“From even the greatest of horrors irony is seldom absent.”
― H.P. Lovecraft, quote from Tales of H.P. Lovecraft
“My searchlight expired, but still I ran. I heard voices, and yowls, and echoes, but above all there gently rose that impious, insidious scurrying, gently rising, rising as a stiff bloated corpse gently rises above an oily river that flows under endless onyx bridges to a black putrid sea. Something bumped into me - something soft and plump. It must have been the rats; the viscous, gelatinous, ravenous army that feast on the dead and the living...”
― H.P. Lovecraft, quote from Tales of H.P. Lovecraft
“That is what they say I said when they found me in the blackness after three hours; found me crouching in the blackness over the plump, half-eaten body of Capt. Norrys, with my own cat leaping and tearing at my throat....When I speak of poor Norrys they accuse me of a hideous thing, but they must know that I did not do it. They must know it was the rats; the slithering, scurrying rats whose scampering will never let me sleep; the daemon rats that race behind the padding in this room and beckon me down to greater horrors than I have ever known; the rats they can never hear; the rats, the rats in the walls.”
― H.P. Lovecraft, quote from Tales of H.P. Lovecraft
“And, most vivid of all, there was the dramatic epic of the rats - the scampering army of obscene vermin which had burst forth from the castle three months after the tragedy that doomed it to desertion - the lean, filthy, ravenous army which had swept all before it and devoured fowl, cats, dogs, hogs, sheep, and even two hapless human beings before its fury was spent.”
― H.P. Lovecraft, quote from Tales of H.P. Lovecraft
“This time I did not have to question the source of his snarls and hisses, and of the fear which made him sink his claws into my ankle, unconscious of their effect; for on every side of the chamber the walls were alive with nauseous sound - the verminous slithering of ravenous, gigantic rats.”
― H.P. Lovecraft, quote from Tales of H.P. Lovecraft
“Too many people go through life complaining about their problems. I've always believed that if you took one tenth the enrgy you put into complaining and applied it to solving the problem, you'd be surprised by how well things can work out.”
― Randy Pausch, quote from The Last Lecture
“Er was niets veranderd in de straat, zag ze. Het was nog steeds dezelfde rustige straat die ze altijd had gekend. Hoe was het mogelijk dat levens totaal konden veranderen, konden worden vernietigd, terwijl straten en gebouwen hetzelfde bleven, vroeg ze zich af.”
― Tatiana de Rosnay, quote from Sarah's Key
“Die Wiederholung des Möglichen ist weder ein Wiederbringen des "Vergangenen" noch ein Zurückbinden der "Gegenwart" an das "Überholte". Die Wiederholung lässt sich, einem entschlossenen Sichentwerfen entspringend, nicht vom "Vergangenen" überreden, um es als das vormals Wirkliche nur wiederkehren zu lassen. Die Wiederholung erwidert viel mehr die Möglichkeit der dagewesenen Existenz.”
― Martin Heidegger, quote from Being and Time
“There were many, many fine reasons not to go, but attempting to climb Everest is an intrinsically irrational act—a triumph of desire over sensibility. Any person who would seriously consider it is almost by definition beyond the sway of reasoned argument.”
― Jon Krakauer, quote from Into Thin Air: A Personal Account of the Mount Everest Disaster
“Consider, Mighty Creator of all things, the differences between Sindbad's life and mine. Every day I suffer a thousand hardships and misfortunes, and have hard work to get even enough bad barley bread to keep myself and my family alive, while the lucky Sindbad spends money right and left and lives upon the fat of the land! What has he done that you should give him this pleasant life— what have I done to deserve so hard a fate?”
― quote from The Arabian Nights
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.