“First ambitions are best. We are less brave later.”
― Andrew Miller, quote from Pure
“The poverty of the villages is almost picturesque from the windows of a coach that is not stopping.”
― Andrew Miller, quote from Pure
“Like everyone else in the house, she suffers from dreams.”
― Andrew Miller, quote from Pure
“She knows about men, knows a good deal of the world's character. But it is hard, whatever you have endured, to give up on love. Hard to stop thinking of it as a home you might one day find again. More than hard.”
― Andrew Miller, quote from Pure
“The visit, like all visits home for a long time now, has been an obscure failure. When is it we cease to be able to go back, truly go back? What secret door is it that closes?”
― Andrew Miller, quote from Pure
“Why are there no handsome priest in Paris? One has no inclination to confess anything to an ugly man.”
― Andrew Miller, quote from Pure
“I’m going to play,’ says Armand, lacing his fingers and cracking the knuckles. ‘A pair of these lads can pump for me.’
‘Is this a time for playing?’ asks Jean Baptiste. Then, ‘You are right. You have never been more so.”
― Andrew Miller, quote from Pure
“Could he not go to hospital?' asks Jean-Baptiste.
The doctor flares his nostrils. 'Hospitals are very dangerous places. Particularly to one already weakened by illness.”
― Andrew Miller, quote from Pure
“You have this thing called a life. Its only you that gets to live it and you only get to do it one time”
― Cecily Anne Paterson, quote from Invisible
“Darkness will never prevail. If you do not recognize the evil in our world, you will never stand up to it.”
― quote from First Night of Summer
“She once told me of a night that fumed with escapes and was filled with bedsides reeking of ecstasy; she told me the stars cast not judgments, but blessings, knowing full well the disastrous outcomes of the deeds they cradled with the strings of their young hearts. She’d inhaled the night itself, those around her doing the same, and so all become one. No disharmony. No discordance. Nothing to shatter the cause; nothing to unearth the beauty. So as we together ascended that front porch, allowing the glow behind the blown-out windows and the odious steams plunder us from through the cracks...time forgot to distill us, and our steps became as silver as glass. I could no longer deny the boiling words of my blood: tonight would be the beginning of a very long road indeed.”
― Dave Matthes, quote from Sleepeth Not, the Bastard
“Oft times, we must fight a battle, if only to learn to lay down our arms.”
― Elizabeth M. Herrera, quote from Earth Sentinels: The Storm Creators
“The World Has Need Of You”
everything here
seems to need us
—Rainer Maria Rilke
I can hardly imagine it
as I walk to the lighthouse, feeling the ancient
prayer of my arms swinging
in counterpoint to my feet.
Here I am, suspended
between the sidewalk and twilight,
the sky dimming so fast it seems alive.
What if you felt the invisible
tug between you and everything?
A boy on a bicycle rides by,
his white shirt open, flaring
behind him like wings.
It’s a hard time to be human. We know too much
and too little. Does the breeze need us?
The cliffs? The gulls?
If you’ve managed to do one good thing,
the ocean doesn’t care.
But when Newton’s apple fell toward the earth,
the earth, ever so slightly, fell
toward the apple.”
― Ellen Bass, quote from Like a Beggar
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.