“A radio was playing quietly. Nobody was listening. It was there to drown out the silence.”
― Rachel Abbott, quote from The Back Road
“It was as if she would never be whole until the secrets of the past were exposed.”
― Rachel Abbott, quote from The Back Road
“Within our working lives, and perhaps even amongst friends, we see deceptions played out before our eyes: people who pretend to be happy when they are aching with sadness, or to like each other when they feel nothing but contempt. Perhaps these are actions of self-preservation, driven by a will to hide our pain from a wider audience. Within a relationship, though, pretence is indeed both unreasonable and illogical. Admit to being the person you really are. Never play that deadly game of charades.”
― Rachel Abbott, quote from The Back Road
“For some people, life is like that. They filter out the positive and focus on the negative. They make assumptions about what somebody else is thinking, and believe only in the worst possible outcome.”
― Rachel Abbott, quote from The Back Road
“forgiveness is not something we do for other people—we do it for ourselves. So forgive yourself for being a victim. Look positively to the here and now. Put the past behind you and think of it as somewhere you once visited, and possibly didn’t like very much. “Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.” Buddha”
― Rachel Abbott, quote from The Back Road
“Friedrich Nietzsche said, ‘I’m not upset that you lied to me, I’m upset that from now on I can’t believe you.”
― Rachel Abbott, quote from The Back Road
“When it rains on your parade, look up rather than down. Without the rain, there would be no rainbow.”
― Rachel Abbott, quote from The Back Road
“How easy it is to blame the present on the past, and allow history to shape the future. How many of us justify our current behaviour by reference to events long gone? Is this true within your relationship? Are you allowing past mistakes to dictate your destiny? If pain has been inflicted by a loved one, you may search for reasons and explanations that simply can’t be found. You pick away at the scar that is trying to heal, and cause the blood to flow again. You seek reassurances that you may never truly believe. The scar becomes ragged and ugly to all who can see it, and you become the walking wounded, waiting to be hurt again. Accept that your history has changed you. Rejoice in your survival. Let the wounds heal to form a stronger, more resilient you, and remember that forgiveness is not something we do for other people—we do it for ourselves. So forgive yourself for being a victim. Look positively to the here and now. Put the past behind you and think of it as somewhere you once visited, and possibly didn’t like very much. “Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.” Buddha”
― Rachel Abbott, quote from The Back Road
“lie; secrets and deceit will ultimately undermine a relationship’s stability, durability, and longevity. Friedrich”
― Rachel Abbott, quote from The Back Road
“now. Put the past behind you and think of it as somewhere you once visited, and possibly didn’t like very much. “Do”
― Rachel Abbott, quote from The Back Road
“you can’t carry on arguing about it, can you?”
― Rachel Abbott, quote from The Back Road
“wouldn’t let anything happen to her.”
― Rachel Abbott, quote from The Back Road
“What is your reaction when your loved one walks through the door? Has the sun come out, or do you hear distant rumbles of thunder? Does cold ice settle around your heart, knowing that the road ahead is going to be fraught with slippery patches, or can you lean back and enjoy the sunshine? Think of your heart and your soul as the weather, and listen to what they’re telling you. You are entitled to feel the heat of the sun’s rays, but getting to that warm place may mean you have to survive some rainy days first.”
― Rachel Abbott, quote from The Back Road
“When he’d bought this cottage, he hadn’t realised how it would feel”
― Rachel Abbott, quote from The Back Road
“Gary had the sort of haircut that required constant brushing back with the fingers, or even—God help us—the occasional flick of the head like a shy girl on her first date.”
― Rachel Abbott, quote from The Back Road
“straight back. I smile when I see it’s from Chloe.”
― Rachel Abbott, quote from The Back Road
“thing that I know how to do,”
― Rachel Abbott, quote from The Back Road
“of not telling me, because my sister’s welfare comes way above”
― Rachel Abbott, quote from The Back Road
“Accept that your history has changed you. Rejoice in your survival. Let the wounds heal to form a stronger, more resilient you, and remember that forgiveness is not something we do for other people—we do it for ourselves.”
― Rachel Abbott, quote from The Back Road
“Think of your heart and your soul as the weather, and listen to what they’re telling you. You are entitled to feel the heat of the sun’s rays, but getting to that warm place may mean you have to survive some rainy days first.”
