“Love is like breathing. You take it in and let it out.”
― Wally Lamb, quote from She's Come Undone
“Accept what people offer. Drink their milkshakes. Take their love.”
― Wally Lamb, quote from She's Come Undone
“I think... the secret is to just settle for the shape of your life takes...Instead of you know, always waiting and wishing for what might make you happy.”
― Wally Lamb, quote from She's Come Undone
“I know it's a crock of shit. I ain't offering you happily-ever-after. I'm offering you... happily-maybe-sometimes-ever-after. Sort of. You know, with warts and shit." -Thayer”
― Wally Lamb, quote from She's Come Undone
“If you want your prayers answered, get up off your knees and do something about them.”
― Wally Lamb, quote from She's Come Undone
“It was a matter of perspective, I began to see.
The whole world was crazy; I'd flattered myself by assuming I was a semifinalist."
-- Dolores Price”
― Wally Lamb, quote from She's Come Undone
“Life seemed nearest to acceptable at four A.M.”
― Wally Lamb, quote from She's Come Undone
“This was what could happen to you: you could end up this far from where you thought you were going.”
― Wally Lamb, quote from She's Come Undone
“I usually learn more from the situations I hate than the ones I love.”
― Wally Lamb, quote from She's Come Undone
“I thought about how love was always the thing that did that - smashed into you, left you raw. The deeper you loved, the deeper it hurt.”
― Wally Lamb, quote from She's Come Undone
“He's splitting me open, I thought. He'll break me and then I'll die.”
― Wally Lamb, quote from She's Come Undone
“Here is a girl who is pretty in a quiet way. I bet she's had a very sad life.”
― Wally Lamb, quote from She's Come Undone
“All the dead bolts, pulled shades and hidden knives in the world couldn't protect you from the truth.”
― Wally Lamb, quote from She's Come Undone
“He was right. And he was an insensitive shit.”
― Wally Lamb, quote from She's Come Undone
“That time we separated was my idea. I thought, well, I'm fifty years old and there might be someone else out there. People waste their happiness - that's what makes me sad. Everyone's so scared to be happy.”
― Wally Lamb, quote from She's Come Undone
“Getting a job scared her but she was determined not to shy away from risk. That’s what life’s all about. Climbing out onto the airplane wing and jumping off.”
― Wally Lamb, quote from She's Come Undone
“But I think this: that whatever prices I've paid, whatever sorrows I shoulder, well, I have blessings, too. Not just my family now, but the others-the ones who have died...They're with me still. They're here...”
― Wally Lamb, quote from She's Come Undone
“Who gets the change?" the clerk asked. "You or...your fella?"
Oh, he's not my boyfriend," I said. "He's my mother.”
― Wally Lamb, quote from She's Come Undone
“Fuck you, I said."
Uh-oh. There's that angry word.”
― Wally Lamb, quote from She's Come Undone
“If you risked love, it took you wherever you wanted to go. If you repressed it, you ended up unhappy.”
― Wally Lamb, quote from She's Come Undone
“Life's a shit sandwich, my ass. Life's a polka and don't you forget it!”
― Wally Lamb, quote from She's Come Undone
“She preferred to get high on life.”
― Wally Lamb, quote from She's Come Undone
“You're just catching me during one of my fallow periods, that's all. One of my compost years. I'm expecting a creative leap pretty soon now.”
― Wally Lamb, quote from She's Come Undone
“She's got a certain feisty charm for a racist. Not to mention all those great dead-animal stories.”
― Wally Lamb, quote from She's Come Undone
“What if I don’t like adventure?
Then cultivate a taste for it. Take a chance. That’s how you grow.”
― Wally Lamb, quote from She's Come Undone
“Well, get used to it, the whole world is nuts.”
― Wally Lamb, quote from She's Come Undone
“Only there's two sides to every story, you know. You just remember that.”
― Wally Lamb, quote from She's Come Undone
“Eventually, I reached the other side of the chasm and understood the differences between the two men. I no longer hated Daddy: he had been a shitty father and a shitty husband - a man who's made two bad choices based on lust and coveting and then been too weak either to live with them or undo them. But he had not been a rapist.”
― Wally Lamb, quote from She's Come Undone
“Just don't ever let it happen to you, Dolores. Let people just shit all over you. Don't you ever become some man's personal toilet that way I did.”
― Wally Lamb, quote from She's Come Undone
“You do not strike me as a Lothario. You're far too serious for the part.'
'Oh? I did give it a small try, if you recall. And your mouth tasted quite sweet. But perhaps I was too subtle?'
From an airy exchange of quips, he had suddenly moved onto solid ground ... 'You're a skillful flirt,' she managed. 'I will give you that.'
'And you're no flirt at all. Come, give it a try. Tell me how a rogue charms a woman, if not through sober, industrious application.'
Her lips twitched. 'That sounds like the factory brand of roguery. But all you need do is attend to a woman's vanity, I suppose.'
'Ah, yes. Of course. It comes back to me now; I've been going about it all wrong. THe first thing I should have said is that you are the most beautiful woman I've ever seen.'
She laughed despite herself. 'That's a clever sort of compliment, seeing as it reserves you the right to change your mind with the next woman you meet.”
― Meredith Duran, quote from The Duke of Shadows
“I am terrified by this dark thing
That sleeps in me;
All day I feel its soft, feathery turnings, its malignity.
Clouds pass and disperse.
Are those the faces of love, those pale irretrievables?
Is it for such I agitate my heart?
I am incapable of more knowledge.
What is this, this face
So murderous in its strangle of branches? -
Its snaky acids kiss.
It petrifies the will. These are the isolate, slow faults
That kill, that kill, that kill.
From the poem "Elm", 19 April 1962”
― Sylvia Plath, quote from The Collected Poems
“You tried. That was all you could do. All any of us can do....”
― Elizabeth Vaughan, quote from Warprize
“I 'ad a toy when I was little,' said Suzy. She frowned for a moment, then added, 'Can't remember what it was. It moved and made me laugh...”
― Garth Nix, quote from Superior Saturday
“Man knows, and in the course of years he comes to know it increasingly well, feeling it ever more acutely, that memory is weak and fleeting, and if he doesn't write down what he has learned and experienced, that which he carries within him will perish when he does. This is when it seems everyone wants to write a book. Singers and football players, politicians and millionaires. And if they themselves do not know how, or else lack the time, they commission someone else to do it for them...engendering this reality is the impression of writing as a simple pursuit, though those who subscribe to that view might do well to ponder Thomas Mann's observation that, 'a writer is a man for whom writing is more difficult than it is for others”
― Ryszard Kapuściński, quote from Travels with Herodotus
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.