“Life would be impossible on such a planet. It wouldn't get enough heat and light, and if it rotated there would be total darkness half of every day. There wouldn't be any native inhabitants. You couldn't expect life---which is fundamentally dependent on light---to develop under such extreme conditions of light deprivation. Half of every axial rotation spent in Darkness! No, nothing could exist under conditions like that.”
― Isaac Asimov, quote from Nightfall
“It was a long time since he'd done any actual clinical work, and obviously his sojourn among the academics at Saro University had attenuated the professional detachment that allows members of the healing arts to confront the ill without being overwhelmed by compassion and sorrow. He was surprised at that, how tenderhearted he seemed to have become, how thin-skinned.”
― Isaac Asimov, quote from Nightfall
“It's one thing to predict [the complete breakdown of civilization]. It's something else again to be right in the middle of it. It's a very humbling thing...for an academic like me to find his abstract theories turning into concrete reality... It was all just so many words to me, really, just a philosophical exercise, completely abstract.”
― Isaac Asimov, quote from Nightfall
“[The theory of universal gravitation] is not cast-iron. No theory is, and there is always room for improvement. Isn't that so? Science is constructed out of approximations that gradually approach the truth. . . Well, that means all theories are subject to constant testing and modification, doesn't it? And if it eventually turns out that they're not quite close enough to the truth, they need to be replaced by something that's closer. Right?”
― Isaac Asimov, quote from Nightfall
“So the universe is not quite as you thought it was. You’d better rearrange your beliefs, then. Because you certainly can’t rearrange the universe.”
― Isaac Asimov, quote from Nightfall
“I don't like seeing her this delicate.”
― Marie Lu, quote from Prodigy
“The old men say the earth only endures. You spoke truly. You are right.”
― Dee Brown, quote from Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West
“. . . maybe that's what life's all about: there's a lof of despair, but also the odd moments of beauty, where time is no longer the same . . . [like] something suspended . . . an elsewhere . . . an always within a never.
Yes, that's is, an always within a never.”
― Muriel Barbery, quote from The Elegance of the Hedgehog
“If you can't understand it without an explanation, you can't understand it with an explanation.”
― Haruki Murakami, quote from 1Q84
“You simply mean that you flirted outrageously with him, poor old chap, and then repented, and to make reparation, married him, though you tortured yourself to death by doing it.”
― Thomas Hardy, quote from Jude the Obscure
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.