“A lot of our perception of history is influenced by inaccurate movies.”
― Nelson DeMille, quote from Plum Island
“Everyone looked pensive, which is good cover-up for clueless.”
― Nelson DeMille, quote from Plum Island
“I don't like mysteries, which is why I want to solve them. It bothers me that there are things I don't know.”
― Nelson DeMille, quote from Plum Island
“The air was so thick with testosterone that the wallpaper was getting soggy.”
― Nelson DeMille, quote from Plum Island
“As with real estate, what matters with bullet holes is location, location, location.”
― Nelson DeMille, quote from Plum Island
“Anyway, I’m getting really intolerant of liars, fools, blowhards, and power freaks.”
― Nelson DeMille, quote from Plum Island
“When the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.”
― Nelson DeMille, quote from Plum Island
“Don’t buy anything. My philosophy is, if it flies, floats, or fucks, rent it.”
― Nelson DeMille, quote from Plum Island
“I read about a John Shelby of Thackham, England, who in 1672 was thrown from his horse into a thicket where he found an iron pot containing more than five hundred gold coins. According to the treasure trove laws of England, all hidden or lost property belonged to the Crown. However, Shelby refused to give the gold to the king’s officers, and he was arrested, tried for treason, and beheaded. This was probably a favorite story of the IRS.”
― Nelson DeMille, quote from Plum Island
“As we say, if your only tool is a hammer, then every problem looks like a nail.”
― Nelson DeMille, quote from Plum Island
“I thought again of how Tobin had already killed five good people and was about to be the cause of two more dying. I couldn’t believe that this little turd had actually caused all this death and misery. The only explanation I had for it was that short people with beady eyes and big appetites were ruthless and dangerous.”
― Nelson DeMille, quote from Plum Island
“The happiness of the South was very formidable. It was an almost invincible happiness. It defied you to call it anything else. Everyone was in fact happy. The women were beautiful and charming. The men were healthy and successful and funny; they knew how to tell stories. They had everything the North had and more. They had a history, they had a place redolent with memories, they had good conversation, they believed in God and defended the Constitution, and they were getting rich in the bargain. They had the best of victory and defeat. Their happiness was aggressive and irresistible.”
― Walker Percy, quote from The Last Gentleman
“Here is a lesson in creative writing. First rule: Do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All they do is show you've been to college.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, quote from A Man Without a Country
“Poverty, her mother has written, makes you clever, and Honora knows that this is true.”
― Anita Shreve, quote from Sea Glass
“Is it possible really to love other people? If I’m lonely and in pain, everyone outside me is potential relief—I need them. But can you really love what you need so badly? Isn’t a big part of love caring more about what the other person needs? How am I supposed to subordinate my own overwhelming need to somebody else’s needs that I can’t even feel directly? And yet if I can’t do this, I’m damned to loneliness, which I definitely don’t want … so I’m back at trying to overcome my selfishness for self-interested reasons.”
― David Foster Wallace, quote from Consider the Lobster and Other Essays
“He was too many things at once - a boy, a man, and everything in between - and the differing parts of himself seldom came into balance. She found him attractive in that way. Yet the perception saddened her: she herself wasn't too many things, but too few.”
― Stephen R. Donaldson, quote from The Mirror of Her Dreams
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.