“Idleness was so often despised. And yet it was on idleness, she knew, that one touched meaning and peace.”
― Mary Balogh, quote from Silent Melody
“Even at its darkest moment, life was a precious gift.”
― Mary Balogh, quote from Silent Melody
“It takes chracter to refuse a man you love more dearly than life merely because marrying him would be the wrong thing to do.”
― Mary Balogh, quote from Silent Melody
“Ah, those eyes," he said. "They can speak volumes, but sometimes even I cannot translate the language. And we never did invent enough signs for deeper thoughts and feelings.”
― Mary Balogh, quote from Silent Melody
“Perhaps we should do the learning - and learn not to communicate, or to do it in a different way. Now there is a thought. Perhaps we could learn your peace if we could share your silence.”
― Mary Balogh, quote from Silent Melody
“Tis what marriage is all about, madam," he said. "Have you not realized it? 'Tis about discovering unknown facets of the character and experience and taste of one's spouse and learning to adjust one's life accordingly. 'Tis learning to hope that one's spouse is doing the same thing.”
― Mary Balogh, quote from Silent Melody
“But Ashley had always understood. He had always known there was a person behind the silence - not just a person who listened with her eyes and would have responded in similar words if she could have, but one who inhabited a world of her own and lived in it quiet as richly as anyone in his world. With Ashley there had always been a language. There had always been a way of giving him glimpses of herself.”
― Mary Balogh, quote from Silent Melody
“Gifts were dangerous things, she thought. Sometimes one succeeded only in taking far more than one gave.”
― Mary Balogh, quote from Silent Melody
“She wondered if she would have tumbled into love with him during the past week if her heart had been whole, if her soul had no been shattered long ago. She rather thought she might have. But a heart and soul could not be mended by the power of the will, she had discovered over seven years. And so she had accepted reality and moved on.”
― Mary Balogh, quote from Silent Melody
“He would never know know her. Such intimacy but no communication, because words - even if she could speak or write them - could never explain her world to him.”
― Mary Balogh, quote from Silent Melody
“That was the heart of the difference, she thought. In her world she had learned to be . Other people seemed to gain their sense of identity and worth from doing. ”
― Mary Balogh, quote from Silent Melody
“It was hard to leave. But it was impossible to stay. He was leaving from choice because he was young and energetic and adventurous and had long wanted to carve a life of his own.
He was going to new possibility, new dreams. But he was leaving behind places and people. And though, being young, he was sure he would see them all again some day, he knew too that many years might pass before he did so.
It was not easy to leave.”
― Mary Balogh, quote from Silent Melody
“There was at least as much to learn as there was to be taught.”
― Mary Balogh, quote from Silent Melody
“She was not sure that her deafness had strengthened her character. She was not even sure she had met a challenge. A silent world was as natural to her as a noisy one must be to them, she reflected. But people tended to assume that deaf persons could function as people only if they learned to conform to a world of sound. What about the challenge of silence? Very few people of hearing ever accepted it or even knew that there was a challenge there. People of hearing feared silence...”
― Mary Balogh, quote from Silent Melody
“Leave love to take its course.”
― Mary Balogh, quote from Silent Melody
“It was in idleness that one came face-to-face with the I AM. With simple, elemental Being.”
― Mary Balogh, quote from Silent Melody
“it was customary in long-past centuries on Earth for every man bold enough to aspire to the right to be considered by others and to consider himself a “conscious thinker” to be instructed, while still in the early years of his responsible existence, that man has two kinds of mentation one kind, mentation by thought, expressed by words always possessing a relative meaning, and another kind, proper to all animals as well as to man, which I would call “mentation by form.” The second kind of mentation, that is, “mentation by form”—through which, by the way, the exact meaning of all writing should be perceived and then assimilated after conscious confrontation with information previously acquired—is determined in people by the conditions of geographical locality, climate, time, and in general the whole environment in which they have arisen and in which their existence has flowed up to adulthood. Thus, in the brains of people of different races living in different geographical localities under different conditions, there arise in regard to one and the same thing or idea quite different independent forms, which during the flow of associations evoke in their being a definite sensation giving rise to a definite picturing, and this picturing is expressed by some word or other that serves only for its outer subjective expression. That is why each word for the same thing or idea almost always acquires for people of different geographical localities and races a quite specific and entirely different so to say “inner content.” In other words, if in the “presence” of a man who has arisen and grown up in a given locality a certain “form” has been fixed as a result of specific local influences and impressions, this “form” evokes in him by association the sensation of a definite “inner content,” and consequently a definite picturing or concept, for the expression of which he uses some word that has become habitual and, as I said, subjective to him, but the hearer of that word—in whose being, owing to the different conditions of his arising and growth, a form with a different “inner content” has been fixed for the given word—will always perceive and infallibly understand that word in quite another sense.”
― G.I. Gurdjieff, quote from Beelzebub's Tales to His Grandson
“But Jaypaw seemed to be guided by invisible paws, as though he walked in a secret world she could never be part of. They”
― Erin Hunter, quote from Dark River
“I don't think murder is an appropriate reaction to disappointment.”
― Vera Brosgol, quote from Anya's Ghost
“It was downright harrowing to be airborne while battleships offshore were bombarding targets ashore. Pilots flying gunnery spotting missions became sandwiched in an invisible corridor between salvos from the big ships offshore. While they spotted shell bursts and called in corrections, fourteen-hundred-pound battleship shells flew overhead in trios, plainly visible to the eye. Below, the smaller warheads of the cruisers whizzed past.”
― James D. Hornfischer, quote from The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors: The Extraordinary World War II Story of the U.S. Navy's Finest Hour
“Rain, in your glorious presence, Miss Temminnick? I hardly think it should dare.”
― Gail Carriger, quote from Curtsies & Conspiracies
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.