“They say experience is the best teacher, but I'll be damned if I know what it teaches you.”
― Lee Smith, quote from Oral History
“For once I am living my life rather than watching it pass in review.”
― Lee Smith, quote from Oral History
“Away acrost his valley he sees Black Mountain rising jagged to the sky...and if he looks to the left on past it, he sees all the furtherest ranges, line on line. Purple and blue and blue again and smoky until you can't tell the mountains apart from the sky. Lord, it'll make a man think something, seeing that. It'll make a man think deep.”
― Lee Smith, quote from Oral History
“Nothing is ever over, nothing is ever ended, and worlds open up within the world we know.”
― Lee Smith, quote from Oral History
“...for they was never a young man yet who don't want to go out and right a wrong, or kill a man, or have to do something to earn his right to what is there for the taking, all along. Only he don't think he can ask, nor take, without earning it. Without no pain. Oftener than not, a young man's a regular fool.”
― Lee Smith, quote from Oral History
“I had before me an object lesson, I thought: two ways to face the world. One way as embodied by this old woman—simple, unassuming, a kind of peasant dignity, a naturalness inherent in her every move. The other, exemplified by the girl—smartness, sophistication, veneer without substance. I was conscious that I have now opted for the old woman’s way, have thrown in my lot with a creature I would have jeered at a year ago. My present trip to the mountains is indeed a trip to that wellspring of naturalness she symbolized. And I admired my choice: the correct choice, the only choice for a sensitive and moral man in my dilemma.”
― Lee Smith, quote from Oral History
“Pearl is the only person I ever knew who said things like “paths in life” out loud.”
― Lee Smith, quote from Oral History
Lee Smith
Born place: in Grundy, Virginia, The United States
Born date November 1, 1944
See more on GoodReads
“I began to feel again something that I had been only dimly aware of before. It was a small, surprising sense of disappointment even as he was kissing me, but the violins were so loud at the time I could hear nothing else. Now the disappointment was returning and with it the realization that the magic had come only from the moment, not from him. It was different with you. In the eyes and ears of my heart, you and the magic are one and the same. The setting never mattered. On the sidewalk in front of my house, at the enchanted place in the desert, walking the halls at school- where I was with you, I heard violins.”
― Jerry Spinelli, quote from Love, Stargirl
“It's time to live with what we have and mourn what we lost. ”
― Lev Grossman, quote from The Magicians
“our power of thin-slicing and snap judgment are extraordinary.but even the giant computer in our unconscious need a moment to do its work.”
― Malcolm Gladwell, quote from Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking
“Fiction is not fact, but fiction is fact selected and understood, fiction is fact arranged and charged with purpose.”
― Thomas Wolfe, quote from Look Homeward, Angel
“Black Stache had no love for the Queen, no love for women of any sort, except for his ma. He had a real soft spot for his ma, and was truly sorry for the time he’d marooned her.”
― Dave Barry, quote from Peter and the Starcatchers
The Betrothed
Jo's Boys
Flesh and Blood
Eugénie Grandet
The Renegade Hunter
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.
