“They didn't know why these things were funny. Sometimes you laugh because you've got no more room for crying. Sometimes you laugh because table manners on a beach are funny. And sometimes you laugh because you're alive, when you really shouldn't be.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Nation
“No more words. We know them all, all the words that should not be said. But you have made my world more perfect.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Nation
“Don't look back!"
"Why not?"
"Because I just did! Run faster!”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Nation
“Even our fears make us feel important, because we fear we might not be.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Nation
“The world is a globe — the farther you sail, the closer to home you are.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Nation
“It was like being in a Jane Austen novel, but one with far less clothing.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Nation
“Life is a trick, and you get one chance to learn it.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Nation
“What did they feed the lions and tigers with in the ark, sir?”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Nation
“They obeyed, as wise men do when a woman puts her foot down . . .”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Nation
“Thinking. This book contains some. Whether you try it at home is up to you.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Nation
“You are very clever," said the old man shyly. "I would like to eat your brains, one day."
For some reason the books of etiquette that Daphne's grandmother had forced on her didn't quite deal with this. Of course, silly people would say to babies, "You're so sweet I could gobble you all up!" but that sort of nonsense seemed less funny when it was said by a man in war paint who owned more than one skull. Daphne, cursed with good manners, settled for "It's very kind of you to say so.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Nation
“I notice you didn't laugh, Mr. Black!
No, Your Majesty. We are forbidden to laugh at the things kings say, sire, because otherwise we would be at it all day.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Nation
“Light died in the west. Night and tears took the Nation. The star of Water drifted among the clouds like a murderer softly leaving the scene of the crime.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Nation
“Who'd want a pony when you could have the whole universe? It was far more interesting and you didn't have to muck it out once a week.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Nation
“Oh, well...up until now it had been a good day, in a horrible kind of way.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Nation
“Religion is not an exact science. Sometimes, of course, neither is science.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Nation
“That’s what the gods are! An answer that will do! Because there’s food to be caught and babies to be born and life to be lived and so there is no time for big, complicated, and worrying answers! Please give us a simple answer, so that we don’t have to think, because if we think, we might find answers that don’t fit the way we want the world to be.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Nation
“The most important thing was that time had passed, pouring thousands of soothing seconds across the island. People need time to deal with the now before it runs away and becomes the then.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Nation
“When much is taken, something is returned.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Nation
“You are very clever," said the old man shyly. "I would like to eat your brains, one day.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Nation
“It was, according to the history books, the fastest coronation since Bubric the Saxon crowned himself with a very pointy crown on a hill during a thunderstorm, and reigned for one and a half seconds.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Nation
“It takes an unusual man to make up a hymn in a hurry, but such a man was Captain Roberts. He knew every hymn in The Antique and Contemporary Hymn Book, and sang his way through them loudly and joyously when he was on watch, which had been one of the reasons for the mutiny.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Nation
“Science is not interested in what stands to reason.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Nation
“He'd missed dogs. Dogs added something that even people didn't, and one of the dogs was sitting by his feet, here in the darkness and the gentle rain. It wasn't bothered much about the rain or what might be out there on the unseen sea, but Mau was a warm body moving about in a sleeping world and might at any moment do something that called for runnung around and barking. Occasionally it looked up at him adoringly and made a slobbery gulping noise which possibly meant "Anything you say, boss!”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Nation
“Captain Roberts went to Heaven, which wasn't everything that he'd expected, and as the receding water gently marooned the wreck of the Sweet Judy on the forest floor, only one soul was left alive. Or possibly two, if you like parrots.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Nation
“The Universe isn’t just a light show, they keep it running during the day too.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Nation
“She felt better for all that. A good shouting at somebody always makes you feel better and in control, especially if you aren't.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Nation
“[...]And his head is on fire with new things[...]he called himself the little blue hermit, scuttling across the sand in search of a new shell, but now he looks at the sky and knows that no shell will ever be big enough, ever.”
― Terry Pratchett, quote from Nation
“But the memories that hang heaviest are the easiest to recall.”
― quote from Sickened: The Memoir of a Munchausen by Proxy Childhood
“The first thing she noticed were the lightbulbs in the ceiling.
She wondered where the spindlers had gotten them, and where the wires for the electricity ran to, and pictured some poor family Above whose bills were always too high at the end of the month, and the father who would yell at the children about where all that power went - when really, of course, it was the spindlers that were the whole problem.”
― Lauren Oliver, quote from The Spindlers
“Never mind that I totally knew more about fighting vampires than my peace-loving parents. Or that Logan's girlfriend, Isabeau, had given us two full-grown, trained Rottweilers to protect us, plus the Drakes sent their human bodyguards by a couple of times a night. I named them Van Helsing and Gandhi. The dogs, not the bodyguards."
"Chapter 1 Lucy, page 15”
― Alyxandra Harvey, quote from Bleeding Hearts
“Even as we grew up, my mother could not help imposing herself between her children and whatever it was they might take it in mind to reach out for in the world. For she would get it for them, if it was good enough for them--she would have to be very sure--and give it to them, at whatever cost to herself: valiance was in her very fibre. She stood always prepared in herself to challenge the world in our place. She did indeed tend to make the world look dangerous, and so it had been to her. A way had to be found around her love sometimes, without challenging that, and at the same time cherishing it in its unassailable strength. Each of us children did, sooner or later, in part at least, solve this in a different, respectful, complicated way.”
― Eudora Welty, quote from One Writer's Beginnings
“Almost as evil as the stench was the silence. Senex, however poorly he had ended his rule, had always remembered the canonical crows. He sang them, to be sure, in a disoriented manner; but he did sing them, keeping his animals that way, banding them, unifying them.
But Cockatrice never crowed the canon. So under him the day lost its meaning and its direction, and the animals lost any sense of time or purpose. Their land became strange to them. A terrible feeling of danger entered their souls, of things undone, of treasures unprotected. They were tired all the day long, and at night they did not sleep. And it was a most pitiful sight to see, how they all went about with hunched shoulders, heads tucked in, limping here and there as if they were forever walking into an ill wind, and flinching at every sound as if the wind carried arrows.”
― Walter Wangerin Jr., quote from The Book of the Dun Cow
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.