“You want to know about anybody? See what books they read, and how they've been read...”
― Keri Hulme, quote from The Bone People
“A family can be the bane of one's existence. A family can also be most of the meaning of one's existence. I don't know whether my family is bane or meaning, but they have surely gone away and left a large hole in my heart.”
― Keri Hulme, quote from The Bone People
“But hands are sacred things. Touch is personal, fingers of love, feelers of blind eyes, tongues of those who cannot talk…”
― Keri Hulme, quote from The Bone People
“Why? is the boy's motto, why does, why is, why not? Food, weather, time, fires, sea and season, clothes and cars and people; it's all grist to the mill of why.”
― Keri Hulme, quote from The Bone People
“They were nothing more than people, by themselves. Even paired, any pairing, they would have been nothing more than people by themselves. But all together, they have become the heart and muscles and mind of something perilous and new, something strange and growing and great.
Together, all together, they are the instruments of change.”
― Keri Hulme, quote from The Bone People
“Oh all the world is a little queer, except thee and me, and sometimes, I wonder about thee.”
― Keri Hulme, quote from The Bone People
“Sunflowers and seashells and logarithmic spirals (said Kerewin); sweep of galaxies and the singing curve of the universe (said Kerewin); the oscilating wave thrumming in the nothingness of every atom’s heart (said Kerewin); did you think I could build a square house? So the round shell house holds them all in its spiralling embrace. Noise and riot, peace and quiet, all is music in this sphere.”
― Keri Hulme, quote from The Bone People
“She had debated, in the frivolity of the beginning, whether to build a hole or a tower; a hole, because she was fond of hobbits, or a tower — well, a tower for many reasons, but chiefly because she liked spiral staircases.”
― Keri Hulme, quote from The Bone People
“Sometimes, the waves grow hushed, but the sea is always there, touching, caressing, eating the earth...”
― Keri Hulme, quote from The Bone People
“If I were you," the operator sounds happy he's not.”
― Keri Hulme, quote from The Bone People
“The color has faded out of the sky. It is grey, becoming darker as the world turns herself round a little more. The clouds are long and black and ragged, like the wings of stormbattered dragons.”
― Keri Hulme, quote from The Bone People
“...I was trying to make her fit my idea of what a friend, a partner was. I could see only the one way...whatever she thought she was, bend her to the idea that lovers are, marriage is, the only sanity. Don't accept merely what she can offer, make her give and take more...”
― Keri Hulme, quote from The Bone People
Keri Hulme
Born place: in Christchurch, New Zealand
Born date March 9, 1947
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“The morning was fresh from the rain. The smell of the tide pools was strong. Sweet odors came from the wild grasses in the ravines and from the sand plants on the dunes. I sang as I went down the trail to the beach and along the beach to the sandspit. I felt that the day was an omen of good fortune. It was a good day to begin my new home.”
― Scott O'Dell, quote from Island of the Blue Dolphins
“Jealousy is a disease, love is a healthy condition. The immature mind often mistakes one for the other, or assumes that the greater the love, the greater the jealousy - in fact, they are almost incompatible; one emotion hardly leaves room for the other.”
― Robert A. Heinlein, quote from Stranger in a Strange Land
“Oh, now, now, now, the only now, and above all now, and there is no other now but thou now and now is thy prophet.”
― Ernest Hemingway, quote from For Whom the Bell Tolls
“I wish I had more friends, but people are such jerks. If you can just get most people to leave you alone, you're doing good. If you can find even one person you really like, you're lucky. And if that person can also stand you, you're really lucky.”
― Bill Watterson, quote from The Complete Calvin and Hobbes
“I love seeing the bookshops and meeting the booksellers-- booksellers really are a special breed. No one in their right mind would take up clerking in a bookstore for the salary, and no one in his right mind would want to own one-- the margin of profit is too small. So, it has to be a love of readers and reading that makes them do it-- along with first dibs on the new books.”
― Mary Ann Shaffer, quote from The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
Sixty Stories
Sea Swept
A Civil Contract
All the Weyrs of Per...
This World We Live I...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.
