“No point in wasting time with false vanity when you possess the real thing.”
― Alan Bradley, quote from Speaking from Among the Bones
“I wanted to cry.
I also wanted to go to my laboratory and prepare an enormous batch of nitrogen triiodide with which to blow up, in a spectacular mushroom cloud of purple vapor, the world and everyone in it.”
― Alan Bradley, quote from Speaking from Among the Bones
“Was sorrow, in the end, a private thing? A closed container? Something that, like a bucket of water, could be borne only on a single pair of shoulders?”
― Alan Bradley, quote from Speaking from Among the Bones
“I was the eighth dwarf. Sneaky.”
― Alan Bradley, quote from Speaking from Among the Bones
“There's an unwritten law of the universe which assures that the thing you seek will always be found in the last place you look. It applies to everything in life from lost socks to misplaced poisons. . .”
― Alan Bradley, quote from Speaking from Among the Bones
“IT WAS ONE OF those glorious days in March when the air was so fresh that you worshipped every whiff of it; that each breath of the intoxicating stuff created such new universes in your lungs and brain you were certain you were about to explode with sheer joy; one of those blustery days of scudding clouds and piddling showers and gum boots and wind-blown brollies that made you know you were truly alive.”
― Alan Bradley, quote from Speaking from Among the Bones
“I was learning that the best conversations consisted of keeping quiet and listening, and speaking, when one spoke at all, in words of a single syllable.”
― Alan Bradley, quote from Speaking from Among the Bones
“I had found by experience that putting things down on paper helped to clear the mind in precisely the same way, as Mrs. Mullet had taught me, that an eggshell clarifies the consommé or the coffee, which, of course, is a simple matter of chemistry. The albumin contained in the eggshell has the property of collecting and binding the rubbish that floats in the dark liquid, which can then be removed and discarded in a single reeking clot: a perfect description of the writing process.”
― Alan Bradley, quote from Speaking from Among the Bones
“As was your mother, you have been given the fatal gift of genius. Because of it, your life will not be an easy one - nor must you expect it to be. You must remember always that great gifts come at great cost.”
― Alan Bradley, quote from Speaking from Among the Bones
“The word “actually,” like its cousin “frankly,” should, by itself, be a tip-off to most people that what is to follow is a blatant lie— but it isn’t.”
― Alan Bradley, quote from Speaking from Among the Bones
“Ordinarily, anyone who made such a remark to my face would go to the top of my short list for strychnine.”
― Alan Bradley, quote from Speaking from Among the Bones
“Why do people always quote hamlet when they want to seem clever?”
― Alan Bradley, quote from Speaking from Among the Bones
“Could it be that goodness waxes and wanes like the moon, and that only evil is constant?”
― Alan Bradley, quote from Speaking from Among the Bones
“We Three Kings of Leicester Square,
Selling ladies’ underwear,
So fantastic, no elastic,
Only tuppence a pair.”
― Alan Bradley, quote from Speaking from Among the Bones
“Revenge is a dish best eaten cold. The reason for this, of course, is that while you're gleefully anticipating the event, the victim has plenty of time to worry about when, where, and how you're going to strike.”
― Alan Bradley, quote from Speaking from Among the Bones
“The best thing for soothing a disappointed mind is oxygen. A couple of deep inhalations of the old “O” rejuvenates every cell in the body.”
― Alan Bradley, quote from Speaking from Among the Bones
“The press was ruthless, but then so was the church.
Flavia de Luce”
― Alan Bradley, quote from Speaking from Among the Bones
“History is like the kitchen sink,” Adam answered. “Everything goes round and round until eventually, sooner or later, most of it goes down the waste pipe. Things are forgotten. Things are mislaid. Things are covered up. Sometimes, it’s simply a matter of neglect.”
― Alan Bradley, quote from Speaking from Among the Bones
“There had fallen between us what Dogger once referred to as "a companionable silence," a little parcel of time during which neither of us felt any particular need to talk.”
― Alan Bradley, quote from Speaking from Among the Bones
“Whenever I’m a little blue I think about cyanide, whose color so perfectly reflects my mood. It is pleasant to think that the manioc plant, which grows in Brazil, contains enormous quantities of the stuff in its thirty-pound roots, all of which, unfortunately, is washed away before the residue is used to make our daily tapioca.”
