“There was no more meaningless phrase in all of language than "Cheer up!" The only way to get someone to cheer up was to help them forget, and saying "cheer up" had quite the opposite effect, only reminding the person why he or she was depressed in the first place.”
― Kōji Suzuki, quote from Spiral
“People can endure almost anything but there's one thing they can't survive. Man is an animal that can't stand boredom”
― Kōji Suzuki, quote from Spiral
“Right. Mutation is the trigger that moves evolution forward. So, how do mutations happen?”
― Kōji Suzuki, quote from Spiral
“There was no more meaningless phrase in all of language than “Cheer up!”
― Kōji Suzuki, quote from Spiral
“DNA was the chemical material on which hereditary information was recorded, while a gene was one unit of that nearly infinite amount of hereditary information.”
― Kōji Suzuki, quote from Spiral
“modern science hasn’t managed to come up with answers to any of the most basic questions. How did life first appear on earth? How does evolution work? Is it a series of random events, or does it have a set teleological direction? There are all kinds of theories, but we haven’t been able to prove one of them. The structure of the atom is not a miniature of the solar system, it’s something much more difficult to grasp, full of what you might call latent power. And when we try to observe the subatomic world, we find that the mind of the observer comes into play in subtle ways. The mind, my friend! The very same mind which, ever since Descartes, proponents of the mechanistic view of the universe considered subordinate to the body-machine. And now we find that the mind influences observed results. So I give up. Nothing surprises me. I’m prepared to accept anything that happens in this world. I actually kind of envy people who can still believe in the omnipotence of modern science.”
― Kōji Suzuki, quote from Spiral
“and saying “cheer up” had quite the opposite effect, only reminding the person why he or she was depressed in the first place.”
― Kōji Suzuki, quote from Spiral
“Only when he was conducting an autopsy could he forget the death of his beloved son. Ironically, playing with dead bodies released him from the death that had touched him.”
― Kōji Suzuki, quote from Spiral
Kōji Suzuki
Born place: in Hamamatsu, Japan
Born date May 13, 1957
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“Success is as dangerous as failure.
Hope is as hollow as fear.”
― Lao Tzu, quote from Tao Te Ching
“The place to improve the world is first in one's own heart and head and hands, and then work outward from there.”
― Robert M. Pirsig, quote from Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values
“The old man might have been drunk, but he was right. Outsiders have robbed and exploited the people of the Congo ever since the days of the first European and Arab slavers. The territory that Stanley staked in the name of Leopold witnessed what many regard as the first genocide of the modern era, when millions of Congolese were effectively worked to death trying to meet the colonialists’ almost insatiable demand for resources, most notably rubber. And since independence, foreign powers have toyed with the Congo, stripping its mineral assets and exploiting its strategic position, never mindful of the suffering inflicted on its people. And that really was the point. At every stage of its bloody history, outsiders have tended to treat Congolese as somehow sub-human, not worthy of the consideration they would expect for themselves. For progress to be made, outsiders must treat Congolese as equals and they could do worse than follow the example of an amazing white woman I discovered after we got back to Kalemie.”
― Tim Butcher, quote from Blood River: A Journey to Africa's Broken Heart
“Taren Ferry folk had a reputation for slyness and trickery. If you shook hands with a Taren Ferry man, people said, you counted your fingers afterwards.”
― Robert Jordan, quote from The Eye of the World
“And remember: you must never, under any circumstances, despair. To hope and to act, these are our duties in misfortune.”
― Boris Pasternak, quote from Doctor Zhivago
Into the Forest
Sword in the Storm
Incendiary
Willing Captive
The Spectacular Now
Looking for Alibrand...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.
