“I’ve wondered since if you can ever truly read a face. It’s too easy to see what you so desperately want to see, even if it isn’t there. I knew that.”
― Debbie Howells, quote from The Beauty of the End
“Suddenly your whole life is like a car crash, no brakes, gaining momentum, piling up behind you. Your mistakes, missed opportunities, all the time you’ve wasted, a twisted, rusting heap of scrap metal that can’t be salvaged. Overwhelming you. Crushing you.”
― Debbie Howells, quote from The Beauty of the End
“You know, how there are some people who have no time for small things? Pettiness, I mean. In the way they let things go - because whatever huge, life-changing thing happened to them gave them a perspective most of us can't ever have.”
― Debbie Howells, quote from The Beauty of the End
“You can play the part for so long, wear the mask, say what people expect you to say. Fight for as long as there is air in your lungs. Fly if you have wings. But you can never be free from someone who won't let you go.”
― Debbie Howells, quote from The Beauty of the End
“I was fourteen when I fell in love with a goddess. Goddesses have that effect, even on teenagers.”
― Debbie Howells, quote from The Beauty of the End
“It was one of many times I tried to save her. But by the time I did, it was too late.”
― Debbie Howells, quote from The Beauty of the End
“That’s the trouble with you young people.”
Saying young as though it was a bad thing.
“You’re in too darn much of a hurry to notice.”
“Notice what, exactly?”
“The difference,” she’d replied slowly, as if I were particularly stupid, “between what people want you to see, and what’s real.”
― Debbie Howells, quote from The Beauty of the End
“But there’s that thing with secrets, too, how they take over your head, feeding on your every thought, growing bigger all the time until the day comes they’re so heavy you can’t walk.”
― Debbie Howells, quote from The Beauty of the End
“I loved your world, Noah. It was a magical place, where there were stars and love, and there was hope. Hope. I don’t think you know how it is not to have that. I stole some of yours. It was beautiful, but there were too many secrets between us, and I always knew I’d have to give it back.”
― Debbie Howells, quote from The Beauty of the End
“Something had happened to April. You can see it in her. You know, how there are people who have no time for small things? Pettiness, I mean. In the way they let things go - because whatever huge, life-changing thing happened to them gave them a perspective most of us can't ever have.”
― Debbie Howells, quote from The Beauty of the End
“Did you know, the man who invented the atomic bomb once said that keeping peace through deterrence was like keeping two scorpions in one bottle? You can picture that, right? They know they can't sting without getting stung. They can't kill without getting killed. And you'd think that would stop them." He gave the book another boot, and it flipped closed with a snick. "But it doesn't." He looked up and his eyes were the color of Cherenkov radiation, the color of an orbital weapon. "You've got a bit of nerve, little scorpion. All I did was invent the bottle.”
― Erin Bow, quote from The Scorpion Rules
“Love first. Questions later. Grace beyond measure. All of it unconditional.”
― Karen Kingsbury, quote from Angels Walking
“and he would have passed a pleasant life of it, in despite of the Devil and all his works, if his path had not been crossed by a being that causes more perplexity to mortal man than ghosts, goblins, and the whole race of witches put together, and that was—a woman.”
― Washington Irving, quote from The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
“This is another way in which he is an admirable person. If he notices something is broken, he will try to fix it. He won’t just think about how unbearable it is that things keep breaking, that you can never fucking outrun entropy.”
― Jenny Offill, quote from Dept. of Speculation
“I sit on it's edge, looking down at the man who feels like he just materialized out of nowhere. My head still swims with euphoria from the moment...a moment I was just in with one man whilst sleeping next to another. Suddenly feeling dirty, I pull the sheets wrapped in front of my body closer.”
― E.J. Mellow, quote from The Dreamer
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.