“Everything begins and ends at exactly the right time and place.”
― Joan Lindsay, quote from Picnic at Hanging Rock
“Although we are necessarily concerned, in a chronicle of events, with physical action by the light of day, history suggests that the human spirit wanders farthest in the silent hours between midnight and dawn. Those dark fruitful hours, seldom recorded, whose secret flowerings breed peace and war, loves and hates, the crowning or uncrowning of heads.”
― Joan Lindsay, quote from Picnic at Hanging Rock
“Marion Quade, the only member of the class to take Pythagoras in her stride, was a favourite pupil, in the sense that a savage who understands a few words of the language of a shipwrecked sailor is a favourite savage.”
― Joan Lindsay, quote from Picnic at Hanging Rock
“Except for those people over there with the wagonette we might be the only living creatures in the whole world,’ said Edith, airily dismissing the entire animal kingdom at one stroke.”
― Joan Lindsay, quote from Picnic at Hanging Rock
“Insulated from natural contacts with earth, air and sunlight, by corsets pressing on the solar plexus, by voluminous petticoats, cotton stockings and kid boots, the drowsy well-fed girls lounging in the shade were no more a part of their environment than figures in a photograph album, arbitrarily posed against a backcloth of cork rocks and cardboard trees.”
― Joan Lindsay, quote from Picnic at Hanging Rock
“Sometimes just to look at Miranda’s calm oval face and straight corn-yellow hair gave her a sharp little stab of pleasure.”
― Joan Lindsay, quote from Picnic at Hanging Rock
“Why is it, Miranda,’ she whispered, ‘that such a sweet pretty creature is a schoolteacher – of all dreary things in the world . . .?”
― Joan Lindsay, quote from Picnic at Hanging Rock
“Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't after you.”
― Joseph Heller, quote from Catch-22
“It was the secrets of heaven and earth that I desired to learn; and whether it was the outward substance of things or the inner spirit of nature and the mysterious soul of man that occupied me, still my inquiries were directed to the metaphysical, or in its highest sense, the physical secrets of the world.”
― Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, quote from Frankenstein
“Deep in the human unconscious is a pervasive need for a logical universe that makes sense. But the real universe is always one step beyond logic.”
― Frank Herbert, quote from Dune
“I’ve worked with volunteers before,” he began. “It’s important not to… not to treat them like servants. We may feel that they are laboring to obtain a heavenly reward, and should therefore work harder than they would for money; but they don’t necessarily take that attitude. They feel they’re working for nothing, and doing a great kindness to us thereby; and if we seem ungrateful they will work slowly and make mistakes. It will be best to rule them with a light touch.”
― Ken Follett, quote from The Pillars of the Earth
“Men are easy,' he said, fingers tapping on his mahogany desk. 'A man's plumbing is like his mind: simple, very few surprises. You ladies, on the other hand...well, God put a lot of thought into making you.”
― Khaled Hosseini, quote from The Kite Runner
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.