“There are so many stories, she thinks, and most of them end up lost.”
― Guy Gavriel Kay, quote from River of Stars
“We are not gods. We make mistakes. We do not live very long.
Sometimes someone grinds ink, mixes it with water, arranges paper, takes up a brush to record our time, our days, and we are given another life in those words.”
― Guy Gavriel Kay, quote from River of Stars
“Some writers later, describing the events of that night and day, wrote that Wan'yen of the Altai had seen a spirit-dragon of the river and become afraid. Writers do that sort of thing. They like dragons in their tales.”
― Guy Gavriel Kay, quote from River of Stars
“Lazy poets try to elicit a reader's response with words designed to tug at the heart.”
― Guy Gavriel Kay, quote from River of Stars
“He wasn't a poet, not everyone is.”
― Guy Gavriel Kay, quote from River of Stars
“A writer’s brush is a warrior’s bow, the letters it shapes are arrows that must hit the mark on the page. The calligrapher is an archer, or a general on a battlefield. Someone wrote that long ago. She feels that way this morning. She is at war.”
― Guy Gavriel Kay, quote from River of Stars
“He didn't look back but he knew his wife and his brother's wife, all the women of the house, would be flying, as if into battle, to make East Slope as ready as it could ever be for what had arrived.”
― Guy Gavriel Kay, quote from River of Stars
“You're too clever to be a soldier." Then she shook her head. "Don't say it. I know. We need our soldiers to be clever. I do know."
"Thank you," he murmured. "You can do all of the conversation. Make it easier for me.”
― Guy Gavriel Kay, quote from River of Stars
“It had taken skill, tact, an ability to choose friends well, and a great deal of luck”
― Guy Gavriel Kay, quote from River of Stars
“Ambitions and dreams put you at a drinking table with unexpected companions. Cups were filled and refilled, making you drunk with the illusion of changing the world.”
― Guy Gavriel Kay, quote from River of Stars
“You’d never killed anyone. Then you had.”
― Guy Gavriel Kay, quote from River of Stars
“I cannot speak for those who come after, or what the world will be. We are not made that way.”
― Guy Gavriel Kay, quote from River of Stars
“It is not easy, she thinks, to make your way in the world while insisting on a new path.”
― Guy Gavriel Kay, quote from River of Stars
“It was different, though, knowing something in your thoughts and then hearing it confirmed, made real, planted in the world like a tree”
― Guy Gavriel Kay, quote from River of Stars
“Not every man or woman sailing down the river will be a figure of force or significance. Some are merely in the boat with all of us.”
― Guy Gavriel Kay, quote from River of Stars
“It had taken skill, tact, an ability to choose friends well, and a great deal of luck... Luck was always part of it, one way or another”
― Guy Gavriel Kay, quote from River of Stars
“Lin Kuo himself would have said that his legacy was his daughter. Or no. He’d have believed that, but never voiced the thought, for fear of putting a burden of such weight upon her shoulders, which would be an improper thing to do to anyone, let alone a child so dearly loved from the beginning of her days to the end of his.”
― Guy Gavriel Kay, quote from River of Stars
Guy Gavriel Kay
Born place: in Weyburn, Saskatchewan, Canada
See more on GoodReads
“[The modern age] knows nothing about isolation and nothing about silence. In our quietest and loneliest hour the automatic ice-maker in the refrigerator will cluck and drop an ice cube, the automatic dishwasher will sigh through its changes, a plane will drone over, the nearest freeway will vibrate the air. Red and white lights will pass in the sky, lights will shine along highways and glance off windows. There is always a radio that can be turned to some all-night station, or a television set to turn artificial moonlight into the flickering images of the late show. We can put on a turntable whatever consolation we most respond to, Mozart or Copland or the Grateful Dead.”
― Wallace Stegner, quote from Angle of Repose
“That's you," Wrath said. You shall be called the Black Dagger warrior Dhestroyer, descended of Wrath son of Wrath."
"But you'll always be Butch to us," Rhage cut in. "As well as hard-ass. Smart-ass. Royal pain in the ass. You know, whatever the situation calls for. I think as long as there's an ASS in there, it'll be accurate."
"How about bASStard?" Z suggested.
"Nice. I feel that.”
― J.R. Ward, quote from Lover Revealed
“She killed Lorena in a fight?" Eric's grin grew even broader. He was as proud as if he'd heard his firstborn reciting Shakespeare.”
― Charlaine Harris, quote from Club Dead
“The repetitive phases of cooking leave plenty of mental space for reflection, and as I chopped and minced and sliced I thought about the rhythms of cooking, one of which involves destroying the order of the things we bring from nature into our kitchens, only to then create from them a new order. We butcher, grind, chop, grate, mince, and liquefy raw ingredients, breaking down formerly living things so that we might recombine them in new, more cultivated forms. When you think about it, this is the same rhythm, once removed, that governs all eating in nature, which invariably entails the destruction of certain living things, by chewing and then digestion, in order to sustain other living things. In The Hungry Soul Leon Kass calls this the great paradox of eating: 'that to preserve their life and form living things necessarily destroy life and form.' If there is any shame in that destruction, only we humans seem to feel it, and then only on occasion. But cooking doesn't only distance us from our destructiveness, turning the pile of blood and guts into a savory salami, it also symbolically redeems it, making good our karmic debts: Look what good, what beauty, can come of this! Putting a great dish on the table is our way of celebrating the wonders of form we humans can create from this matter--this quantity of sacrificed life--just before the body takes its first destructive bite.”
― Michael Pollan, quote from The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals
“Hey, Cammie... tell Suzie she's a lucky cat."
Have sexier words ever been spoken? I seriously think not!”
― Ally Carter, quote from I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have to Kill You
The British Museum I...
The Denial of Death
A Light in the Windo...
English, August: An...
The Road to Avalon
BoneMan's DaughtersBookQuoters 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.
