Quotes from Queen of Dreams

“Words are tricky. Sometimes you need them to bring out the hurt festering inside. If you don't, it turns gangrenous and kills you. . . . But sometimes words can break a feeling into pieces.”
― Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, quote from Queen of Dreams

“Once I heard my mother say that each of us lives in a separate universe, one we have dreamed into being. We love pople when their dream coincides with ours, the way two cutout designs laid one on top of the other might match. But dream worlds are not static like cutouts; sooner or later they change shape, leading to misunderstanding, loneliness and loss of love.”
― Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, quote from Queen of Dreams

“In life, it's best not to take anything for free - unless it's from someone who wishes you well.”
― Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, quote from Queen of Dreams

“After the fire, when I'd tried to express my gratitude for their kindness to our customers, they'd been awkward, uncomfortable. My father had had to explain to me that giving thanks is not a common practice in India.
'Then how do you know if people appreciated what you did?' I'd asked.
'Do you really need to know?' my father had asked back.”
― Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, quote from Queen of Dreams

“The dream is not a drug but a way. Listen to where it can take you.”
― Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, quote from Queen of Dreams

“A dream is a telegram from the hidden world...Only a fool or an illiterate person ignores it.”
― Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, quote from Queen of Dreams

“Everyone breathes in air, but it's a wise person who knows when to use that air to speak and when to exhale in silence.”
― Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, quote from Queen of Dreams

“I liked his voice, rich and unself-conscious even when he forgot words and hummed to fill in the gap. What I didn't understand, I imagined, and thus it became a love song.”
― Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, quote from Queen of Dreams

“Or is this how humans survive, shrugging off history, immersing themselves in the moment?”
― Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, quote from Queen of Dreams

“I closed my eyes and willed my breath to slow, my conscious mind to fold itself inward. I could feel heat pulsing from my daughter's head, her frantic thoughts whirling like broken glass. I loosened my hold on my body and dropped into that whirlpool.”
― Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, quote from Queen of Dreams

“Rakhi likes the comfortable clutter of her life, the things she loves gathered around her like a shawl against the winterliness of the world.”
― Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, quote from Queen of Dreams

“The story hangs in the night air between them. It is very latem, and if father or daugther stepped to the window, tehyw ould see the Suktara, star of the impending dawn, hanging low in the sky. But they keep sitting at the table, each thinking of the story differently, as teller and listener always must. In the mind of each, different images swirl up and fall away, and each holds on to a different part of the story, thinking it the most important. And if each were to speak what it meant, they would say things so different you would not know it wa sthe same story they were speaking of.”
― Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, quote from Queen of Dreams

“Once I heard my mother say that each of us lives in a separate universe, one that we have dreamed into being. We love people when their dream coincides with ours, the way two cutout designs laid one on top of the other might match. But dream worlds are not static like cutouts; sooner or later they change shape, leading to misunderstanding, loneliness and loss of love.”
― Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, quote from Queen of Dreams

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Popular quotes

“Nobody needs to go anywhere else. We are all, if we only knew it, already there. If I only knew who in fact I am, I should cease to behave as what I think I am; and if I stopped behaving as what I think I am, I should know who I am. What in fact I am, if only the Manichee I think I am would allow me to know it, is the reconciliation of yes and no lived out in total acceptance and the blessed experience of Not-Two. In religion all words are dirty words. Anybody who gets eloquent about Buddha, or God, or Christ, ought to have his mouth washed out with carbolic soap.”
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― Tom Robbins, quote from Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates

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“Emotion without reason lets people walk all over you; reason without emotion is a mask for cruelty.”
― Nalini Singh, quote from Archangel's Kiss

“A city uninhabited is different. Different from what a "normal" observer, straggling in the dark - the occasional dark - would see. It is a universal sin among the false-animate or unimaginative to refuse to let well enough alone. Their compulsion to gather together, their pathological fear of loneliness extends on past the threshold of sleep; so that when they turn the corner, as we all must, as we all have done and do - some more than others - to find ourselves on the street... You know the street I mean, child. The street of the 20th Century, at whose far end or turning - we hope - is some sense of home or safety. But no guarantees. A street we are put at the wrong end of, for reasons best known to the agents who put us there. But a street we must walk.”
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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.