“But when you’re a kid it’s like you’re wearing these binoculars strapped to your eyes and you can’t see anything except what’s in the dead center of the lenses”
― Russell Banks, quote from Rule of the Bone
“They were totally alone, those kids, like each had been accidentally sent to earth from a distant planet to live among adult humans and be dependent on them for everything because compared to the adult humans they were extremely fragile creatures and didn't know the language or how anything here worked and hadn't arrived with any money. And because they were like forbidden by the humans to use their old language they'd forgotten it so they couldn't be much company or help to each other either. They couldn't even talk about the old days and so pretty soon they forgot there ever were any old days and all there was now was life on earth with adult humans who called them children and acted toward them like they owned them and like they were objects not living creatures with souls.”
― Russell Banks, quote from Rule of the Bone
“It was strange to stand there in front of the mirror and see myself like I was my own best friend, a kid wanted to hang with forever. This was a boy I could travel to the seacoasts with, a boy I'd like to meet up with in foreign cities like Calcutta and London and Brazil, a boy I could trust who also had a good sense of humor and liked smoked oysters from a can and good weed and the occasional 40 ounces of malt. If I was going to be alone for the rest of my life this was the person I wanted to be alone with.”
― Russell Banks, quote from Rule of the Bone
“It's like a crime is an act that when you've committed one the act is over and you haven't changed inside. But when you commit a sin it's like you create a condition that you have to live in.”
― Russell Banks, quote from Rule of the Bone
“They were the only three people I'd chosen on my own to love, and they were gone. But still, that morning in Mobay when I saw Russ for the last time, I saw clearly for the first time that loving Sister Rose and I-Man and even Bruce had left me with riches that I could draw on for the rest of my life, I was totally grateful to them.”
― Russell Banks, quote from Rule of the Bone
Russell Banks
Born place: in Newton, Massachusetts, The United States
Born date March 28, 1940
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“These were colours he'd never ever seen before; ones he couldn't possibly begin to name. Here, to his left, was a wooden clock, and it was painted, well not exactly green, but a colour that green might like to be if it had any imagination at all. And over there, beside the wooden board game whose overriding colour was not red, but something that red might look at enviously, blushing with embarrassment at its own dull appearance. And the wooden letter sets, well, there were those who might have said that they were painted yellow and blue, but they would have said this knowing that such plain words were an outrageous insult to the colouring on the letters themselves.”
― John Boyne, quote from Noah Barleywater Runs Away
“Are you saying you want to have sex with me this week and only get to ask and be asked ten personal questions?”
“That’s what I’m saying.” His response was dead serious.
“You’re crazy.”
― Vi Keeland, quote from Belong to You
“Imitation is the highest form of flattery. Until it isn't.”
― quote from Shift
“The newly arrived Irish Catholics took immediately to Southie's grievance list with outside force. Indeed, it became holy writ as the community coalesced around church and family, forming a solid phalanx against those who did not understand their ways. Over the decades since then, nothing had galvanized Southies more than a perceived slight by an outsider who would change The Way Things Are.”
― Dick Lehr, quote from Black Mass
“...AND ALL THE OTHER SOULS WHO GOT LEFT AND CURSED BY THOSE THAT SHOULD HAVE LOVED AND CARED.”
― Lori Lansens, quote from Rush Home Road
Fiance by Fate
The Vanishing Girl
Diaries of Franz Kaf...
Mean Streak
Miles from NowhereBookQuoters 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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