“Americans had grown soft with all of their rights and personal freedom. They had no idea how harsh the rest of the world was.”
― Vince Flynn, quote from Separation of Power
“run. Never look back, and avoid the whole mess. Let”
― Vince Flynn, quote from Separation of Power
“slightest touch or movement brought on nausea”
― Vince Flynn, quote from Separation of Power
“Clark sighed and shook his head at the tedious road ahead. Information, that’s what this whole mess was about. Knowledge truly was power, and men like Ellis understood that Clark could help give them the knowledge they needed to grow their billions and protect their kingdoms. Even over the roar of the surf Clark heard Ellis enter the house. Clark and Ellis shared a thirst for power and that was about it. Where Clark was calm and discerning, Ellis was volatile and brash. The man had a way of wearing people out through frontal assault after frontal assault. Nothing tricky, no feints, he just hammered you into submission. Clark found it all very interesting. He was a true tactician, and often relished outmaneuvering people like Ellis, but tonight, in the warm Caribbean air he would prefer drinks, some light fare and the smooth skin of a young woman flown in from Miami.”
― Vince Flynn, quote from Separation of Power
“Americans had grown soft with all of their rights and personal freedom.”
― Vince Flynn, quote from Separation of Power
“MONDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 2011 Port St. Lucie, Florida First impressions are important, and in his first full meeting with us as the Mets manager, Terry Collins makes a really good one. We are in a conference room in Digital Domain Park. Everybody is there—Sandy Alderson, the new general manager, his assistants, the players, the coaches, the trainers, the clubhouse manager, and even our two cooks. We go around the room and introduce ourselves. Sandy speaks first. “The expectations for this club outside of this room are very low,” he says. “I know you guys expect more of yourself, and I expect more of you too.”Sandy is not a rah-rah guy, and his approach is low-key but very compelling. “The goal of any professional sports franchise is to win, and that’s why we’re here.” When he’s done, he turns the floor over to Terry, who says, “Sandy stole my speech.” Everybody laughs. Terry has no notes. He speaks from the heart. I’ve heard a lot of these first-day speeches, and believe me, it’s more common than not for them to seem formulaic, straight off boilerplate. This is not like that at all. Terry is intense, fiery, and enthusiastic. I never get the feeling he is saying things for effect. It seems so authentic, the way he makes contact with everybody in the room and jacks up the decibel level. Even when he dabbles in clichés—“We’re going to do things the right way”—you can’t help but feel his passion and energy. Terry is a small man and doesn’t have an imposing presence when you first see him, but he is powerful nonetheless. The essence of his talk is simple: “Everybody says we’re going to stink. I hear it over and over. I think they’ve got it all wrong. You want to come along as we prove them all wrong?” Terry talks for twenty minutes or so, and by the time he is done, all I can think of is: This is a guy I’m really going to enjoy playing for. CHAPTER THREE FAITH ON WALNUT Some kids are fighters. Other kids are scrappers. I am a scrapper. I spend two extremely scrappy years—fifth and sixth grades—at St. Edward School, and the trend continues into the seventh grade at Wright Middle School, where the kids are bigger and stronger than me, but not too many have less regard for their bodies. I don’t worry about pain or getting hit or getting knocked down. I just get back up and come back at you like a boomerang. My goal when I fight is simple: I want to give more than I receive. This doesn’t make me proud. It’s just what it takes to survive, and in seventh grade survival is what I’m all about. Fights aren’t an everyday occurrence in my neighborhood, but I seem to have more than my share of them. I fight to defend myself, to right a wrong, or to settle a dispute. I’m not picky. I figure out early that in a school where smoke billows out of the bathroom and pregnant girls walk the hallways, you don’t want people thinking you are wimpy. So I learn to act tough when I need to, and sometimes when I don’t need to—which gets me into trouble. In the lunchroom one day, I get up from my seat. You have assigned seats at Wright at lunchtime, and strict rules about leaving them, the school’s effort to prevent the cafeteria from turning into WrestleMania. But I need to get a homework assignment from a classmate, so I get up and walk across the lunchroom. A monitor corrals me and says, Get back to your seat. He’s kind of nasty about it. I don’t appreciate his tone. I cuss under my breath. Not loud, not a bad cussword, but an audible obscenity, no doubt. Now he doesn’t appreciate my tone. Come with me, young man. You are going to regret your garbage mouth. He’s right—I am going to regret it—because this is Tennessee in the mid-1980s and corporal punishment still rules the day. The monitor escorts me down to see Mr. Tinnon, the assistant principal in charge of paddling. He conveniently keeps the paddle by his desk.”
― quote from Wherever I Wind Up: My Quest for Truth, Authenticity and the Perfect Knuckleball
“I have always been suspicious of the phrase, the glow of pregnancy, and my suspicions were only confirmed by Lillian's appearance. Instead of a glow, her whole body seemed to become more and more dull, sallow and sickly sweet and vague, like a candle burning out or a line of smudged writing.”
― John Burnside, quote from The Dumb House
“Present us with a silver cup for something when you're a filthy rich lawyer, I dare say? Yes. You'll be a lawyer. Magnificent memory. Sense of logic, no imagination and no brains.”
― Jane Gardam, quote from Old Filth
“But we’ll get to the bottom of it,” Tsunami promised. “We’ll find the dragon who set that bomb, and then I will tear off his wings and hang him from the eastern peak of Jade Mountain”
― Tui T. Sutherland, quote from Moon Rising
“You saved me life, she tried to tell him. Not forever, not for good. Probably just temporarily. But you saved my life, and now I'm yours. The me that's me right now is yours. Always.”
― Rainbow Rowell, quote from Eleanor and Park
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.