“Not everyone is born a witch or a saint. Not everyone is born talented, or crooked, or blessed; some are born definite in no particular at all. We are a fountain of shimmering contradictions, most of us. Beautiful in the concept, if we're lucky, but frequently tedious or regrettable as we flesh ourselves out.”
“Memory is a part of the present. It builds us up inside; it knits our bones to our muscles and keeps our hearts pumping. It is memory that reminds our bodies to work, and memory that reminds our spirits to work to: it keeps us who we are.~Candle”
“It's the only condition I know. Bitter Love, Loneliness, contempt for corruption, blind hope. It's where I live. A permanent state of bereavement. This is nothing new.”
“I learned failure early and mastered it.”
“It isn't whether you do it well or ill, it's that you do it all.”
“Wisdom is not the understanding of mystery. Wisdom is accepting that mystery is beyond understanding. That's what makes it mystery.”
“I hate to be obvious," added the Scarecrow, "but you'd have saved yourself a heap of trouble if you weren't too cheap to invest in a leash, Dorothy.”
“Begging your pardon, sir....One population can't make peace with another by force.”
“Everyone dies. It's a question of where and how, that's all.”
“Before you save anyone else, you have to save yourself. otherwise, you'rejust a bundle of tics, a stringed puppet manipulated by the chance and the insensible wind.”
“at least i'm talkng to myself. instead of giving myself the cold shoulder”
“We are loping sequences of chemical conversions, acting ourselves converted. We are twists of genes acting ourselves twisted; we are wicks of burning neuroses acting ourselves wicked. And nothing to be done about it. And nothing to be done about it.”
“Forget us, forget us all, it makes no difference now, but don't forget we loved it when we were alive.”
“A capacity for inferiority in the growing adult is threatened by the temptation by squander that capacity ruthlessly, to revel in hallowness. The syndrom especially plaques anyone who lives behind a mask. An elephant in her disquise as a human princess, a scarecrow with painted features, a glittering tiara under which to glow and glide in anonymous glamour. A witch's hat, a wizards stole, a scholars gown, a soldiers dress sartorials. A hundred ways to duck the question: how will I live with myself now that I nkow what I know.”
“How could anyone live without flying?”
“A notion of character, not so much discredited as simply forgotten, once held that people only came into themselves partway through their lives. They woke up, were they lucky enough to have consciousness, in the act of doing something they already knew how to do…”
“Under every roof, a story, just as behind every brow, a history”
“I learned to fly on a broom," he said, rolling up his sleeves. "I can learn to milk a goat, I bet." Though flying on a broom proved to be the easier task, he found.”
“The wall read:
ELPHIE LIVES
OZMA LIVES
THE WIZARD LIVES
and then
EVERYONE LIVES BUT US.”
“If the unlettered farmers of Munchkinland and the factory workers of Gillikin believe that their fate is being determined by how the Time Dragon dreams them up, they don't need to bother to take responsibility for their actions or for changing their class and station in life.”
“Glinda waved dismissively. Then she tucked her hand against her mouth and bit her knuckles. It was hard to tell if her pretty ways were studied or innate.
"Oh, oh," she managed, "I don't know that I'll see you again- and you remind me so of her.”
“Sometimes thought Liir-his first thought in weeks and weeks-sometimes I hate this marvelous land of ours. It's so much like home, and then it holds out on you.”
“It's the work that's important, not the individual who does it.”
“Liir didn’t know what to say to that; he wasn’t sure what husbandry was.
“Animal husbandry,” Trism explained, though in the noise of the bar, Liir couldn’t tell if he said Animal or animal, the sentient or the nonsentient creature.
“Training for military uses,” said Trism at last. “Are you slow, or are you falling in love with me?"
”
“In the end, all disguises must drop.”
“You need my help? What for? Bread, cash, a fake identity to help you slip sideways through the cracks? Tell me what you need, tell me why I should help, and I'll see what I can do. In memory of Elphaba. You knew her." Her head titled again, but up, this time, and it was to keep the sudden wetness from spilling into her carefully colored false eyelashes. "You knew my Elphie!”
“The colossal might of wickedness, he thought: how we love to locate it massively elsewhere. But so much of it comes down to what each one of us does between breakfast and bedtime.”
“Chovia bastante naquela manhã. A luz tinha um tom acinzentado e musguento devido às nuvens baixas. Teve de admitir que a menina não era um cadáver. Estava viva. Talvez tivesse nascido gelada, mas agora estava viva. Ainda suja com o sangue do nascimento e o início aguado das suas fezes, Liir levou-a até à porta e ergue-a para a chuva. Lavada, revelou-se verde.”
“That's stupid. Everyone lies."
"Yeah, well, it's a waste of time. The more lies you tell the more stories you have to remember. Believe me: it's easier to just be honest.”
“Lucifer, the most beautiful angel of all time,became so enamored with his own beauty and power that he came to believe his light was greater than the Almighty...”
“My life is up to me to define. I needed to make my own dreams come true.”
“Shane was horrid to her, always sneering at her because she was honest and simple about the things she liked. Shane hated Stella—I think it was because Stella didn’t want to be a lady of quality. She was quite happy to be herself. That’s what really worried Shane. Shane likes people to compete so that she can make fools of them.”
“Hope when you've got nothing else, he once told us. But if you´ve got anything else, then for Heaven's sake, Do it!”
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.