Quotes from S.

J.J. Abrams ·  456 pages

Rating: (15.3K votes)


“We're all just in the muck trying to believe we're capable of greatness, but closer to breaking than we want to admit. And we tell ourselves stories--about ourselves,but maybe also all these stories about other people, about characters--as a way to hide from how small we are.”
― J.J. Abrams, quote from S.


“It's what happens. You love, then you lose, then you die. Even if you survive, you die.”
― J.J. Abrams, quote from S.


“It's not a bad way to live once you let go of the idea that you deserve more.”
― J.J. Abrams, quote from S.


“What begins at the water shall end there, and what ends there shall once more begin.”
― J.J. Abrams, quote from S.


“-It's extremely cool how the words can stay the same but their meaning can change.
-Because the reader changes.
-EXACTLY”
― J.J. Abrams, quote from S.



“Do you always travel with such cumbersome books?" "I don't trust anyone who wouldn't.”
― J.J. Abrams, quote from S.


“- I can't make choices like that without knowing who I am. Without knowing all the implications.
- You can't ever know in advance. Big decisions require faith.”
― J.J. Abrams, quote from S.


“A person is no more & no less than the Story of his Passions & Deeds.”
― J.J. Abrams, quote from S.


“They're not terrible people. They just couldn't be who I needed them to be.”
― J.J. Abrams, quote from S.


“It was stolen. As most beautiful things eventually are.”
― J.J. Abrams, quote from S.



“They all occupied the same space but did not occupy it together. Imagine a thousand leaves of tracing paper, each with one person lightly pencilled on it, all stacked atop a scene of a frozen city block. A thousand discreet and solitary realities that appear to be occurring in the same location.”
― J.J. Abrams, quote from S.


“He is a man without a past sailing in a strange sea in a world where the stars have come loose in the firmament.”
― J.J. Abrams, quote from S.


“-I hate that. I hate that people can't just say what they mean.
-You don't. Not always.
-I never say anything I don't mean. I just avoid saying some things that I do.”
― J.J. Abrams, quote from S.


“The thing is: you might be right to trust someone at one point, but they can change."
"+ in between they must be drifting from trustworthy to not. But you can't tell how far they've drifted until it's too late.”
― J.J. Abrams, quote from S.


“For one moment, it is more important to take in the spectacular than to worry about the pressing business of staying alive.”
― J.J. Abrams, quote from S.



“I think it's love.'
'Funny.'
'I'm serious.'
'And your support for this is...?'
'A feeling.'
'You need more than that.”
― J.J. Abrams, quote from S.


“What begins at the water shall end there, and what ends there shall once more begin. Words are a gift to the dead and a warning to the living.”
― J.J. Abrams, quote from S.


“There's a spiritual connection between flame and narrative.”
― J.J. Abrams, quote from S.


“This is what happens, of course: men get lost, men vanish, men are erased and reborn.”
― J.J. Abrams, quote from S.


“Time and circumstances change us...and it is pointless to ask why.”
― J.J. Abrams, quote from S.



“Something about her in this moment strikes him as being familiar. The motion of her arm? The shape of her hand? The wrinkle of her upper lip? He does not know. Nor does he have any way to tell whether what he is sensing is a fragment of memory, a fragment of an idea of a memory, or something his mind, desperate for connections, has created on its own.”
― J.J. Abrams, quote from S.


“To be a self rewritten from a lost first draft.”
― J.J. Abrams, quote from S.


“Of course there is a monkey. There is always a monkey.”
― J.J. Abrams, quote from S.


“-That's kind of sad.
-I used to think so. Now I think: you're born a certain way. Later you get to decide how much you want to fight/change that. I don't mind being alone.
-You must mind. If you didn't you wouldn't be doing this with me.”
― J.J. Abrams, quote from S.


“This is where his life - his remade life - has brought him. Each strange juncture has led to the next and now he is here. He is here, and it is nowhere.”
― J.J. Abrams, quote from S.



“They speak little; it is as if the air has been churned up with decade's worth of fruitless pursuit and missed connections and thoughts unspoken, and they are waiting quietly for all this matter — these motes of opportunity forgone — to settle around them.”
― J.J. Abrams, quote from S.


“The feeling, for those seconds, is glorious—it reminds him that he is human, that he is so insignificant as to be utterly free, and he is being guided along gracefully, lovingly, by the hand of Nature—and it frees him, however transiently, from all worry and fear and fury and grief. 'I enjoyed that,' he says aloud, as much to the stars as to the rower.”
― J.J. Abrams, quote from S.


“Do you always travel with such cumbersome books?'

'I don't trust anyone who wouldn't.”
― J.J. Abrams, quote from S.


“If I am going out into the unknown, it might as well be the really unknown.”
― J.J. Abrams, quote from S.


“When you fall in love, friends, let yourself fall.”
― J.J. Abrams, quote from S.