― Alan Bradley, quote from Speaking from Among the Bones
“I dwelt there by choice in privacy and peace.”
― Alan Bradley, quote from Speaking from Among the Bones
“I flipped on the switch marked "Shuddering Sobs," but nothing came.
Damnation! I used to be a dab hand at water on demand. What on earth was happening to me? Was I becoming hardened? Was this what being twelve was going to be like?”
― Alan Bradley, quote from Speaking from Among the Bones
“Lobsters, snails, crabs, clams, squids, slugs, and members of the European royal families, by contrast, have blue blood, due to the fact that it’s based on copper rather than iron.”
― Alan Bradley, quote from Speaking from Among the Bones
“You can pray in the churchyard," the sergeant said. "The Lord has large ears.”
― Alan Bradley, quote from Speaking from Among the Bones
“There are things that are worse than glass and crocodiles.”
― Alan Bradley, quote from Speaking from Among the Bones
“I had once remarked to Feely that, because of the oxygen, breathing fresh air was like breathing God, but she had slapped my face and told me I was being blasphemous.”
― Alan Bradley, quote from Speaking from Among the Bones
“I did not elaborate, nor did I need to. The human imagination is capable of anything when left on its own to fill in the blanks.”
― Alan Bradley, quote from Speaking from Among the Bones
“Even after five hundred years?” “A seed is a remarkable vessel,” he told me. “Our one true time machine. Each of them is capable of bringing the past, alive, into the present. Think of that!”
― Alan Bradley, quote from Speaking from Among the Bones
Alan Bradley
Born place: Toronto, Canada
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“Find your bed, Martise. I’ll be up for some time. This is bandit country, and we’ll each take a watch. Put your blankets with mine. We’ll stay warmer that way. And keep your shoes on. I’ll join you soon.” She’d grown used to him curled against her in sleep. Even the light snores purred into her ear comforted her, and there was always the possibility that when he awakened, he’d want her beneath him. Or atop him. Martise blushed at the sensual images playing in her mind. She prepared their bed as he instructed, crawled under the blankets—with her shoes on—and fell asleep. She woke when Silhara slid beneath the blankets and spooned against her. He laid his arm across her waist and wedged his leg between hers through her heavy skirts. His sigh tickled her ear. “Far better if you were bare, but this will do.”
― Grace Draven, quote from Master of Crows
“The hours slipped by, and the men and the girls talked and talked as only communists of that wild and irresponsible period could talk when they were omong themselves. They were as preoccupied with their own importance and their revolutionairy tasks as children are with new and engrossing toys. I listened as if under a spell. After all, compared with the tight-lipped conspirators of a later decade, we were like children partaking of a heavy wine.”
― Jan Valtin, quote from Out of the Night: The Memoir of Richard Julius Herman Krebs alias Jan Valtin
“Most humans, in varying degrees, are already dead. In one way or another they have lost their dreams, their ambitions, their desire for a better life. They have surrendered their fight for self-esteem and they have compromised their great potential. They have settled for a life of mediocrity, days of despair and nights of tears. They are no more than living deaths confined to cemeteries of their choice. Yet they need not remain in that state. They can be resurrected from their sorry condition. They can each perform the greatest miracle in the world. They can each come back from the dead...”
― Og Mandino, quote from The Greatest Miracle in the World
“As the playwright George Bernard Shaw once put it: “The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”
― Malcolm Gladwell, quote from David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants (Audio CD)
“For those who are not frightened by the solitude, everything will have a different taste.
In solitude, they will discover the love that might otherwise arrive unnoticed.
In solitude, they will understand and respect the love that left them.
In solitude, they will be able to decide whether it is worth asking that lost love to come back or if they should simply let it go and set off along a new path.
In solitude, they will learn that saying ‘No’ does not always show a lack of generosity and that saying ‘Yes’ is not always a virtue.
And those who are alone at this moment, need never be frightened by the words of the devil: ‘You’re wasting your time.’
Or by the chief demon’s even more potent words: ‘No one cares about you.’
The Divine Energy is listening to us when we speak to other people, but also when we are still and silent and able to accept solitude as a blessing.
And when we achieve that harmony, we receive more than we asked for.”
― Paulo Coelho, quote from Akras manuskripts
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Lola and the Boy Nex...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.
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