“Beauty, you can find it here if you look hard enough.”
― Julianna Baggott, quote from Pure
“She knows that whispers can be useful. Sometimes they contain real information. But usually they're fairy tales and lies. This is the worst kind of whisper, the kind that draws you in, gives you hope.”
― Julianna Baggott, quote from Pure
“We each have a story. They did this to us. There was no outside aggressor. They wanted an Apocalypse. They wanted the end. And they made it happen. It was orchestrated - who got in, who didn't. There was a master list. We weren't on it. We were left here to die. They want to erase us, the past, but we can't let them.”
― Julianna Baggott, quote from Pure
“Our stories are what we have,” Our Good Mother says. “Our stories preserve us. we give them to one another. Our stories have value. Do you understand?”
― Julianna Baggott, quote from Pure
“-Se supone que solo te quedarías con nosotros por tu propio bien, por razones egoístas. Me dijiste que tenías una.
-Y la tengo.
-¿Y cuál es?
-Tú eres mi razón egoísta.”
― Julianna Baggott, quote from Pure
“Is it wrong to kill something that wants to kill you?”
― Julianna Baggott, quote from Pure
“I prefer true over happy now.”
― Julianna Baggott, quote from Pure
“Recuerdo que lo feo es lo que hace que lo bonito sea bonito.”
― Julianna Baggott, quote from Pure
“—Es bonita la cicatriz —le dice el chico.
El corazón le da un vuelco y se lleva la cabeza de muñeca al pecho.
—¿Bonita? Es una cicatriz.
—Es una señal de haber sobrevivido.”
― Julianna Baggott, quote from Pure
“I feel too much. It's like being drummed to death from within. You know?”
― Julianna Baggott, quote from Pure
“So far, I should be calm and more specifically not like that...Anything else? Would you like to do surgery on my personality? How about open-heart surgery? I´ve got some tools”
― Julianna Baggott, quote from Pure
“She glances back before stepping into the alley, and she catches her grandfather looking at her the way he does sometimes--as if she's already gone, as if he's practicing sorrow.”
― Julianna Baggott, quote from Pure
“Los niños quieren a sus padres, aunque estos no se lo merezcan; es inevitable.”
― Julianna Baggott, quote from Pure
“The world is frenzied—giving and taking.”
― Julianna Baggott, quote from Pure
“For the first time in as long as he can remember, El Capitan is proud of his brother. "Damn it, Helmud! Shit! You’ve been planning to kill me!”
― Julianna Baggott, quote from Pure
“Are there books about us or something?” This makes Pressia angry - the idea that this world is a subject of study, a story, instead of filled with real people, trying to survive.”
― Julianna Baggott, quote from Pure
“These are the little things that people should really appreciate, simple pleasures.”
― Julianna Baggott, quote from Pure
“I screamed. You told me not to.” He rubs at the soot on one hand with his thumb, then stares at it. “The dirt,” he says, his voice strangely peaceful.
“What about it?” she asks. “It’s dirty.”
― Julianna Baggott, quote from Pure
“Maybe they just didn't have anywhere they needed to go.”
― Julianna Baggott, quote from Pure
“The ugliness is what makes the beautiful things beautiful.”
― Julianna Baggott, quote from Pure
“Así es cómo funciona el olvido: eliminando el pasado y no hablando nunca de él.”
― Julianna Baggott, quote from Pure
“Sometimes you meet someone and you know that your life will be different from then on.”
― Julianna Baggott, quote from Pure
“¿Siente él lo mismo que ella, un torbellino persistente que le aporrea el corazón? Con todo lo que ha perdido, lo único que sabe ahora es que a él no puede perderlo...en la vida.”
― Julianna Baggott, quote from Pure
“She doesn't want his sympathy. She hates pity.”
― Julianna Baggott, quote from Pure
“The sky is a bruise, only a storm will heal it.”
― Julianna Baggott, quote from Pure
“The dirt,” he says, his voice strangely peaceful. “What about it?” she asks. “It’s dirty.”
― Julianna Baggott, quote from Pure
Julianna Baggott
See more on GoodReads
“External explanations of black-white differences — discrimination or poverty, for example—seem to many to be more amenable to public policy than internal explanations such as culture. Those with this point of view tend to resist cultural explanations but there is yet another reason why some resist understanding the counterproductive effects of an anachronistic culture: Alternative explanations of economic and social lags provide a more satisfying ability to blame all such lags on the sins of others, such as racism or discrimination. Equally important, such external explanations require no painful internal changes in the black population but leave all changes to whites, who are seen as needing to be harangued, threatened, or otherwise forced to change.
In short, prevailing explanations provide an alibi for those who lag—and an alibi is for many an enormously valuable asset that they are unlikely to give up easily.”
― Thomas Sowell, quote from Black Rednecks and White Liberals
“Just try and live. Try and be happy. Or else, what’s the fucking point?”
― Tillie Cole, quote from Sweet Soul
“On trial were two men, one in a plaid shirt, and the other with a long, ZZ Top-style beard. They looked intimated by the crowd that had turned out, even though Plaid Shirt stood six foot four. He was the main perpetrator, charged with animal cruelty. He had brought his young son along during the bear killing for which he was on trial.
The main reason the state managed to bring charges is that the hunters had made a videotape of their gruesome acts. The state trooper who confiscated the video couldn’t even testify at the time of the trial, he was so emotionally overcome.
Then they showed the video in court, and I understood why. ZZ Top and Plaid Shirt cornered the bear cub. In order to preserve the integrity of the pelt, they attempted to kill the cub by stabbing it in the eyes.
It was absolutely gut-wrenching to watch. The bear struggled for its life, but Plaid Shirt kept thrusting his knife, moving back as the animal twisted frantically away, then moving forward to stab again. The bear cub screamed, and it sounded eerily as though the bear was actually crying “Mama,” over and over. Plaid Shirt and ZZ Top sat unfazed in court. The bear screamed, “Mama, mama, mama.” From my place in the gallery, I watched as a towering man in a police uniform burst into tears and walked out of the courtroom. At the end of the video, Plaid Shirt brought his nine-year-old son over to stand triumphantly next to the dead bear cub.
“Clearly, you deserve jail,” the judge told Plaid Shirt as he stood for sentencing. “Unfortunately, the jails are filled with people even more heinous than you: rapists, murderers, and armed robbers. So I am going to sentence you to three thousand hours of community service.”
I approached the judge after the trial, furious that this man might end up collecting a bit of rubbish along the highway as his penance.
“I want him,” I said, referring to Plaid Shirt. I said that I ran a wildlife rehabilitation facility and could use a volunteer.
The first day Plaid Shirt showed up, he actually looked scared of me. He cleaned cages, fed animals, and worked hard. He liked the bobcat I was taking care of, “Bobby.” He said it was the biggest one he had ever seen. It would make a prize trophy.
I asked him every question I could think of: where he hunted, how he hunted, why he hunted. Whether he had any kind of shirt other than plaid. I felt as though I was in the presence of true evil.
For months he helped. He had some skills, like carpentry, and he could lift heavy things. He fulfilled his community service. In the end, I couldn’t tell if I had made any difference or not. I was only slightly encouraged by his parting words.
“You know,” Plaid Shirt said, “I never knew cougars purred.”
― Terri Irwin, quote from Steve & Me
“If you can't say something nice about a person, go ahead”
― George Carlin, quote from When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops?
“I wasn't convinced a shop girl would know the word 'Oedipal.”
― Shirley Hazzard, quote from The Transit of Venus
Who We Are
Clouds Don't Pass
The Story of San Mic...
Ricochet
Walking on Water: Re...
Don't...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.
