Quotes from Slow Down

“Everything is so fast and awful, isn't it, Noah?"

"The world has become like that.”
― Lee Matthew Goldberg, quote from Slow Down

“I watched him spread out his arms with a smile before he crashed through the table in a beautiful crescendo, the glass sounding like tinkles from a piano as its shavings glittered across the floor and sliced through his face and body.”
― Lee Matthew Goldberg, quote from Slow Down

“Hollywood is bigger down right now by sequels, by the uninspired. Well, my M.O. is a two-hour feast for your senses. That means starting the concept of filmmaking from scratch, making it your own.”
― Lee Matthew Goldberg, quote from Slow Down

“The music grew louder, faster, as we saw an empty couch on the balcony and ran to get it, pushed aside another couple darting for the same thing, but it was ours, and we smiled wide, laughing at our fortune, our couch.”
― Lee Matthew Goldberg, quote from Slow Down

“I wanted solitude, but a treasure like that didn't exist in the city. I only found silence in Central Park, still littered with people of course, but the only place that held moments of calm. I breathed in that wonderful silence as my pace finally slowed, and nature delighted my senses.”
― Lee Matthew Goldberg, quote from Slow Down

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“The hospital is as busy as it was yesterday. We go in through the main entrance, and people walk in every direction. The people in scrubs and white coats all walk a little bit faster. There’s a guy sleeping on one of the waiting room sofas, and a hugely pregnant woman leaning against the wall by the elevator. She’s swirling a drink in a plastic cup. That baby is giving her T-shirt a run for its money. A toddler is throwing a tantrum somewhere down the hallway. The shrieking echoes.

We move to the bank of elevators, too, and Melonhead isn’t one of those guys who insists on pressing a button that’s already lit. He smiles and says “Good afternoon” to the pregnant woman, but I can’t look away from her swollen belly.

My mother is going to look like that.

My mother is going to have a baby.

My brain still can’t process this.

Suddenly, the woman’s abdomen twitches and shifts. It’s startling, and my eyes flick up to find her face.

She laughs at my expression. “He’s trying to get comfortable.”

The elevator dings, and we all get on. Her stomach keeps moving.

I realize I’m being a freak, but it’s the creepiest thing I’ve ever seen. I can’t stop staring.

She laughs again, softly, then comes closer. “Here. You can feel it.”

“It’s okay,” I say quickly.

Melonhead chuckles, and I scowl.

“Not too many people get to touch a baby before it’s born,” she says, her voice still teasing. “You don’t want to be one of the chosen few?”

“I’m not used to random women asking me to touch them,” I say.

“This is number five,” she says. “I’m completely over random people touching me. Here.” She takes my wrist and puts my hand right over the twitching.

Her belly is firmer than I expect, and we’re close enough that I can look right down her shirt. I’m torn between wanting to pull my hand back and not wanting to be rude.

Then the baby moves under my hand, something firm pushing right against my fingers. I gasp without meaning to.

“He says hi,” the woman says.

I can’t stop thinking of my mother. I try to imagine her looking like this, and I fail.

I try to imagine her encouraging me to touch the baby, and I fail.

Four months.

The elevator dings.

“Come on, Murph,” says Melonhead.

I look at the pregnant lady. I have no idea what to say. Thanks?

“Be good,” she says, and takes a sip of her drink.

The elevator closes and she’s gone”
― Brigid Kemmerer, quote from Letters to the Lost

“Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of the search is a second's encounter with God and with eternity.”
― Paulo Coelho, quote from Alkimist

“When the war (WWI) finally ended it was necessary for both sides to maintain, indeed even to inflate, the myth of sacrifice so that the whole affair would not be seen for what it was: a meaningless waste of millions of lives. Logically, if the flower of youth had been cut down in Flanders, the survivors were not the flower: the dead were superior to the traumatized living. In this way, the virtual destruction of a generation further increased the distance between the old and the young, between the official and the unofficial.”
― Robert Hughes, quote from The Shock of the New

“Among the words first found in Shakespeare are abstemious, antipathy, critical, frugal, dwindle, extract, horrid, vast, hereditary, critical, excellent, eventful, barefaced, assassination, lonely, leapfrog, indistinguishable, well-read, zany, and countless others (including countless).”
― Bill Bryson, quote from Shakespeare: The World as Stage

“Fifty for a werewolf. That was plenty, for the work had been easy. The werewolf hadn’t even fought back. Driven into a cave from which there was no escape, it had knelt down and waited for the sword to fall. The Witcher had felt sorry for it. But he needed the money.”
― Andrzej Sapkowski, quote from Time of Contempt

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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.