Quotes from Smoke

“What's the point of being a hero when everyone thinks you're a villain?”
― Ellen Hopkins, quote from Smoke

“Some people
Are worthy of a bullet straight
to the heart because that is where
cruelty evolves into evil.
Some
humans aren't human at all,
despite how they appear.
Humanity is what lives inside
people,
harbored beneath skin, flesh,
and bone.”
― Ellen Hopkins, quote from Smoke

“My grandmother used to say God gives us drought years-years drained of happiness-to prepare us for bounteous times. I'm more than ready for bounty.”
― Ellen Hopkins, quote from Smoke

“Right Here.

Beside a living, breathing human
being who cares for me. I can see
it in the cool lagoons of his eyes,
hear it in the timbre of his voice
when he speaks my name.

Right here.

Where the warmth of his skin
tempers the February cold and
the thinnest beam of his inner
light overcomes winter's pall.
He is a candle in the wilderness.

Right here.

Where the omnipresent specter
of death takes flight, awed
by the power of the two of us,
hearts beating in unison, as we
stumble through the darkness

toward one another.”
― Ellen Hopkins, quote from Smoke

“Happiness is a bull's-eye, awaiting arrows of pain.”
― Ellen Hopkins, quote from Smoke

“Home. What does it mean to me? Will I ever know home again?”
― Ellen Hopkins, quote from Smoke

“Love is a pain in disguise, a scorpion lying in wait for just the right moment to strike and inject you with its poison before scuttling off into the shadows.”
― Ellen Hopkins, quote from Smoke

“But if there is a hereafter, one my father has been welcomed into, it must be a godless wasteland.”
― Ellen Hopkins, quote from Smoke

“I have no right to love you, but I do.”
― Ellen Hopkins, quote from Smoke

“Can 'love and obey' possibly go together?”
― Ellen Hopkins, quote from Smoke

“It's one thing to crave a shot of adventure, a taste of something new, and quite another to become immersed in the extraordinary, where you're not quite certain if you're safe or stuck in limbo.”
― Ellen Hopkins, quote from Smoke

“Some people blunt such pain with dope or booze or a dive into madness, but I don't have such luxuries available to me.”
― Ellen Hopkins, quote from Smoke

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Popular quotes

“Nobody with any real sense of humor *can* write a love story. . . . Shakespeare is the exception that proves the rule. (90-91)”
― L.M. Montgomery, quote from Emily Climbs

“No man can see himself unless he borrows the eyes of a friend”
― Colin Higgins, quote from Harold and Maude

“He was shivering like a Wicklow sheepdog in a snowy yard, though the weather was officially 'clement'.

The first layer of clothing was his jacket, the second his shirt, the third his long-johns, the fourth his share of lice, the fifth his share of fear.”
― Sebastian Barry, quote from A Long Long Way

“In her hurry, though, she’d forgotten to grab her pajamas, which was a dilemma. She could either go out and get them and return to the bathroom to change, or she could go out there and put them on. If Sean didn’t like it, he didn’t have to watch.
After leaving the bathroom, she turned off the overhead light in the bedroom, but it didn’t do much good. The night was clear, the moon was bright, and she knew she was all too visible when she undid her jeans and shimmied them down over her hips.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“Changing into my pajamas.”
“You always do that in the bathroom.” His voice was low and rough, but she noticed he didn’t look away.
“I forgot them, and there’s no point in going back in there.” She kicked off the jeans and was going to pull on the shorts before changing shirts, but then she remembered his stupid answers to the stupid questions in that game and changed her mind.
“The point is that you don’t do it in front of me.”
“Oh, did you forget? Being watched turns me on.” And she pulled her T-shirt over her head.
She had to bite down on a surprised yelp once she was free of it because suddenly Sean was standing in front of her, wearing nothing but blue boxer briefs and a scowl. “You said I had no imagination.”
“And having no imagination is so much worse than your best friend’s family thinking you’re an exhibitionist.”
“And we’re not ever going to talk about the other thing you said. Ever.”
He was crowding her personal space, so she put her hands on his chest to push him back, but he caught her wrists. Standing there with her palms pressed against his naked skin, she could feel his heart beating at a quickened pace that matched her own and she knew she had two choices. Walk away or end up in bed with him.
She leaned her body a little closer and splayed her fingers across his chest. “Which thing aren’t we talking about? The fast-food-joint bathroom or—”
“Don’t push me too far, Emma. It’s been a long time for me.”
“How long?”
“Too damn long.” He lifted her hands from his chest, but didn’t let go of her wrists. “And I never even got to scope out the dating situation here before you showed up at my door with this half-assed scheme.”
“And since we… You haven’t…”
“The last thing I need is to get caught cheating on a woman I can’t tell anybody I’m not really in a relationship with.” His gaze dropped from her face to her lacy white bra and he sighed. “You’re killing me.”
“Lying awake on the couch every night, wondering what it would be like to slide into bed with you has been killing me for two weeks.”
“Yeah.” He let go of her wrists and slid his hands up the back of her neck and into her hair. “I’ve thought about that, too. A lot. Pretty much constantly, actually.”
― Shannon Stacey, quote from Yours to Keep

“The smallest snowstorm on record took place an hour ago in my back yard. It was approximately two flakes. I waited for more to fall, but that was it. The entire storm was two flakes.”
― Richard Brautigan, quote from The Tokyo-Montana Express

Interesting books

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.