“There are some words that once spoken will split the world in two. There would be the life before you breathed them and then the altered life after they'd been said. They take a long time to find, words like that. They make you hesitate. Choose with care. Hold on to them unspoken for as long as you can just so your world will stay intact.”
― Andrea Levy, quote from Small Island
“He looked so pained that I dreamed of taking his hands and making him dance”
― Andrea Levy, quote from Small Island
“Describe snow to someone who's lived in the desert. Depict the colour blue for a blind man. Almost impossible to fashion the word.”
― Andrea Levy, quote from Small Island
“Paved with gold, no - but, yes, diamonds appear on the ground in the rain”
― Andrea Levy, quote from Small Island
“Why you wan' the whole world when ya have a likkle piece a hope here? Stay. Stay and fight, man. Fight till you look 'pon what you wan' see.”
― Andrea Levy, quote from Small Island
“Gilbert: How Clark Gable turn every women's head so? Foolish young English girls would see a movie star in every GI with the same Yankee-doodle voice. Glamour in US privates named Jed, Buck or Chip, with their easy-come-by-gifts and Uncle Sam sweet-talk. Dreamboats in hooligans from Delaware or Arizona with fingernails that still carried soil from home, and eyes that crossed with any attempt at reading. Heart-throbs from men like those in the tea-shop, who dated their very close relatives and knew cattle as their mental equal.”
― Andrea Levy, quote from Small Island
“There are some words that once spoken will split the world in two. There would be the life before you breathed them and then the altered life after they'd been said. They take a long time to find, words like that. They make you hesitate. Choose with care.”
― Andrea Levy, quote from Small Island
“No, no, no, no. Don't get carried away, man. One thaw is not the summer.”
― Andrea Levy, quote from Small Island
“A mass whose desperation made them seem like the feckless, and whose drab presence drained the classroom of all colours until even the white potties at the corner glinted like diamonds. I will never forgive Hitler for turning human beings into that.”
― Andrea Levy, quote from Small Island
Andrea Levy
Born place: in London, The United Kingdom
Born date March 7, 1956
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“His voice was soft as his pet name for me rolled off his gorgeous lips. And the way he looked at me… I could ask for the Hope diamond on a silver platter and I had little doubt he would figure out a way to bring it to me.”
― Meredith Wild, quote from Hard Limit
“for unfortunately the person most dogged in the belief in a false reputation is always that one, the possessor, who has the best means of knowing that it is not true.”
― Thomas Hardy, quote from A Pair of Blue Eyes
“One of the best characteristics of the Tibetan people is their complete tolerance of other creeds. Their monastic theocracy has never sought the conversion of infidels.”
― Heinrich Harrer, quote from Seven Years in Tibet (Paladin Books)
“Los zorros del desierto de Sechura aúllan como demonios cuando llega la noche; ¿sabes por qué?: para quebrar el silencio que los aterroriza.”
― Mario Vargas Llosa, quote from The Time of the Hero
“There is no small irony here: An administration which flaunted its intellectual superiority and its superior academic credentials made the most critical of decisions with virtually no input from anyone who had any expertise on the recent history of that part of the world, and it in no way factored in the entire experience of the French Indochina War. Part of the reason for this were the upheavals of the McCarthy period, but in part it was also the arrogance of men of the Atlantic; it was as if these men did not need to know about such a distant and somewhat less worthy part of the world. Lesser parts of the world attracted lesser men; years later I came upon a story which illustrated this theory perfectly. Jack Langguth, a writer and college classmate of mine, mentioned to a member of that Administration that he was thinking of going on to study Latin American history. The man had turned to him, his contempt barely concealed, and said, “Second-rate parts of the world for second-rate minds.”
― David Halberstam, quote from The Best and the Brightest
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Limits of DestinyBookQuoters 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.
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