“Dear Anyone: This is a letter from one anyone to another anyone, no names required, because nobody really knows anyway. Names don't make a hell of a lot of difference. The world is made up entirely of strangers. Millions and millions of them. Everyone is a stranger to everyone else. Sometimes we think we know other people, especially those we supposedly are close to, but if we really knew them, why are we so often surprised by the shit they do? Like, parents are always surprised by what their kids will do. They raise them from the time they are babies, spend each and every day with them, think they're these goddamn fucking angels, and then one day the cops come to the door and say hey, guess what parents? Your kid just bashed some other kid's head in with a baseball bat. Or you're the kid, and you think things are pretty fucking OK, and then one day this guy who's supposed to be your dad says so long, have a nice life. And you think, what the fuck is this? So years later, your mom ends up living with another guy, and he seems OK, but you think, when's it coming? That's what life is. Life is always asking yourself, when's it coming? Because if it hasn't come for a long time, you know you're fucking due. All the best, Anyone.”
― Linwood Barclay, quote from No Time for Goodbye
“found Rolly in his office, sitting at his computer, staring at something on the monitor. He pointed at the screen. “They want more testing. Pretty soon, we won’t have any time to teach them anything. We’ll just test them from the moment they get here to the moment they go home.”
― Linwood Barclay, quote from No Time for Goodbye
“Avant le chariot du supermarché, le qu'est-ce qu'on va manger ce soir, les économies pour s'acheter un canapé, une chaîne hi-fi, un appart. Avant les couches, le petit seau et la pelle sur la plage, les hommes que je ne vois plus, les revues de consommateurs pour ne pas se faire entuber, le gigot qu'il aime par-dessus tout et le calcul réciproque des libertés perdues. Une période où l'on peut dîner d'un yaourt, faire sa valise en une demi-heure pour un week-end impromptu, parler toute une nuit. Lire un dimanche entier sous les couvertures. S'amollir dans un café, regarder les gens entrer et sortir, se sentir flotter entre ces existences anonymes. Faire la fête sans scrupule quand on a le cafard. Une période où les conversations des adultes installés paraissent venir d'un univers futile, presque ridicule, on se fiche des embouteillages, des morts de la Pentecôte, du prix du bifteck et de la météo. Personne ne vous colle aux semelles encore. Toutes les filles l'ont connue, cette période, plus ou moins longue, plus ou moins intense, mais défendu de s'en souvenir avec nostalgie. Quelle honte ! Oser regretter ce temps égoïste, où l'on n'était responsable que de soi, douteux, infantile. La vie de jeune fille, ça ne s'enterre pas, ni chanson ni folklore là-dessus, ça n'existe pas. Une période inutile.”
― Annie Ernaux, quote from A Frozen Woman
“It’s
not so easy to walk away from someone when he
has made his way into every cell, when he has
taken over every thought, and he has been
responsible for the best and worst feelings I’ve
ever had. No one, not even the doubting part of me,
can make me feel bad for loving passionately and
hoping desperately that I could have that great love
that I’ve read about in novels.”
― Anna Todd, quote from After Ever Happy
“To a sensitive being, pity is not seldom pain.”
― Herman Melville, quote from Bartleby el escribiente
“Sometimes t feels like I live in a circus and all the animals are loose.”
― quote from The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio: How My Mother Raised 10 Kids on 25 Words or Less
“One must fight to get to the top, especially if one starts at the bottom.”
― Franz Kafka, quote from Slottet
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.