“Who here wants to be a writer?' I asked. Everyone in the room raised his hand. 'Why the hell aren't you home writing?' I said, and left the stage.”
― Leon Uris, quote from QB VII
“After all, the only thing that is going to save mankind is if enough people live their lives for something or someone other than themselves.”
― Leon Uris, quote from QB VII
“Too many writers start with a good idea and carry it through the first chapters, then fall apart because they had no idea where the top of the mountain was in the first place.”
― Leon Uris, quote from QB VII
“In God's scheme what is a few billion years here and there. Perhaps there have come and gone a dozen human civilizations in the past billion years that we know nothing about. And after this civilization we are living in destroys itself, it will all start up again in a million years when the planet has all its messes cleaned up. Then, finally, one of these civilizations, say five billion years from now, will last because people treat each other the way they ought to.”
― Leon Uris, quote from QB VII
“If you had ordered British troops to drive children and old people into gas chambers, none of whom had done anything wrong except they were the children of their parents, can you imagine British troops doing anything but mutiny against such orders?
"Well, as a matter of fact there were some Germans, soldiers, officers, priests, doctors, and ordinary civilians who refused to obey these orders and said, 'I am not going to do this because I would not like to live and have this on my conscience. I'm not going to push them into gas chambers and then say later I was under orders and justify it by saying they were going to be pushed in by someone anyhow, and I can't stop it and other people will push them more cruelly. Therefore, it's in their best interest that I shove them in gently.'
"You see, the trouble was, not enough of these people refused.”
― Leon Uris, quote from QB VII
“Mirror, Standard, Telegraph, Birmingham Post, Sketch, all careful to report accurately the events without editorial comment. Unlike some countries, the British press must be exceedingly careful not to try a man in the newspapers and magazines before he comes to court. In such cases when a newspaper becomes an accuser or prejudger, turning public sentiment, the paper can be named as a defendant to the action. It keeps journalism honest.”
― Leon Uris, quote from QB VII
“But once you allow yourself to think that there are some people, because of their race, their color, or religion, who are really not human beings you have established a justification for imposing every sort of humiliation on them.”
― Leon Uris, quote from QB VII
“I felt like a kid standing in the world's greatest video arcade without any quarters, unable to do anything but walk around and watch the other kids play.”
― Ernest Cline, quote from Ready Player One
“Charm was a scheme for making strangers like and trust a person immediately, no matter what the charmer had in mind.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, quote from Breakfast of Champions
“The world is always changing brightness and hotness and soundness, I never know how it's going to be the next minute.”
― Emma Donoghue, quote from Room
“Everything transitory is but an image.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, quote from Faust: First Part
“No, they didn’t have any money, the sea was dangerous and men were lost, but it was a satisfying life in a way people today do not understand. There was a joinery of lives all worked together, smooth in places, or lumpy, but joined. The work and the living you did was the same things, not separated out like today.”
― Annie Proulx, quote from The Shipping News
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.