“I was in the machine. My whole life. Then the machine coughed and spat me out. So I thought, OK, if I'm out, I'm out. All the way out. I was a little angry and it was probably an immature reaction. But I got used to it.”
― Lee Child, quote from One Shot
“I went to college. West Point is technically a college.”
― Lee Child, quote from One Shot
“you know much about head injuries?'
'only the ones I cause”
― Lee Child, quote from One Shot
“It is not possible for any thinking person to live in such a society as our own without wanting to change it,”
― Lee Child, quote from One Shot
“down somewhere after getting rid of the”
― Lee Child, quote from One Shot
“Zec back toward the living room. The kettle’s whistle died away, like an air raid siren winding down. The house went quiet again. “It’s over,” Reacher said. “You lost.” “It’s never over,” the Zec replied. Hoarse voice,”
― Lee Child, quote from One Shot
“They were doped up? Then you were lucky.”
Reacher shook his head. “You want to fight with me, your best choice would be aspirin.”
― Lee Child, quote from One Shot
“We’ll find you,’ Emerson said. ‘You won’t,’ Reacher said. ‘Nobody ever has before.’ Then”
― Lee Child, quote from One Shot
“Things aren't always as bad as they seem.”
― Janet Gurtler, quote from I'm Not Her
“Be that man, Jay. Be the man who fights for us and will never let anything destroy what we have. Don't doubt the love we share. Know that is there's one thing true and real in your life it's us, it's our love. Please don't let me go again. Fight for me, Jay. I need to know nothing can take you from me, that you would never allow it.”
― quote from Becoming Noah Baxter
“He asked nothing better than to kill an Englishman. He had accounts to settle with the bastards.”
― Ian Fleming, quote from From Russia With Love
“Someone tells me I’ve been touched by Jesus, I remember.”
“Not Jesus,” he said in all seriousness. “The hand of God.”
― Gretchen McNeil, quote from Possess
“We all know the elementary form of politeness, that of the empty symbolic gesture, a gesture-an offer-which is meant to be rejected. In John Irving's A Prayer for
Owen Meany, after the little boy Owen accidentally kills John's-his best friend's, the narrator's-mother, he is, of course, terribly upset, so, to show how sorry he is, he discreetly delivers to John a gift of the complete collection of color photos of baseball stars, his most precious possession; however, Dan, John's delicate stepfather, tells him that the proper thing to do is to return the gift. What we have here is symbolic exchange at its purest: a gesture made to be rejected; the point, the "magic" of symbolic exchange, is that, although at the end we are where we were at the beginning, the overall result of the operation is not zero but a distinct gain for both parties, the pact of solidarity. And is not something similar part of our everyday mores? When, after being engaged in a fierce competition for a job promotion with my closest friend, I win, the proper thing to do is to offer to withdraw, so that he will get the promotion, and the proper thing for him to do is to reject my offer-in this way, perhaps, our friendship can be saved....
Milly's offer is the very opposite of such an elementary gesture of politeness: although it also is an offer that is meant to be rejected, what makes hers different from the symbolic empty offer is the cruel alternative it imposes on its addressee: I offer you wealth as the supreme proof of my saintly kindness, but if you accept my offer, you will be marked by an indelible stain of guilt and moral corruption; if you do the right thing and reject it, however, you will also not be simply righteous-your very rejection will function as a retroactive admission of your guilt, so whatever Kate and Densher do, the very choice Milly's bequest confronts them with makes them guilty.”
― Slavoj Žižek, quote from The Parallax View
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.
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