“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
“I can't stand it to think my life is going so fast and I'm not really living it.”
― Ernest Hemingway, quote from Fiesta
“Stoicism, understood properly, is a cure for a disease. The disease in question is the anxiety, grief, fear, and various other negative emotions that plague humans and prevent them from experiencing a joyful existence.”
― William B. Irvine, quote from A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy
“If your problem is being chronically starved of social bonds, then part of the solution is to bond with the heroin itself and the relief it gives you. But a bigger part is to bond with the subculture that comes with taking heroin—the tribe of fellow users all embarked on the same mission and facing the same threats and risking death every day with you. It gives you an identity. It gives you a life of highs and lows, instead of relentless monotony. The world stops being indifferent to you, and starts being hostile—which is at least proof that you exist, that you aren’t dead already. The heroin helps users deal with the pain of being unable to form normal bonds with other humans. The heroin subculture gives them bonds with other human beings.”
― Johann Hari, quote from Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs
“Story isn’t a flight from reality but a vehicle that carries us on our search for reality,”
― Robert McKee, quote from Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting
“Yes, the money could be better spent on Earth. But would it? Since when has money saved by government redlining been spent on education and cancer research? It is always squandered. Let's squander some on Mars. Let's go out and play.”
― Mary Roach, quote from Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void
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.