by considering the kind of home in which we were raised.”
― Matthew Desmond, quote from Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City
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.