Quotes from Shoeless Joe

“Baseball is the most perfect of games, solid, true, pure and precious as diamonds. If only life were so simple. Within the baselines anything can happen. Tides can reverse; oceans can open. That's why they say, "the game is never over until the last man is out." Colors can change, lives can alter, anything is possible in this gentle, flawless, loving game.”
― W.P. Kinsella, quote from Shoeless Joe

“God what an outfield,' he says. 'What a left field.' He looks up at me, and I look down at him. 'This must be heaven,' he says.

No. It's Iowa,' I reply automatically. But then I feel the night rubbing softly against my face like cherry blossoms; look at the sleeping girl-child in my arms, her small hand curled around one of my fingers; think of the fierce warmth of the woman waiting for me in the house; inhale the fresh-cut grass small that seems locked in the air like permanent incense; and listen to the drone of the crowd, as below me Shoelss Joe Jackson tenses, watching the angle of the distant bat for a clue as to where the ball will be hit.

I think you're right, Joe,' I say, but softly enough not to disturb his concentration.”
― W.P. Kinsella, quote from Shoeless Joe

“Any game becomes important when you know and love the players.”
― W.P. Kinsella, quote from Shoeless Joe

“I don't have to tell you that the one constant through all the years has been baseball. America has been erased like a blackboard, only to be rebuilt and then erased again. But baseball has marked time while America has rolled by like a procession of steamrollers.”
― W.P. Kinsella, quote from Shoeless Joe

“Success is getting what you want. Happiness is wanting what you get.

[Eddie Scissons]”
― W.P. Kinsella, quote from Shoeless Joe

“Writers are magicians. They write down words, and, if they’re good, you believe that what they write is real, just as you believe a good magician has pulled the coins out of your ear, or made his assistant disappear. But the words on the page have no connection to the person who wrote them. Writers live other peoples’ lives for them.”
― W.P. Kinsella, quote from Shoeless Joe

“Once you’ve been touched by the land, the wind never blows so cold again, because your love files the edges off it.”
― W.P. Kinsella, quote from Shoeless Joe

“Your work has been described as touching the soul of the reader. That's the way I felt. Feel. Honestly. You've touched my soul. I'm sorry if I sound like a middle-aged librarian at a book-autographing session.”
― W.P. Kinsella, quote from Shoeless Joe

“I have to absorb the new season like sunlight, letting it turn my winter skin pink and then brown. I must stuff myself with lore and statistics until my fingers ooze balm.”
― W.P. Kinsella, quote from Shoeless Joe

“You have to make time, even for something as universal as staring at the stars.”
― W.P. Kinsella, quote from Shoeless Joe

“Growing up is a ritual, more deadly than religion, more complicated than baseball, for there seem to be no rules. Everything is experienced for the first time.”
― W.P. Kinsella, quote from Shoeless Joe

“I live. I write. I watch old movies. I read. I watch the sunset. I watch the moon rise.”
― W.P. Kinsella, quote from Shoeless Joe

“A ballpark at night is more like a church than a church”
― W.P. Kinsella, quote from Shoeless Joe

“I dream of things that never were,”
― W.P. Kinsella, quote from Shoeless Joe

“I'm not trying to bleed you. I want to renew you.”
― W.P. Kinsella, quote from Shoeless Joe

“If I had my life to live over again, I’d take more chances. I’d want more passion in my life. Less fear and more passion, more risk. Even if you fail, you’ve still taken a risk.”
― W.P. Kinsella, quote from Shoeless Joe

“Serenity is a very elusive quality. I've been trying all my life to find it.”
― W.P. Kinsella, quote from Shoeless Joe

“Success is getting what you want. Happiness is wanting what you get.”
― W.P. Kinsella, quote from Shoeless Joe

“Writers are magicians. They write down words, and, if they’re good, you believe that what they write is real, just as you believe a good magician has pulled the coins out of your ear, or made his assistant disappear. But the words on the page have no connection to the person who wrote them. Writers live other peoples’ lives for them. I don’t write autobiography.”
― W.P. Kinsella, quote from Shoeless Joe

“I wonder if there are soft-spoken voices who deliver assignments to all of us in various times ... It is nice to think I have company-that others dance to the muted music I hear.”
― W.P. Kinsella, quote from Shoeless Joe

“I am more than a little jealous that the wonder I am party to has been sprinkled over Salinger's gray head.”
― W.P. Kinsella, quote from Shoeless Joe

“In these days when anything goes in literature, movies, and even TV, to think there are some places so isolated, so backward, so ill-informed as to what’s going on in the world”
― W.P. Kinsella, quote from Shoeless Joe

“Writers are magicians. They write down words, and, if they're good, you believe that what they write is real, just as you believe a good magician has pulled the coins out of your ear, or made his assistant disappear.”
― W.P. Kinsella, quote from Shoeless Joe

“He pops a bat twice more on home plate, then tosses a ball in the air and swings. The crack of the bat sounds like a paper bag exploding, yet the sound is cold and lonely, too, like a hunter firing on an endless tundra.”
― W.P. Kinsella, quote from Shoeless Joe

“He cranks up his arm, rears back, and throws, and the ball, taking an even more perfect path than it took off the bat, travels in a white arc, seeming to leave behind a line like a streak of forgotten rainbow as it drops over the fence, silent as a star falling into a distant ocean.”
― W.P. Kinsella, quote from Shoeless Joe

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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.