“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
“«Hay que comer menos para adelgazar, pero eso es muy duro para una vieja que está sola en el mundo. Necesita más cantidad para sí misma que los demás. Cuando uno no tiene al lado a nadie que le quiera, empieza a criar grasa».”
― Romain Gary, quote from The Life Before Us ("Madame Rosa'')
“I wouldn’t have to drop out of academia and take a more lucrative position waiting tables at the faculty club.”
― Leonard Mlodinow, quote from The Upright Thinkers: The Human Journey from Living in Trees to Understanding the Cosmos
“Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” Who is talking in verse 24? The writer of Genesis is talking. And what did Jesus believe about the writer of Genesis? He believed it was Moses (Luke 24:44). He also believed that Moses was inspired by God, so that what Moses was saying, God was saying. We can see this if we look carefully at Matthew 19:4–5: “[Jesus] answered, ‘Have you not read that he [God] who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said [Note: God said!], “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh”’?” Jesus said that the words of Genesis 2:24 are God’s words, even though they were written by Moses.”
― John Piper, quote from This Momentary Marriage: A Parable of Permanence
“The massive radiation exposure had failed to give him superpowers.”
― quote from Leviathan Wakes
“Then give me the order,” he growled. “You know I can’t, Alex. I can't change the plans”
― Marissa Honeycutt, quote from The Life of Anna: The Complete Story
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.