Quotes from Swimming Home

“She was not a poet. She was a poem.”
― Deborah Levy, quote from Swimming Home

“Life is only worth living because we hope it will get better and we'll all get home safely. But you tried and you did not get home safely. You did not get home at all.”
― Deborah Levy, quote from Swimming Home

“As much as I try to make the past keep still and mind its manners, it moves and murmurs with me through every day.”
― Deborah Levy, quote from Swimming Home

“It is dishonest to give me a poem and pretend to want my opinion when what you really want are reasons to live.”
― Deborah Levy, quote from Swimming Home

“... to be forceful was not the same as being powerful and to be gentle was not the same as being fragile...”
― Deborah Levy, quote from Swimming Home

“I have never got a grip on when the past begins or where it ends, but if cities map the past with statues made from bronze forever frozen in one dignified position, as much as I try to make the past keep still and mind its manners, it moves and murmurs with me through every day.”
― Deborah Levy, quote from Swimming Home

“The young woman was a window waiting to be climbed through. A window that she guessed was a little broken anyway.”
― Deborah Levy, quote from Swimming Home

“Life ia only worth living because we hope it will get better and we'll al get home safely.”
― Deborah Levy, quote from Swimming Home

“We're kissing in the rain.' Her voice was hard and soft at the same time. Like the velvet armchairs. Like the black rain inked on his hand.”
― Deborah Levy, quote from Swimming Home

“They would be enchanted beginners all over again, ... . That was the best thing to be in life.”
― Deborah Levy, quote from Swimming Home

“He lifted his arm that had been resting on her shoulders and gazed at the words she had written on his hand. He had been branded as cattle are branded to show whom they belong to. The cold mountain air stung his lips. She was driving too fast on this road that had once been a forest. Early humans had lived in it. They studied fire and the movement of the sun. They read the clouds and the moon and tried to understand the human mind His father had tried to melt him into a Polish forest when he was five years old. He knew he must leave no trace or trail of his existence because he must never find his way home. That was what his father had told him. You cannot come home. This was not something possible to know but he had to know it all the same”
― Deborah Levy, quote from Swimming Home

“This was the rearranged space of yesterday.”
― Deborah Levy, quote from Swimming Home

“I can't stand THE DEPRESSED. It's like a job, it's the only thing they work hard at.”
― Deborah Levy, quote from Swimming Home

“Has anyone ever actually told you how up yourself you are?”
― Deborah Levy, quote from Swimming Home

“To use the language of a war correspondent, which was, she knew, what Isabel Jacobs happened to be, she would have to say thay Kitty Finch was smiling at her with hostile intent.”
― Deborah Levy, quote from Swimming Home

“play with whatever the day brought in.”
― Deborah Levy, quote from Swimming Home

“Life is only worth living because we hope it will get better and we'll all get home safely.”
― Deborah Levy, quote from Swimming Home

“Next year he would suggest they hire a chalet on the edge of an icy fjord in Norway, as far away from the Jacobs family as possible.”
― Deborah Levy, quote from Swimming Home

“The truth was her husband had the final word because he wrote words and then he put full stops at the end of them. She knew this, but what did his wife know?”
― Deborah Levy, quote from Swimming Home

“I can't stand THE DEPRESSED. It's like a job. It's the only thing they work hard at. Oh good my depression is very well today. Oh good today I have another mysterious symptom and I will have another one tomorrow. The DEPRESSED are full of hate and bile and when they are not having panic attacks they are writing poems. What do they want their poems to DO? Their depression in the most VITAL thing about them. Their poems are threats. ALWAYS threats. There is no sensation keener or more active than their pain. They give nothing back except their depression. It's just another utility. Like electricity and water and gas and democracy. They could not survive without it.”
― Deborah Levy, quote from Swimming Home

About the author

Popular quotes

“Six paradoxes of Mature Socialism: 1) There’s no unemployment, but no one works; 2) no one works, but productivity goes up; 3) productivity goes up, but stores are empty; 4) stores are empty, but fridges are full; 5) fridges are full, but no one is satisfied; 6) no one is satisfied, but everyone votes yes.”
― Anya von Bremzen, quote from Mastering the Art of Soviet Cooking: A Memoir of Food and Longing

“أوقعتني الشجاعة في مأزق لم أنجو منه إلا بمزيد من هذه الشجاعة”
― quote from The Secret Life of Saeed: The Pessoptimist

“For a long time it had seemed to me that life was about to begin—real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way. Something to be got through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, a debt to be paid. Then life would begin. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life. —FR. ALFRED D’SOUZA”
― Arianna Huffington, quote from Thrive: The Third Metric to Redefining Success and Creating a Life of Well-Being, Wisdom, and Wonder

“«Si todo parece ir según el plan, intenta encontrar algo que hayas pasado por alto y que podría mandarlo todo al garete».”
― Jack Campbell, quote from Valiant

“We are all of us both light and dark, do you not find it so, Miss Tremayne? Wanting in our hearts to do right and able to do wrong. And so it’s the choices we’ve made, surely, that make of us what we are”
― Penelope Williamson, quote from The Passions of Emma

Interesting books

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.