“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
“Paradise
----------
A glowing dawn, a sweet, ripe peach,
A blue sea lapping on the beach.
A hint of spring, a dewy rose
Whose scent assails an eager nose.
Beauty now at every sight.
A feast for senses to delight.
A darkened cell, the fear of night,
A mistral blows with all its might.
A winter's chill in barren land,
The bitter cold through frozen hand.
Beauty now has closed its door.
And swept away for distant shore.
A touch of cheek, a lingered kiss
So soft remembered, soon to miss.
A tender arm around me thrown,
The beauty of a heart's true home.
In black despair, a shooting star,
For Paradise is where you are.”
― Lucinda Riley, quote from The Light Behind the Window
“When the taste for physical gratifications among them has grown more rapidly than their education . . . the time will come when men are carried away and lose all self-restraint . . . . It is not necessary to do violence to such a people in order to strip them of the rights they enjoy; they themselves willingly loosen their hold. . . . they neglect their chief business which is to remain their own masters.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville, quote from De la Démocratie en Amérique, tome II
“Our heart is wide enough to embrace the world and hands are long enough to encompass the world.”
― Amit Ray, quote from Nonviolence: The Transforming Power
“Just that I figure at some point, some guy must have been able to make you smile. And I always wondered if it was the same guy that made you stop.”
― Lauren Layne, quote from The Trouble with Love
“There's only one cure for weirdness.”
“Anal?”
― Lauren Blakely, quote from Big Rock
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.