― Rachel Abbott, quote from The Back Road
“When it rains on your parade, look up rather than down. Without the rain, there would be no rainbow.” Gilbert K. Chesterton”
― Rachel Abbott, quote from The Back Road
“was getting impatient. It didn’t usually take this long to get them gagging for it. He’d been put off on Saturday night and told that it was all”
― Rachel Abbott, quote from The Back Road
“Honesty and trust go hand in hand. Once a lie has been told, deception practised, or truth omitted, trust is destroyed. Some say that love is giving someone the power to break your heart, but trusting them not to. So without trust, what happens to love? Never”
― Rachel Abbott, quote from The Back Road
“Many years ago I saw a short film sequence of a little girl. She was wearing a pretty dress as she skipped down a narrow cobbled lane. The people around smiled fondly as she passed. The grainy, black-and-white image did nothing to detract from the happy scene, and the light, summery music gave a feeling of well-being. The audience’s attention was focused entirely on the child. Then the identical film was shown again, but this time with sinister music playing. There was a gasp from the audience. For the first time, every person in the room noticed an unsmiling man standing at the mouth of a dark alley, smoking a cigarette and watching the girl. In spite of already knowing the ending, there was a sigh of relief when the child was reunited with her mother. Same film. Different music. For some people, life is like that. They filter out the positive and focus on the negative. They make assumptions about what somebody else is thinking, and believe only in the worst possible outcome. They are listening to a sinister tune. Is this you? If so, change the music, and focus on the positive. Listen to a happy tune, and see if the man skulking in the doorway disappears from view. “Human beings, by changing the inner attitudes of their minds, can change the outer aspects of their lives.” William James”
― Rachel Abbott, quote from The Back Road
Rachel Abbott
Born place: in Manchester, The United Kingdom
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“In 1517, few western Christians worried that Muslims might have a more convincing message to offer than Christianity or that Christian youth might start converting to Islam. The Turks were at the gate, it's true, but they weren't in the living room, and they certainly weren't in the bedroom. The Turks posed a threat to the physical health of Christians, but not to the spiritual health of Christianity.
Muslims were in a different boat. Almost from the start, as I've discussed, Islam had offered its political and military successes as an argument for its doctrines and a proof of its revelations. The process began with those iconic early battles at Badr and Uhud, when the outcome of battle was shown to have theological meaning. The miracle of expansion and the linkage of victory with truth continued for hundreds of years.
Then came the Mongol holocaust, which forced Muslim theologians to reexamine their assumptions. That process spawned such reforms as Ibn Taymiyah. Vis-a-vis the Mongols, however, the weakness of Muslims was concrete and easy to understand. The Mongols had greater killing power, but they came without an ideology. When the bloodshed wound down and the human hunger for meaning bubbled up, as it always does, they had nothing to offer. In fact, they themselves converted. Islam won in the end, absorbing the Mongols as it has absorbed the Turks before them and the Persians before that.
...
The same could not be said of the new overlords. The Europeans came wrapped in certainty about their way of life and peddling their own ideas of ultimate truth. They didn't challenge Islam so much as ignore it, unless they were missionaries, in which case they simply tried to convert the Muslims. If they noticed Islam, they didn't bother to debate it (missionaries are not in the debating business) but only smiled at it as one would at the toys of a child or the quaint relics of a more primitive people. How maddening for the Muslim cognoscenti! And yet, what could Muslims do about it?”
― Tamim Ansary, quote from Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes
“Rehnquist was just reflecting his shifting role, from outsider to the institutional embodiment of the Court.”
― Jeffrey Toobin, quote from The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court
“Mas aprendi que estas coisas nos são mandadas para nos pôr à prova e, com cada acontecimento triste e terrível, tornamo-nos um pouco mais fortes.”
― Lesley Pearse, quote from Trust Me
“Perhaps it is like a fever that blows in the air, like cholera, like the plague; it blows in the air and settles on men – or a town – or a nation – and everyone in it, or nearly everyone, falls a victim.’ He”
― Winston Graham, quote from The Black Moon
“I was in awe of him. I didn't speak; I listened. He was flawless.”
― Janice Dickinson, quote from No Lifeguard on Duty: The Accidental Life of the World's First Supermodel
Pure Vision: The Mag...
The Lost Girls of Ro...
Blutsschwestern
Forever
La petite fille de M...
Daughter of Smoke an...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.