About the author

J.J. Abrams
Born place: in New York, New York, The United States
Born date June 27, 1966
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“You think you know what a man is? You have no idea what a man is. You think you know what a daughter is? You have no idea what a daughter is. You think you know what this country is? You have no idea what this country is. You have a false image of everything. All you know is what a fucking glove is. This country is frightening. Of course she was raped. What kind of company do you think she was keeping? Of course out there she was going to get raped. This isn't Old Rimrock, old buddy - she's out there, old buddy, in the USA. She enters that world, that loopy world out there, with whats going on out there - what do you expect? A kid from Rimrock, NJ, of course she didn't know how to behave out there, of course the shit hits the fan. What could she know? She's like a wild child out there in the world. She can't get enough of it - she's still acting up. A room off McCarter Highway. And why not? Who wouldn't? You prepare her for life milking the cows? For what kind of life? Unnatural, all artificial, all of it. Those assumptions you live with. You're still in your olf man's dream-world, Seymour, still up there with Lou Levov in glove heaven. A household tyrannized by gloves, bludgeoned by gloves, the only thing in life - ladies' gloves! Does he still tell the one about the woman who sells the gloves washing her hands in a sink between each color? Oh where oh where is that outmoded America, that decorous America where a woman had twenty-five pairs of gloves? Your kid blows your norms to kingdom come, Seymour, and you still think you know what life is?" Life is just a short period of time in which we are alive. Meredith Levov, 1964. "You wanted Ms. America? Well, you've got her, with a vengeance - she's your daughter! You wanted to be a real American jock, a real American marine, a real American hotshot with a beautiful Gentile babe on your arm? You longed to belong like everybody else to the United States of America? Well, you do now, big boy, thanks to your daughter. The reality of this place is right up in your kisser now. With the help of your daughter you're as deep in the sit as a man can get, the real American crazy shit. America amok! America amuck! Goddamn it, Seymour, goddamn you, if you were a father who loved his daughter," thunders Jerry into the phone - and the hell with the convalescent patients waiting in the corridor for him to check out their new valves and new arteries, to tell how grateful they are to him for their new lease on life, Jerry shouts away, shouts all he wants if it's shouting he wants to do, and the hell with the rules of hte hospital. He is one of the surgeons who shouts; if you disagree with him he shouts, if you cross him he shouts, if you just stand there and do nothing he shouts. He does not do what hospitals tell him to do or fathers expect him to do or wives want him to do, he does what he wants to do, does as he pleases, tells people just who and what he is every minute of the day so that nothing about him is a secret, not his opinions, his frustrations, his urges, neither his appetite nor his hatred. In the sphere of the will, he is unequivocating, uncompromising; he is king. He does not spend time regretting what he has or has not done or justifying to others how loathsome he can be. The message is simple: You will take me as I come - there is no choice. He cannot endure swallowing anything. He just lets loose. And these are two brothers, the same parents' sons, one for whom the aggression's been bred out, the other for whom the aggression's been bred in. "If you were a father who loved your daughter," Jerry shouts at the Swede, "you would never have left her in that room! You would have never let her out of your sight!”
― Philip Roth, quote from American Pastoral


“So what were you [Sonea] and Dorrien discussing before?' Akkarin asked.
She turned to regard him. 'Discussing?'
'Outside the farmhouse when I was buying the food.'
'Oh. Then. Nothing.'
He smiled and nodded. 'Nothing. Amazing subject, that one. Produces such fascinating reactions in people.”
― Trudi Canavan, quote from The High Lord


“Sir, my inferior understanding prevents my grasping the unquestionable soundness of the mission.”
― Herman Wouk, quote from War and Remembrance


“Captain?"
"Cress."
She couldn't not say it, although she realized he was right.It was sort of scary. Much scarier than it had been the first time she'd told him, out in the desert. It was different now. It was real. "I'm in love with you."

He chuckled. "I should hope so, after all that." He leaned forward and pressed a kiss against her temple. "And I love you too.”
― Marissa Meyer, quote from Winter


“This is the biggest damn iPod I've ever seen,' Claire said, which made him choke on his beer.
'Kidding. I have seen a jukebox before.'
'The way you're feeding it, I'm not so sure. You think you picked enough songs?”
― Rachel Caine, quote from Feast of Fools


Interesting books

Wait Till Next Year
(5.7K)
Wait Till Next Year
by Doris Kearns Goodwin
In His Own Write
(4.7K)
In His Own Write
by John Lennon
Crushed Seraphim
(1K)
Crushed Seraphim
by Debra Anastasia
The Sacred Romance Drawing Closer To The Heart Of God
(10.7K)
The Sacred Romance D...
by John Eldredge
Three Act Tragedy
(14.5K)
Three Act Tragedy
by Agatha Christie
Miracle in the Andes
(13K)

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.