“That's how birthdays were in our house. All hateful charades of pretty clothes, expensive presents, and ugly words . . .”
― Debbie Howells, quote from The Bones of You
“I discover, too, that grief is different to different people. Comes in many guises. In shocked silences and closed doors around our village, as people try to shut it out. That a blank face or fleeting smile can hide the worst, most private kind of agony.”
― Debbie Howells, quote from The Bones of You
“A journey is a gesture inscribed in space, it vanishes even as it's made. You go from one place to another place, and on to somewhere else again, and already behind you there is no trace that you were ever there. The roads you went down yesterday are full of different people now, none of them knows who you are. In the room you slept in last night a stranger lies in the bed. Dust covers over your footprints, the marks of your fingers are wiped off the door, from the floor and table the bits and pieces of evidence that you might have dropped are swept up and thrown away and they never come back again. The very air closes behind you like water and soon your presence, which felt so weighty and permanent, has completely gone. Things happen once only and are never repeated, never return. Except in memory.”
― Damon Galgut, quote from In a Strange Room
“Burial practices illustrated the two men’s different outlooks. Custer believed a body should be buried in a long-lasting metal casket, thus removing the body from the ecological system by preventing bacteria from breaking it down and feeding it back into the soil. Crazy Horse believed in wrapping a body inside a buffalo robe and placing it on a scaffold on an open hillside, where the elements could break it down in a year or two. It would then come up again as buffalo grass, to be eaten by the buffalo, which would then be eaten by the Sioux, completing the circle.”
― Stephen E. Ambrose, quote from Crazy Horse and Custer
“The falling apart of a man's life should make more noise. It should startle passesrby with its Sturm and Drang. It ought to sound like the Parthenon crashing down. Not this ordinary, everyday kind of quiet...He closed his eyes...And still it was quiet, this falling apart of his life, as silent as the last beat of an old man's heart. A quiet, echoing thud, and then...nothing.”
― Kristin Hannah, quote from Angel Falls
“But you could,” Ken said. “You could. We got a fella over in the jail right now for pleasurin’ a pig.” “Well, I’ll be dogged,” I said, because I’d heard of things like that but I never had known of no actual cases. “What kind of charges you makin’ against him?” Buck said maybe they could charge him with rape. Ken gave him a kind of blank look and said no, they might not be able to make that kind of charge stick. “After all, he might claim he had the pig’s consent, and then where would we be?”
― Jim Thompson, quote from Pop. 1280 (Crime Masterworks)
“there is enough bandwidth here to fry an unprotected human many times over. A”
― Hannu Rajaniemi, quote from The Fractal Prince
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.