Quotes from Star of the Sea

“Love and freedom are such hideous words. So many cruelties have been done in their name.”
― Joseph O'Connor, quote from Star of the Sea

“Everything is in the way the material is composed.”
― Joseph O'Connor, quote from Star of the Sea

“They had no previous connection whatever with Connemara; but they saw connections where others who should have seen them simply looked the other way.”
― Joseph O'Connor, quote from Star of the Sea

“They had far more in common than either realised. One was born Catholic, the other Protestant. One was born Irish, the other British. But neither was the greatest difference between them. One was born rich and the other poor.”
― Joseph O'Connor, quote from Star of the Sea

“That each man is the sum of his choices is nothing less than the truth. And each, perhaps, is also something else.”
― Joseph O'Connor, quote from Star of the Sea

“Any assemblage comprising human beings, any family, any party, any tribe, any nation, will bind itself together not by what it shares but ultimately by what it fears, which is often so much greater. Perhaps it abhors the outsider as camouflage for its own alarms; dreading what it would do to itself were the binding to fall asunder.”
― Joseph O'Connor, quote from Star of the Sea

“It is not a matter of ends justifying means: but of the creation of new means and new ends.”
― Joseph O'Connor, quote from Star of the Sea

“How the prisoner and the immigrant are treated by the government, how the poor are treated and those without influence: this is secretly how the government would like to treat us all.”
― Joseph O'Connor, quote from Star of the Sea

“Politics' the polite word for antediluvian prejudices, the rags put on by enmity and tribal resentment.”
― Joseph O'Connor, quote from Star of the Sea

“It was mankind and not the Almighty that had ordered the universe; only a man could look at an accident and call it a creation with Himself at the centre.”
― Joseph O'Connor, quote from Star of the Sea

“...but as his father used to say when he had a few drinks taken, you couldn't expect bloody miracles when you were talking about God.”
― Joseph O'Connor, quote from Star of the Sea

“Truly the angels are come among us every day. Our difficulty is so often that in our vanity and worldliness we so utterly fail to recognise them for what they are.”
― Joseph O'Connor, quote from Star of the Sea

“We still tell each other that we are lucky to be alive, when our being alive has almost nothing to do with luck, but with geography, pigmentation, and international exchange rates.”
― Joseph O'Connor, quote from Star of the Sea

“Boredom is a bit of a bore, to say the least.”
― Joseph O'Connor, quote from Star of the Sea

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Popular quotes

“Escape from Freedom attempts to show, modern man still is anxious and tempted to surrender his freedom to dictators of all kinds, or to lose it by transforming himself into a small cog in the machine, well fed, and well clothed, yet not a free man but an automaton.”
― Erich Fromm, quote from Escape from Freedom

“I’m the only one that’s allowed to drive you to the motherfucking checkered flag.”
― K. Bromberg, quote from Crashed

“To begin a reform, go not into the places of the great and rich; go rather to those whose cups of happiness are empty--to the poor and humble.”
― Lew Wallace, quote from Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ

“My mind now has a celebration party and a funeral going on in the same room.”
― Scarlett Thomas, quote from The End of Mr. Y

“It's ridiculous. Here I sit in my little room, I, Brigge, who have got to be twenty-eight years old and about whom no one knows. I sit here and am nothing. And yet this nothing begins to think and thinks, up five flights of stairs, these thoughts on a gray Paris afternoon:

Is it possible, this nothing thinks, that one has not yet seen, recognized, and said anything real and important? Is it possible that one has had thousands of years of time to look, reflect, and write down, and that one has let the millennia pass away like a school recess in which one eats one's sandwich and an apple?
Yes, it is possible.

...Is it possible that in spite of inventions and progress, in spite of culture, religion, and worldly wisdom, that one has remained on the surface of life? Is it possible that one has even covered this surface, which would at least have been something, with an incredibly dull slipcover, so that it looks like living-room furniture during the summer vacation?
Yes, it is possible.

Is it possible that the whole history of the world has been misunderstood? Is it possible that the past is false because one has always spoken of its masses, as if one was telling about a coming together of many people, instead of telling about the one person they were standing around, because he was alien and died?
Yes, it is possible.

Is it possible that one believed one has to make up for everything that happened before one was born? Is it possible one would have to remind every single person that he arose from all earlier people so that he would know it, and not let himself be talked out of it by the others, who see it differently?
Yes, it is possible.

Is it possible that all these people know very precisely a past that never was? Is it possible that everything real is nothing to them; that their life takes its course, connected to nothing, like a clock in an empty room?
Yes, it is possible.

Is it possible that one knows nothing about girls, who are nevertheless alive? Is it possible that one says "the women", "the children", "the boys", and doesn't suspect (in spite of all one's education doesn't suspect) that for the longest time these words have no longer had a plural, but only innumerable singulars?
Yes, it is possible.

Is it possible that there are people who say "God" and think it is something they have in common? Just look at two schoolboys: one buys himself a knife, and the same day his neighbor buys one just like it. And after a week they show each other their knives and it turns out that they bear only the remotest resemblance to each other-so differently have they developed in different hands (Well, the mother of one of them says, if you boys always have to wear everything out right away). Ah, so: is it possible to believe that one could have a God without using him?
Yes, it is possible.

But, if all this is possible, has even an appearance of possibility-then for heaven's sake something has to happen. The first person who comes along, the one who has had this disquieting thought, must begin to accomplish some of what has been missed; even if he is just anyone, not the most suitable person: there is simply no one else there. This young, irrelevant foreigner, Brigge, will have to sit himself down five flights up and write, day and night, he will just have to write, and that will be that.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, quote from The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge

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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.