“Do you know a cure for me?"
"Why yes," he said, "I know a cure for everything. Salt water."
"Salt water?" I asked him.
"Yes," he said, "in one way or the other. Sweat, or tears, or the salt sea.”
― Isak Dinesen, quote from Seven Gothic Tales
“The real difference between God and human beings, he thought, was that God cannot stand continuance. No sooner has he created a season of a year, or a time of the day, than he wishes for something quite different, and sweeps it all away. No sooner was one a young man, and happy at that, than the nature of things would rush one into marriage, martyrdom or old age. And human beings cleave to the existing state of things. All their lives they are striving to hold the moment fast....Their art itself is nothing but the attempt to catch by all means the one particular moment, one light, the momentary beauty of one woman or one flower, and make it everlasting.”
― Isak Dinesen, quote from Seven Gothic Tales
“For really, dreaming is the well-mannered people's way of committing suicide.”
― Isak Dinesen, quote from Seven Gothic Tales
“The cure for anything is salt water: sweat, tears or the sea”
― Isak Dinesen, quote from Seven Gothic Tales
“Where, My Lord, is music bred—upon the instrument or within the ear that listens? The loveliness of woman is created in the eye of man.”
― Isak Dinesen, quote from Seven Gothic Tales
“She had what the Councillor knew, in the technical language of the ballet, as "ballon", a lightness that is not only the negation of weight, but which actually seems to carry upwards and make for flight, and which is rarely found in thin dancers - as if the matter itself had here become lighter than air, so that the more there is of it the better it works.”
― Isak Dinesen, quote from Seven Gothic Tales
“Perhaps to them the first condition for anything having real charm was this: that it must not really exist.”
― Isak Dinesen, quote from Seven Gothic Tales
“Truth, like time, is an idea arising from, and dependent upon, human intercourse.”
― Isak Dinesen, quote from Seven Gothic Tales
“Only a psychopath would ever think of doing these things, only a psychopath would dream of abusing other people in such a way, only a psychopath would treat people as less than human just for money. The shocking truth is, even though they now have most if not all of the money, they want still more, they want all of the money that you have left in your pockets, they want it all because they have no empathy with other people, with other creatures, they have no feeling for the world which they exploit, they have no love or sense of being or belonging for their souls are dead, dead to all things but greed and a desire to rule over others.”
― Arun D. Ellis, quote from Corpalism
“Something is nagging at the edge of my consciousness. It's a good feeling, but I can't quite place it. And then suddenly I do. It's a feeling of being where I'm supposed to be. A feeling of knowing that I'm in the right place at the right time. With the right person.”
― Amy Plum, quote from After the End
“Verranica Welling, I love you with all my soul. I will happily be your king, if you will consent to be my love, my wife and my queen for all of our days in Doon and beyond.
This time, I didn't need to think about my answer. Yes, Jamie, Yes!”
― Carey Corp, quote from Doon
“The game had started. Everybody was assuring everybody else how reliable they were. In fact, nobody trusted anybody but themselves”
― Henning Mankell, quote from The White Lioness
“The memories are very fucking great. I never want to forget. Ever. I’d rather die than not have these memories. Is that great enough for you?”
― Lucian Bane, quote from No Mercy
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.