Quotes from The Before Now and After Then

Peter Monn ·  304 pages

Rating: (410 votes)


“I smiled at her, but she didn’t smile back. Sometimes pain likes to be alone.”
― Peter Monn, quote from The Before Now and After Then


“Maybe, just maybe, the perfection of the world was found in the imperfection.”
― Peter Monn, quote from The Before Now and After Then


“That's the thing about parents. They ask what you think, but they don't really care, or at least they don't care enough to let it affect the outcome.”
― Peter Monn, quote from The Before Now and After Then


“Sometimes it was easier to stay and suffer for the short term than to have a permanent scar reminding you of the past.”
― Peter Monn, quote from The Before Now and After Then


“He had never seemed breakable before, but in that moment, he was entirely fragile, and there was something beautiful in his sadness; something raw.”
― Peter Monn, quote from The Before Now and After Then



“And then I would cry, because even though boys don’t cry, I did.”
― Peter Monn, quote from The Before Now and After Then


“I think it’s funny how people say what dead people would want, as if they would know.”
― Peter Monn, quote from The Before Now and After Then


“Parents always thought if they could get on your level then that allowed them secret passage into your world when in reality, they were just manipulating you the whole time.”
― Peter Monn, quote from The Before Now and After Then


“Eventually, the Pat's of this world forgot about you and moved on to someone else. The worst part was that deep down inside, you knew that there was a truth to everything they said. And even if that truth wasn't bad or good, they still owned part of it. They owned a piece of you.”
― Peter Monn, quote from The Before Now and After Then


About the author

Popular quotes

“I don't fit in your world."
"Neither do I," he said, his expression tender yet resolute. "So let's make our own. We've done it before.”
― Tracey Garvis-Graves, quote from On the Island


“Let us consider humanity a biogram (the basic DNA blueprint of the human organism and its potentials) united with a logogram (this set of "conditioned verbal habits"). The biogram has not changed in several hundred thousand years; the logogram is different in each society.”
― Robert Shea, quote from The Illuminatus! Trilogy


“Introversion- along with its cousins sensitivity, seriousness, and shyness- is now a second-class personality trait, somewhere between a disappointment and a pathology. Introverts living in the Extrovert Ideal are like women in a man's world, discounted because of a trait that goes to the core of who they are. Extroversion is an enormously appealing personality style, but we've turned it into an oppressive standard to which most of us feel we must conform.”
― Susan Cain, quote from Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking


“What do I fear? Myself? There’s none else by.
Richard loves Richard; that is, I and I.
Is there a murderer here? No. Yes, I am.
Then fly! What, from myself? Great reason why:
Lest I revenge. What, myself upon myself?
Alack, I love myself. Wherefore? For any good
That I myself have done unto myself?
O, no! Alas, I rather hate myself
For hateful deeds committed by myself.
I am a villain. Yet I lie. I am not.
Fool, of thyself speak well. Fool, do not flatter:
My conscience hath a thousand several tongues,
And every tongue brings in a several tale,
And every tale condemns me for a villain.
Perjury, perjury, in the highest degree;
Murder, stern murder, in the direst degree;
All several sins, all used in each degree,
Throng to the bar, crying all, “Guilty! guilty!”
I shall despair. There is no creature loves me,
And if I die no soul will pity me.
And wherefore should they, since that I myself
Find in myself no pity to myself?”
― William Shakespeare, quote from Richard III


“France was at peace; one couldn't shoot the bearers of bad news.”
― Jean-Dominique Bauby, quote from The Diving Bell and the Butterfly


Interesting books

Possess
(3.5K)
Possess
by Gretchen McNeil
The Parallax View
(1K)
The Parallax View
by Slavoj Žižek
The Codex
(16.9K)
The Codex
by Douglas Preston
Death in Venice and Seven Other Stories
(17K)
Death in Venice and...
by Thomas Mann
My Butterfly
(619)
My Butterfly
by Laura Miller
The Inn at Rose Harbor
(17K)
The Inn at Rose Harb...
by Debbie Macomber

About BookQuoters

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.