“I was sitting in the Temple of Karnak on the Nile, as the sun was going down, and I was all alone, and the great Hypostyle Hall was full of shadows and ghosts of the past, and suddenly I heard this little voice saying "my name is Taita, write my story"… and if you believe that you'll believe anything.”
― Wilbur Smith, quote from River God
“Yet such is the perversity of human nature that I hungered for what I could never have and dreamed of the impossible.”
― Wilbur Smith, quote from River God
“when it comes to fashion, even the most sensible woman is not to be trusted.”
― Wilbur Smith, quote from River God
“Out of the chaos and darkness of Nun rose Ammon-Ra, He-Who-Creates-Himself. I watched Ammon-Ra stroke his generative member, masturbating and spurting out his seminal seed in mighty waves that left the silver smear that we know as the Milky Way across the dark void. From this seed were generated Geb and Nut, the earth and the heaven.”
― Wilbur Smith, quote from River God
“As they slithered up the muddy bank, scores of tiny silver fish that had been feasting on the open wounds were slow to relinquish their hold and were drawn out with the carcasses. Stranded upon the mud-banks, they flopped and quivered like stars that had fallen to earth.”
― Wilbur Smith, quote from River God
“Sometimes you are garrulous, Taita.’ Pharaoh was less than captivated by my lecture on the palace architecture. ‘Get on”
― Wilbur Smith, quote from River God
“Taita,’ she called to me, ‘sing with me!’ And when I obeyed she smiled with pleasure. My voice was one of the many reasons that, whenever she was able, she kept me near her; my tenor complemented her lovely soprano to perfection. We sang one of the old peasant love songs that I had taught her, and which was still one of her favourites: My heart flutters up like a wounded quail when I see my beloved’s face and my cheeks bloom like the dawn sky to the sunshine of his smile”
― Wilbur Smith, quote from River God
“chariots that I would design with”
― Wilbur Smith, quote from River God
“The fact that I had been on the point of making a similar heroic gesture was quite ignored, and this only increased my irritation.”
― Wilbur Smith, quote from River God
“She is the epitome of injustice, is my mistress. I never sulk, I am no glutton, and at that time I was barely thirty years of age, although to a fourteen-year-old anyone above twenty is an ancient, and I admit that, when it comes to food, I do have the refined tastes of a connoisseur.”
― Wilbur Smith, quote from River God
“Nevertheless, I had recommended a diet of bull’s testicles fried in honey and counselled him to find the most beautiful virgin in Egypt and take her to his marriage-bed within a year of the first flowering of her woman’s moon.”
― Wilbur Smith, quote from River God
“Every gesture, every I love you; all of it was tinted by the great ugly lie underpinning her life.”
― Katharine McGee, quote from The Thousandth Floor
“Secrets hidden at the heart of midnight are simply waiting to be dragged to the light, as, on some unlucky high noon, they always are. But secrets shrouded in the glare of candor are bound to defeat even the most determined and agile inspector for the light is always changing and proves that the eye cannot be trusted.”
― James Baldwin, quote from Going to Meet the Man
“You want to know the real reason for the invasions?” said Hammy, taking a deep drag on his cigarette. “The government had run the economy so badly into the ground that they needed a distraction for all the people without jobs.”
― quote from The Last Resort: A Memoir of Zimbabwe
“I don’t know what to say about the hygiene of the male species.”
― Victor LaValle, quote from Big Machine
“I’m going to leave you,” I said, my voice hardly more than a whisper. The words hung between us, the crux of all our pain and tears and hesitation. But Kacey smiled—smiled—with brave tears sliding down her cheeks. “Not yet. Not tonight. We might not have months or years, but we have moments. Thousands upon thousands of them. Let’s take each moment, seize it and wring it dry.”
― Emma Scott, quote from Full Tilt
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.
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