“Sooner or later, all games become serious.”
― J.G. Ballard, quote from Super-Cannes
“If their work is satisfying people don't need leisure in the old-fashioned sense. No one ever asks what Newton or Darwin did to relax, or how Bach spent his weekends. At Eden-Olympia work is the ultimate play, and play the ultimate work.”
― J.G. Ballard, quote from Super-Cannes
“The twentieth century ended with its dreams in ruins. The notion of the community as a voluntary association of enlightened citizens has died forever. We realize how suffocatingly humane we've become, dedicated to moderation and the middle way. The suburbanization of the soul has overrun our planet like the plague.”
― J.G. Ballard, quote from Super-Cannes
“The house was silent, but somewhere in the garden was a swimming pool filled with unsettled water.”
― J.G. Ballard, quote from Super-Cannes
“The film festival measured a mile in length, from the Martinez to the Vieux Port, where sales executives tucked into their platters of fruits de mer, but was only fifty yards deep. For a fortnight the Croisette and its grand hotels willingly became a facade, the largest stage set in the world. Without realizing it, the crowds under the palm trees were extras recruited to play their traditional roles. As they cheered and hooted, they were far more confident than the film actors on display, who seemed ill at ease when they stepped from their limos, like celebrity criminals ferried to a mass trial by jury at the Palais, a full-scale cultural Nuremberg furnished with film clips of the atrocities they had helped to commit.”
― J.G. Ballard, quote from Super-Cannes
“I love the smell of male urine and the reek of his groin on my bath towels after he’d had a shower”
― J.G. Ballard, quote from Super-Cannes
“People no longer need enemies--in this millennium their great dream is to become victims. Only their psychopathies can set them free...”
― J.G. Ballard, quote from Super-Cannes
“Nothing about sex ever shocks women. At least, men’s kind of sex.”
― J.G. Ballard, quote from Super-Cannes
“Miller’s bringing his buns!” I shout back. “But I was going to make my pineapple upside-down cake!” I laugh to myself, all the way to work.”
― Jodi Ellen Malpas, quote from Promised
“I don’t like to think too far ahead about what’s waiting around the corner. I like to be prepared, but not troubled.”
― Terry Brooks, quote from The High Druid's Blade
“ربما أطلق في المستقبل على عصرنا هذا اسم زمن السخرية.”
― Erich Maria Remarque, quote from The Night in Lisbon
“A trap is only a trap if you don't know about it. If you know about it, it's a challenge.”
― China Miéville, quote from King Rat
“Based upon my experience with losing my left mind, I whole-heartedly believe that the feeling of deep inner peace is neurological circuitry located in our right brain.”
― Jill Bolte Taylor, quote from My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist's Personal Journey
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.