“Incredible the animal that first dreamed of another animal.”
― Carlos Fuentes, quote from Terra Nostra
“Normality; show me normality, señor caballero, and I will show you an exception to the abnormal order of the universe; show me a normal event and I shall call it miraculous because it is normal.”
― Carlos Fuentes, quote from Terra Nostra
“Since I neither want not can influence the events of the world, my mission is to preserve the internal integrity and equilibrium of my mind; that will be in which the manor in which I recover the purity of the original act; I shall be my own citadel, and to it I shall retire to protect myself against a hostile and corrupt world. I shall be my own citadel and, within it, my own and only citizen.”
― Carlos Fuentes, quote from Terra Nostra
“The mystery of other individuals, señor caballero, is ordinarily grief we neither share nor understand.”
― Carlos Fuentes, quote from Terra Nostra
“all that was left to me was certain images and all of them spoke to me of the collapse of a cruel world and the slow construction in its stead of another world, equally cruel.”
― Carlos Fuentes, quote from Terra Nostra
“Power does not alter a man's character. It merely reveals it.”
― Carlos Fuentes, quote from Terra Nostra
“But reason... tells us that merely with repetition the extraordinary becomes ordinary, and only briefly abandoned, what had once passed for a common and ordinary occurrence becomes a portent:”
― Carlos Fuentes, quote from Terra Nostra
“It is true that every mountain has four faces, and one tends to know but one.
― Carlos Fuentes, Terra Nostra”
― Carlos Fuentes, quote from Terra Nostra
“He himself felt defeated because he was fighting against something he did not hate, because he did not understand the fratricidal hatred between the sons of Araby and Israel, and because he loved and knew and appreciated and wanted to save the merits of their cultures, although not the cruelty of their powers; he knew and loved the fountains and the gardens and the patios and high towers of al-Andalus, the nature that has been made more beautiful by man for man's pleasure, not for his mortification.”
― Carlos Fuentes, quote from Terra Nostra
“You can’t bring an unwritten place to life without losing something substantial. Manila is the cradle, the graveyard, the memory. The Mecca, the Cathedral, the bordello. The shopping mall, the urinal, the discotheque. I’m hardly speaking in metaphor. It’s the most impermeable of cities. How does one convey all that?”
― Miguel Syjuco, quote from Ilustrado
“Aren’t you scared of him?’ Amy asked, slumping down and trying to make herself inconspicuous. ‘He always looks so fierce. Don’t you remember that time he nearly caught us on his land? I was sure he’d give us a beating if he’d got hold of us.’ ‘Humph! My pa would have had something to say to him if he had.’ ‘That wouldn’t have been much comfort.’ ‘Yes, it would. Anyway, who’d be scared of him—sour old man like that.’ Lizzie dismissed Charlie Stewart with a wave of her hand.”
― Shayne Parkinson, quote from Sentence of Marriage
“Anyway, I'm afraid to ask about Reed, where he is, because I'm afraid I can't handle the answer. The way people come and go in your life, where they're present and alive one minute, and missing or dead the next, is an idea that's too big for me to grasp. Life just seems way too fragile all of a sudden, and everybody seems to take it so lightly, as if they think we're all made like army tanks, big and strong and able to roll over anything in our way. And it's not just our bodies that are fragile; our minds are even more so. I don't know what fine membrane separates sanity from insanity, but after watching my dad slip-sliding around on the border between the two all my life, I know how easy it is to cross, and this scares me. This scares me to death. I've just been wondering, what if I had had the switchblade in my hand? What if Reed had dared me and I was the one with the switchblade? Maybe I would have used it. Then I'd be the one missing. It could have been me. I could have been Reed. Reed is me and I am Reed is Dad is Reed is me.”
― Han Nolan, quote from Crazy
“But that’s not why they should help us. That’s why I used to do stuff, because it was in my interest. But not anymore. Well, not so much, anyway. Mostly I do things for my friends, now—’cause what else is so important? Money? Power? Jabba had that, and you know what happened to him. Okay, okay, the point is—your friends are … your friends. You know?” This”
― Alan Dean Foster, quote from The Star Wars Trilogy
“Loving someone gives them permission to do things to you because they know you'll forgive them. -Shaye”
― Gena Showalter, quote from The Nymph King
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.