“You cannot see the past that did not happen any more than you can foresee the future.”
“If you’re going to care about the fall of the sparrow you can’t pick and choose who’s going to be the sparrow. It’s everybody, and you’re stuck with it.”
“Only where love and need are one,
And the work is play for mortal stakes,
Is the deed ever really done
For Heaven and the future’s sakes.”
“Rules are made for people, not people for rules,”
“If you accept any position of authority you have to know when to break or circumvent a rule. It’s the knowing when that’s important.”
“There always have been and there always will be people who have been corrupted into enjoying any excuse for cruelty.”
“if wishes were horses, beggars would ride.”
“I can’t do it for love of God, like Tom Tallis, or for heaven’s sake, as Mr. Frost said. But because I love people I have to act according to it—to the fact that I love them.”
“There’s something wrong about trying to heal with a surgeon’s knife.”
“If she got really quiet and listened, new parts of her wanted to speak.”
“She didn't want to forget how deeply she had loved him, how important it had been to her; she felt as if to discard the memory would be a betrayal of her younger self.”
“When you were a bird you knew the fairies pretty well, and you remember a good deal about them in your babyhood, which it is a great pity you can't write down, for gradually you forget, and I have heard of children who declared that they had never once seen a fairy.”
“After the presentations, we had to fill out these questionnaires. The first question was, 'Where do you see yourself in fifteen years?'
I know EXACTLY where I will be in fifteen years: in my pool, at my mansion, counting my money. But there weren't any check boxes for THAT option.”
“I want to cry and hit my head off the wall—and scream until I pass out, but I gave that up for Lent.”
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.