Quotes from Seven Gothic Tales

“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

About the author

Popular quotes

“If your faith is strong enough, she'll be healed.' If I've heard that once, I've heard it a thousand times. The problem is, when someone tells you that, they're not asking you to put faith in the power of God; they're asking you to put faith in the power of your own faith. And I can't even pretend that my mustard-seed faith measures up to the promises of God.”
― quote from Miracles from Heaven: A Little Girl, Her Journey to Heaven, and Her Amazing Story of Healing

“All at once we were madly, clumsily, shamelessly, agonizingly in love with each other; hopelessly, I should add, because that frenzy of mutual possession might have been assuaged only by our actually imbibing and assimilating every particle of each other's soul and flesh; but there we were, unable even to mate as slum children would have so easily found an opportunity to do so.”
― Vladimir Nabokov, quote from The Annotated Lolita

“Zijn dit kaartjes voor de eerste klas?' vroeg Kady plotseling... 'En een reservering voor de duurste suite in het Savoy?'
...
'... ze pakken het wel heel groots aan,' zei Jake behoedzaam... 'Er zijn vast camera's,' ging hij door...
'Nou, een heel kort reisje dan. Misschien valt het wel mee.”
― James Rollins, quote from Jake Ransom and the Skull King's Shadow

“There is a lot of talking in human culture,” Venomous told the other male in a low aside. “They debate everything and need words to calm them. I wager there is much talking during this custom. Watch me as I make our mate happy with words.”
― Penelope Fletcher, quote from Venomous

“С такива върхове на пръстите жената като че ли прекрачваше обсега на обикновено човешкото. Или може би преследваше самата женственост? Раковина, огряна от багрите в нея, окъпано в роса венчелистче – хрумваха ми най-очевидните сравнения. Но същевременно не се сещах са никаква раковина, за никакво венчелистче, чийто цвят да прилича на тях. Бяха ноктите върху пръстите на момичето, несравними с нищо друго на света. По-бистри и по-прозрачни от най-тънката и фина раковина, и от най-деликатното листенце, те като че ли съдържаха роса на трагедия. Всеки ден и всяка нощ цялата ѝ енергия отиваше да шлифова тази трагична женска красота. Тази красота проникна в моята самота. И вероятно самотата ми покапа по ноктите на момичето и ги превърна в капчици трагедия.”
― Yasunari Kawabata, quote from House of the Sleeping Beauties and Other Stories

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.