“Actually, I think it's the opposite. We know each other so well there isn't anything left to say. Sometimes it's nice just sitting here with you all, thinking. It's only best friends who can be comfortable with silence, wouldn't you say?”
― Benjamin Wood, quote from The Bellwether Revivals
“My theory is that hope is a form of madness. A benevolent one, sure, but madness all the same. Like an irrational superstition--broken mirrors and so forth--hope's not based on any kind of logic, it's just unfettered optimism, grounded in nothing but faith in things beyond our control.”
― Benjamin Wood, quote from The Bellwether Revivals
“Sometimes, you can hold a grudge for so long you forget why you were holding onto it. And before you know it, half a lifetime has gone by and all you’ve got is a empty fist and a lot of regret.”
― Benjamin Wood, quote from The Bellwether Revivals
“Once you surrender to hope, its a long road back to reason." There was a certain tone of self-loathing in the way Crest said it.”
― Benjamin Wood, quote from The Bellwether Revivals
“And Oscar would tell the old man his only regret: that he was living the unremarkable life his parents had always expected from him.”
― Benjamin Wood, quote from The Bellwether Revivals
“Once you surrender to hope, it’s a long road back to reason.”
― Benjamin Wood, quote from The Bellwether Revivals
“Oscar was raised to believe that if he stayed in his room reading about made up worlds it meant he didn't appreciate the life he had, the possessions his parents had worked hard for, like the TV and the video and the newly turfed back garden.”
― Benjamin Wood, quote from The Bellwether Revivals
“My theory is that hope is a form of madness. A benevolent one, sure, but madness all the same.”
― Benjamin Wood, quote from The Bellwether Revivals
“In spite of his physical efforts, he understands that he is afraid to go on reading the typescript. Why this fear should have taken hold of him is something he cannot account for. It’s only words, he tells himself, and since when have words had the power to frighten a man half to death?”
― Paul Auster, quote from Travels in the Scriptorium
“In my lifelong study of the scores of species of ants to be found in the tropical forests of Dal Hon, I am led to the conviction that all forms of life are engaged in a struggle to survive, and that within each species there exists a range of natural but variable proclivities, of physical condition and of behaviour, which in turn weighs for or against in the battle to survive and procreate. Further, it is my suspicion that in the act of procreation, such traits are passed on. By extension, one can see that ill traits reduce the likelihood of both survival and procreation. On the basis of these notions, I wish to propose to my fellow scholars at this noble gathering a law of survival that pertains to all forms of life. But before I do so, I must add one more caveat, drawn from the undeniable behavioural characteristics of, in my instance of speciality, ants. To whit, success of one form of life more often than not initiates devastating population collapse among competitors, and indeed, sometimes outright extinction. And that such annihilation of rivals may in fact be a defining feature of success.
Thus, my colleagues, I wish to propose a mode of operation among all forms of life, which I humbly call-in my four-volume treatise-‘The Betrayal of the Fittest’.
Obsessional Scrolls
Sixth Day Proceedings
Address Of Skavat Gill
Unta, Malazan Empire, 1097 Burn's Sleep”
― Steven Erikson, quote from Dust of Dreams
“Fading light buttered the ridges until shadows licked them clean and they were lost to nightfall.”
― Daniel Woodrell, quote from Winter's Bone
“You've done a thing you can't clean up, found a place you can't reach with mop or apology. The forever you've created branches like the hairline fracture in a pelvic bone, hides like a dirty Polaroid stored under a mattress, rises like hot blood to burn cheeks pretty with shame. Places you didn't even know you were signing your name will always be marked by your hand, but despite every new day's resolution to never do it again, you will. You'll look away from your own face in the mirror, pull the chain twice to hide from yourself in the dark, and when it's all over you won't say anything. You won't fucking say anything to anyone ever.”
― Tupelo Hassman, quote from Girlchild
“A stone, a figure, a sign, a word reaching us isolated from its context is only that stone, figure, sign, or word: we can try to define them, to describe them as they are, and no more than that; whether, beside the face they show us, they also have a hidden face, is not for us to know. The refusal to comprehend more than what the stones show us is perhaps the only way to evince respect for their secret; trying to guess is a presumption, a betrayal of that true, lost meaning.”
― Italo Calvino, quote from Mr Palomar
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.
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