Quotes from Rooftoppers

Katherine Rundell ·  278 pages

Rating: (6K votes)


“I do, I’m afraid, understand books far more readily than I understand people. Books are so easy to get along with.”
― Katherine Rundell, quote from Rooftoppers


“I think, actually, everyone starts out with some strange in them. It's just whether or not you decide to keep it.”
― Katherine Rundell, quote from Rooftoppers


“Books crowbar the world open for you.”
― Katherine Rundell, quote from Rooftoppers


“Only weak thinkers do not love the sky.”
― Katherine Rundell, quote from Rooftoppers


“I know these sorts of people. They're not men. They're mustaches with idiots attached.”
― Katherine Rundell, quote from Rooftoppers



“Perhaps, she thought, that’s what love does. It’s not there to make you feel special. It’s to make you brave. It was like a ration pack in the desert, she thought, like a box of matches in a dark wood. Love and courage, thought Sophie—two words for the same thing.”
― Katherine Rundell, quote from Rooftoppers


“You have been the great green adventure of my life. Without you my days would be unlit.”
― Katherine Rundell, quote from Rooftoppers


“But it's a child! You're a man!"

"Your powers of observation are formidable," said Charles. "You are a credit to your optician.”
― Katherine Rundell, quote from Rooftoppers


“It was what her mother had always been. A place to put down her heart. A resting stop to recover her breath. A set of stars and maps.”
― Katherine Rundell, quote from Rooftoppers


“The baby was almost certainly one year old. They knew this because of the red rosette pinned to her front, which read, 1!

"Or rather," said Charles Maxim, "the child is either one year old or she has come first in a competition. I believe babies are rarely keen participants in competitive sport. Shall we therefore assume it is the former?”
― Katherine Rundell, quote from Rooftoppers



“But those coins are wishes! You’re stealing other people’s wishes!”
The look Matteo gave her was so flinty, she could have chipped a tooth on it. “If you have money to waste on wishes, you don’t need the wishes as badly as I need the money.”
― Katherine Rundell, quote from Rooftoppers


“He was thirty-six years old, and six foot three. He spoke English to people and French to cats, and Latin to the birds. He had once nearly killed himself trying to read and ride a horse at the same time.”
― Katherine Rundell, quote from Rooftoppers


“She hated official letters. They made her feel nervous. The people who wrote them sounded like they had filing cabinets where their hearts should be.”
― Katherine Rundell, quote from Rooftoppers


“You look as though you own a minimum of one pony.”
― Katherine Rundell, quote from Rooftoppers


“Adults are taught not to believe anything unless it is boring or ugly.”
― Katherine Rundell, quote from Rooftoppers



“It is difficult to believe extraordinary things.”
― Katherine Rundell, quote from Rooftoppers


“Let me introduce you. Sophie, this is Miss Eliot, from the National Childcare Agency. Miss Eliot, this is Sophie, from the ocean.”
― Katherine Rundell, quote from Rooftoppers


“Sophie and Charles did not live neatly, but neatness, Sophie thought, was not necessary for happiness.”
― Katherine Rundell, quote from Rooftoppers


“Governments can do both great and stupid things.”
― Katherine Rundell, quote from Rooftoppers


“If, when reading and walking at the same time, he bumped into a lamppost, he would apologize and check that the lamppost was unhurt.”
― Katherine Rundell, quote from Rooftoppers



“Books crow-bar the world open for you.”
― Katherine Rundell, quote from Rooftoppers


“You shouldn't say what you don't mean”
― Katherine Rundell, quote from Rooftoppers


“It's like eight thousand birds, Charles! Charles! Isn't it like eight thousand birds?”
― Katherine Rundell, quote from Rooftoppers


“he had kindness where other people had lungs,”
― Katherine Rundell, quote from Rooftoppers


“Why didn’t she keep looking?” “My darling, because she is an adult.” Sophie ducked behind her hair. Her face was hot and tight and angry. “That’s not a reason.” “It is, my love. Adults are taught not to believe anything unless it is boring or ugly.”
― Katherine Rundell, quote from Rooftoppers



“An Englishman without an umbrella is less than half a man,” he said. Matteo”
― Katherine Rundell, quote from Rooftoppers


“The dark-haired girl had the face of someone who had seen a lot, and wouldn’t mind punching most of it.”
― Katherine Rundell, quote from Rooftoppers


“If music can shine, Sophie thought, this music shone... 'It's like eight thousand birds, Charles!'

When the music closed, she clapped until the rest of the audience had stopped and until her hands were hot and blotched with red... There was something in the music that felt familiar to Sophie. 'It feels,' she said to Charles, 'like home.”
― Katherine Rundell, quote from Rooftoppers


“Quite suddenly Sophie couldn't bear it. She pelted up to her bedroom, tripping over the stairs. The tears in her eyes were making the world blur... She stamped and kicked...

It took her some minutes to realize that Charles was standing in the doorway... 'This calls for hot water... Get in the tub, Sophie, and do some splashing. You will be surprised at what a difference splashing can make.”
― Katherine Rundell, quote from Rooftoppers


About the author

Katherine Rundell
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“Not Brangien who was faithful, not Brangien, but themselves had these lovers to fear, for hearts so stricken will lose their vigilance. Love pressed them hard, as thirst presses the dying stag to the stream; love dropped upon them from high heaven, as a hawk slipped after long hunger falls right upon the bird. And love will not be hidden.”
― quote from The Romance of Tristan


“A touch of truth makes a lie worth believing.”
― Caitlin Kittredge, quote from The Iron Thorn


“The city which lay below was a charnel house built on multi-layered bones centuries older than those which lay beneath the cities of Hamburg or Dresden. Was this knowledge part of the mystery it held for her, a mystery felt most strongly on a bell-chimed Sunday on her solitary exploration of its hidden alleys and squares? Time had fascinated her from childhood, its apparent power to move at different speeds, the dissolution it wrought on minds and bodies, her sense that each moment, all moments past and those to come, were fused into an illusory present which with every breath became the unalterable, indestructible past. In the City of London these moments were caught and solidified in stone and brick, in churches and monuments and in bridges which spanned the grey-brown ever-flowing Thames. She would walk out in spring or summer as early as six o'clock, double-locking the front door behind her, stepping into a silence more profound and mysterious than the absence of noise. Sometimes in this solitary perambulation it seenmed that her own footsteps were muted, as if some part of her were afraid to waken the dead who had walked thse streets and had known the same silence.”
― P.D. James, quote from The Private Patient


“Centuries of enlightenment and progress vanished virtually overnight because Men couldn’t find a way to use it wisely and purposefully.”
― Terry Brooks, quote from Bearers of the Black Staff


“the spirit of the depths teaches me that I am a servant, in fact the servant of a child. This dictum was repugnant to me and I hated it. But I had to recognize and accept that my soul is a child”
― C.G. Jung, quote from The Red Book: Liber Novus


Interesting books

Darklight
(9.5K)
Darklight
by Lesley Livingston
Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed
(48.9K)
Collapse: How Societ...
by Jared Diamond
11 Birthdays
(24.8K)
11 Birthdays
by Wendy Mass
Tilt
(13.4K)
Tilt
by Ellen Hopkins
This Song Will Save Your Life
(23.1K)
This Song Will Save...
by Leila Sales
The Queen
(27.2K)
The Queen
by Kiera Cass

About BookQuoters

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.