“I know this world is far from perfect.
I am not the type to mistake a streetlight for the moon.
I know our wounds are deep as the Atlantic.
But every ocean has a shoreline
and every shoreline has a tide
that is constantly returning
to wake the songbirds in our hands,
to wake the music in our bones,
to place one fearless kiss on the mouth of that new born river
that has to run through the center of our hearts
to find its way home.”
“Cause I don't wanna be a witness to this life,
I want to be charged and convicted,
ear lifted to her song like a bouquet of yes
because my heart is a parachute that has never opened in time
and I wanna fuck up that pattern,
leave a hole where the cold comes in and fill it every day with her sun,
'cause anyone who has ever sat in lotus for more than a few seconds
knows it takes a hell of a lot more muscle to stay than to go”
“Right now there’s a man on the street outside my door
with outstretched hands full of heartbeats no one can hear.
He has cheeks like torn sheet music
every tear-broken crescendo falling on deaf ears.
At his side there’s a boy with eyes like an anthem
no one stands up for.”
“You are a mystery I promise I will never try to solve.”
“Hey, are you a boy or a — never mind, can I have a push on the swing?” And some day, y’all, when we grow up, it’s all gonna be that simple.”
“I thought, "The flowers, save the flowers..."
I never thought for a second
we wouldn't save the people”
“Because anyone who has ever sat in lotus for more than a few seconds knows it takes a hell of a lot more muscle to stay then to go.”
“When your heart is broken you plant seeds in the cracks
and you pray for rain.
And you teach your sons and daughters
there are sharks in the water
but the only way to survive
is to breathe deep
and dive.”
“I remember the way love
used to glow on my skin
before he made his way in
now every touch feels like a sin”
“Bliss is the moments you're with me / when you're gone my life hurts like hell / but I'll do anything to me happy even if it means setting you free to be with someone else”
“You can’t even see it. I’m the safest thing you’ll ever find”
“Had peace and quiet become so rare that when finally found they could be mistaken for something grotesque and unnatural? It would appear so.”
“He who has perceived the material out of which the Promethean tragic writers prior to Euripides formed their heroes, and how remote from their purpose it was to bring the faithful mask of reality onto the stage, will also be aware of the utterly opposite tendency of Euripides. Through him the everyday man forced his way from the spectators' seats onto the stage; the mirror in which formerly only grand and bold traits were represented now showed the painful fidelity that conscientiously reproduces even the botched outlines of nature.”
“This, indeed, is the problem, the ultimate question, in neuroscience—and it cannot be answered, even in principle, without a global theory of brain function, one capable of showing the interactions of every level, from the micropatterns of individual neuronal responses to the grand macropatterns of an actual lived life. Such a theory, a neural theory of personal identity, has been proposed in the last few years by Gerald M. Edelman, in his theory of neuronal group selection, or “neural Darwinism.”
“The pressure for the new cult of ethnicity came less from the minorities en masse than from their often self-appointed spokesmen, Most ethnics, white and non-white, saw themselves primarily as Americans. "The cravings for 'historical identity'", Gunnar Myrdal said at the height of the ethnic rage, "is not in any sense a people's movement. Those cravings have been raised by a few well-established intellectuals, professors, writers--mostly, I gather, of a third generation". Few of them, Myrdal thought, made much effort to talk to their own ethnic groups. This movement, Myrdal added with a certain contempt, was only "upper-class intellectual romanticism".”
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.