Quotes from Q

“Books only change the world if the world is capable of digesting them.”
― quote from Q

“...having already understood everything that you will understand henceforward and until the end of your days." -Q”
― quote from Q

“Le botteghe degli stampatori mi hanno sempre attirato. I libri hanno un fascino particolare.”
― quote from Q

“When a faith stubbornly maintained comes into contact with learning, the product of that encounter is always something magnificent, whether it be for good or ill.”
― quote from Q

“I smile. No plan can take everything into account. Other people will raise their heads, others will desert. Time will go on spreading victory and defeat among those who pursue the struggle.
I sip with satisfaction. We deserve the warmth of baths. May the days be aimless.
Do not advance the action according to a plan.”
― quote from Q

“No one imagines keeping the powerful low for long, apart from anything because if the peasants governed and the lords worked the land, everyone would quickly die of hunger, because everyone gets the hands they deserve.”
― quote from Q

“Io faccio il mio mestiere, capito? Io sono un libraio, vado in giro, vedo un sacco di gente, vendo i libri, scopro talenti nascosti sotto le montagne di carta… io propago idee. Il mio mestiere è il più rischioso del mondo, capito? Sono responsabile della diffusione dei pensieri, magari di quelli più scomodi.”
― quote from Q

“Margharete von Osnabrück […] ha sputato in faccia ai predicatori e pisciato in testa a quelli che andavano a prenderla. Sapeva quello che l’aspettava, ma non ha voluto tacere. Ha urlato a tutta la città, mentre la trascinavano via, che le donne di Münster non hanno combattuto al fianco dei loro uomini per diventare volgari concubine. […]
è morta uccidendoli con le parole. L’hanno seguita in tante, hanno preferito morire insultando i tiranni piuttosto che accettare le loro leggi.”
― quote from Q

“Ursula is something I will never feel again: she is Melancholy, cut into the soul and flesh.”
― quote from Q

“You're wrong Heinrich. While it might seem easy to believe, you and I aren't actually the same. You've been fighting someone else's war, you've been obeying orders, you've been carrying out a part in his plan. You've served other people all your life, for a goal that you won't even see accomplished: that's your defeat.”
― quote from Q

“La memoria. Sacca piena di cianfrusaglie che rotolano fuori per caso e finiscono col meravigliarti, come se non fossi stato tu a raccoglierle, a trasformarle in oggetti preziosi.”
― quote from Q

“Vedi? Il denaro non lo puoi rovesciare: comunque lo giri ti mostra sempre una faccia.”
― quote from Q

Popular quotes

“Remember the botched brothel-visit in L’Education sentimentale and remember its lesson. Do not participate: happiness lies in the imagination, not the act. Pleasure is found first in anticipation, later in memory.”
― Julian Barnes, quote from Flaubert's Parrot

“But you see, "libertarian" has a special meaning in the United States. The United States
is off the spectrum of the main tradition in this respect: what's called "libertarianism" here is unbridled capitalism. Now, that's always been opposed in the European libertarian tradition, where every anarchist has been a socialist-because the point is, if you have unbridled capitalism, you have all kinds of authority: you have extreme authority. If capital is privately controlled, then people are going to have to rent themselves in order to survive. Now, you can say, "they rent themselves freely, it's a free contract"-but that's a joke. If your choice is, "do what I tell you or starve," that's not a choice-it's in fact what was commonly referred to as wage slavery in more civilized times, like the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, for example.
The American version of "libertarianism" is an aberration, though-nobody really takes it seriously. I mean, everybody knows that a society that worked by American libertarian principles would self-destruct in three seconds. The only reason people pretend to take it seriously is because you can use it as a weapon. Like, when somebody comes out in favor of a tax, you can say: "No, I'm a libertarian, I'm against that tax"-but of course, I'm still in favor of the government building roads, and having schools, and killing Libyans, and all that sort of stuff.
Now, there are consistent libertarians, people like Murray Rothbard [American academic]-and if you just read the world that they describe, it's a world so full of hate that no human being would want to live in it. This is a world where you don't have roads because you don't see any reason why you should cooperate in building a road that you're not going to use: if you want a road, you get together with a bunch of other people who are going to use that road and you build it, then you charge people to ride on it. If you don't like the pollution from somebody's automobile, you take them to court and you litigate it. Who would want to live in a world like that? It's a world built on hatred.
The whole thing's not even worth talking about, though. First of all, it couldn't function for a second-and if it could, all you'd want to do is get ~ out, or commit suicide or something. But this is a special American aberration, it's not really serious.”
― Noam Chomsky, quote from Understanding Power: The Indispensable Chomsky

“Paul?” “Yeah?” “Don’t take this the wrong way.” I tried not to flinch. Here it comes. Vince sighed. “I think I’m going to fall in love with you.”
― T.J. Klune, quote from Tell Me It's Real

“The old man stared at me with his bright green eyes. “You’re Gin Blanco, Genevieve Snow, and the Spider all rolled into one. You can do whatever you want to, sweetheart.”
― Jennifer Estep, quote from Spider’s Revenge

“Thus, since time immemorial, it has been customary to accept the criticism of art from a man who may or may not have been artist himself. Some believe that artist should create its art and leave it for critic to pass judgement over it. Whereas dramatists like Ben Jonson is of the view that to ‘judge of poets is only the faculty of poets; and not of all poets, but the best’. Only the best of poets have the right to pass judgments on the merit or defects of poetry, for they alone have experienced the creative process form beginning to end, and they alone can rightly understand it.”
― Aristotle, quote from Poetics

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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.