Quotes from Serena

“It's a hard place this world can be. No wonder a baby cries coming in to it. Tears from the start”
― Ron Rash, quote from Serena

“Don't love anything that can be taken away.”
― Ron Rash, quote from Serena

“She realized that being starved for words was the same as being starved for food, because both left a hollow place inside you, a place you needed filled to make it through another day. Rachel remembered how growing up she’d thought living on a farm with just a father was as lonely as you could be. (130)”
― Ron Rash, quote from Serena

“What made losing someone you loved bearable was not remembering but forgetting. Forgetting small things first... it's amazing how much you could forget, and everything you forgot made that person less alive inside you until you could finally endure it. After more time passed you could let yourself remember, even want to remember. But even then what you felt those first days could return and remind you the grief was still there, like old barbed wire embedded in a tree's heartwood.”
― Ron Rash, quote from Serena

“You got one choice at the beginning but if you didn't choose right, things got narrow real quick.”
― Ron Rash, quote from Serena

“Nothing is but what is now”
― Ron Rash, quote from Serena

“It’s ever been the way of the man of science or philosophy. Most folks stay in the dark and then complain they can’t see nothing.” – Snipes (185)”
― Ron Rash, quote from Serena

“It struck her how eating was a comfort during a hard time because it reminded you that there had been other days, good days, when you’d eaten the same thing. Reminded you there were good days in life, when precious little else did. (268)”
― Ron Rash, quote from Serena

“And darkness. You can’t see it no more than you can see air, but when it’s all around you sure enough know it.”
― Ron Rash, quote from Serena

“One thing's sure and nothing surer. The rich get richer and the poor get- children”
― Ron Rash, quote from Serena

“Others can make us vulnerable and the sooner such vulnerabilities are dealt with the better”
― Ron Rash, quote from Serena

“We want what's in this world but we also want what ain't.”
― Ron Rash, quote from Serena

“A small profit it better than a big loss”
― Ron Rash, quote from Serena

“I don’t even have a choice. Rachel thought how that was pretty much true of everything now, that you got one choice at the beginning but if you didn’t choose right, and she hadn’t, things got narrow real quick. Like trying to wade a river, she thought. You take a wrong step and set your foot on a wobbly rock or in a drop-off and you’re swept away, and all you can do then is try to survive. (83)”
― Ron Rash, quote from Serena

“We had some good times at school. I didn't know how good those times was till I left, but I guess that's the way of it”
― Ron Rash, quote from Serena

“You men notice so little, Pemberton. Physical strength is your gender's sole advantage.”
― Ron Rash, quote from Serena

“A kind of annihilation, was what Serena called their coupling, and though Pemberton would never have thought to describe it that way, he knew her words had named the thing exactly.”
― Ron Rash, quote from Serena

“She’d never known fear had a taste, but it did.”
― Ron Rash, quote from Serena

“It struck her how eating was a comfort during a hard time because it reminded you that there had been other days, good days, when you’d eaten the same thing.”
― Ron Rash, quote from Serena

“I missed that one,' Henryson said. 'The war, I mean.'

'Don't worry,' Snipes said. 'Another one's always coming down the pike. That's something all your historians and philosophers agree on. A feller over in Germany looks to be ready to set a match to Europe soon enough, and quick as they snuff him out there'll be another to take his place.”
― Ron Rash, quote from Serena

“Rachel felt the grief grow so wide and deep it felt like a dark fathomless pool she'd never emerge from. Because there was nothing left to do now, nothing except endure it.”
― Ron Rash, quote from Serena

“But as Rachel watched the sheriff enter the front door, it was hard to believe the farmhouse itself was still there, because a place where something so terrible had happened shouldn't continue to exist in the world. The earth itself shouldn't be able to abide it.”
― Ron Rash, quote from Serena

“It amazed Rachel how much you could forget, and everything you forgot made that person less alive inside you until you could finally endure it. After more time passed you could let yourself remember, even want to remember. But even then what you felt those first days could return and remind you the grief was still there, like old barbed wire embedded in a tree's heartwood. And now this brown-eyed child. Don't love it, Rachel told herself. Don't love anything that can be taken away.”
― Ron Rash, quote from Serena

“The world lies all before us.”
― Ron Rash, quote from Serena

“A great business investment, religion. I’ll take it over government bonds anytime.”
― Ron Rash, quote from Serena

“You Men notice so little Pemberton, Physical strength is your genders sole advantage" - Serena”
― Ron Rash, quote from Serena

“It’s a hard place this world can be. No wonder a baby cries coming into it. Tears from the very start.”
― Ron Rash, quote from Serena

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Popular quotes

“Ten books or twenty books are not enough to instill a love of reading in students. They must choose and read many books for themselves in order to catch the reading bug. By setting the requirement as high as I do, I ensure that students must have a book going constantly. Without the need to read a book every single day to stay on top of my requirement, students would read as little as they could. They might not internalize independent reading habits if my requirement expected less from them.”
― Donalyn Miller, quote from The Book Whisperer: Awakening the Inner Reader in Every Child

“See, the ‘small stuff’ is what makes up the larger picture of our lives. Many people are like you, young man. But their perspective is distorted. They ignore ‘small stuff,’ claiming to have an eye on the bigger picture, never understanding that the bigger picture is composed of nothing more than-are you ready?- ‘small stuff’.”
― Andy Andrews, quote from The Noticer: Sometimes, All a Person Needs Is a Little Perspective

“Your answers lie here," Rovender said, gesturing around the library.”
― Tony DiTerlizzi, quote from The Search for WondLa

“We may feel that a particular habit 'isn't too bad,'but continually giving in to that habit weakens our wills against the onslaughts of temptation from other directions.”
― Jerry Bridges, quote from The Pursuit of Holiness

“He looks at me fondly. I know that the look doesn’t have love in it. Or even lust. I still wonder about love or sex or lust. I saw lust in his eyes when he looked at that girl on the sidewalk … I love him, anyway. I love him because he’s kind to me and he doesn’t want my body, doesn’t want to feel me or touch me, like all the others … and maybe after a while he might look at me with more than fondness, will kiss me sweetly, tenderly.”
― Robert Cormier, quote from Tenderness

Interesting books

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.