“I see you, even when you hide from the rest of the world. I hear you, even when you're silent.”
― Deborah Harkness, quote from The Book of Life
“If you truly love someone, you will cherish what they despise most about themselves.”
― Deborah Harkness, quote from The Book of Life
“the wolf who wins is the wolf you feed. The evil wolf feeds on anger, guilt, sorrow, lies, and regret. The good wolf needs a diet of love and honesty, spiced up with big spoonfuls of compassion and faith. So if you want the good wolf to win, you’re going to have to starve the other one.”
― Deborah Harkness, quote from The Book of Life
“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change. —PHILIPPE DE CLERMONT, OFTEN ATTRIBUTED TO CHARLES DARWIN”
― Deborah Harkness, quote from The Book of Life
“It’s one thing to wander in the darkness because you know no different, but it’s quite another to enjoy the light only to have it taken from you,”
― Deborah Harkness, quote from The Book of Life
“I have a master’s degree in medieval literature. Wyverns—or firedrakes, if you prefer—were once common in European mythology and legends.” “But you . . . you’re my accountant,” Sarah sputtered. “Do you have any idea how many English majors are accountants?” Vivian asked with raised eyebrows.”
― Deborah Harkness, quote from The Book of Life
“I watched in silence as the parts of Matthew I knew and loved—the poet and the scientist, the warrior and the spy, the Renaissance prince and the father—fell away until only the darkest, most forbidding part of him remained. He was only the assassin now. But he was still the man I loved.”
― Deborah Harkness, quote from The Book of Life
“a willingness to change was the secret of survival.”
― Deborah Harkness, quote from The Book of Life
“The secret is that I may be the head of the Bishop-Clairmont family, but you are its heart,” he whispered. “And the three of us are in perfect agreement: The heart is more important.”
― Deborah Harkness, quote from The Book of Life
“and if we all did what we should, we would wake to find ourselves in paradise”
― Deborah Harkness, quote from The Book of Life
“He was so worthy of being loved; I didn’t want him to be alone. Something in my expression must have revealed what was on my mind. “No pity, Auntie. The winds do not always blow as the ship desires,” he murmured, tucking me into my chair. “The winds do what I tell them to do.” “And I plot my own course.”
― Deborah Harkness, quote from The Book of Life
“The door swooshed open. A tiny woman in a purple miniskirt, red boots, and a black T-shirt that read STAND BACK—I’M GOING TO TRY SCIENCE walked through. Miriam Shephard had arrived.”
― Deborah Harkness, quote from The Book of Life
“Oh, yes. I know all about vampires and their crazy ways.” Apparently, Fernando didn’t have the same reluctance as Matthew and Ysabeau did to tell vampire tales.”
― Deborah Harkness, quote from The Book of Life
“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change.”
― Deborah Harkness, quote from The Book of Life
“According to my grandmother’s people, two wolves live inside every creature: one evil and the other good. They spend all their time trying to destroy each other.” It was, Matthew thought, as good a description of blood rage as he was ever likely to hear from someone not afflicted with the disease. “My bad wolf is winning.” Jack looked sad. “He doesn’t have to,” Chris promised. “Nana Bets said the wolf who wins is the wolf you feed. The evil wolf feeds on anger, guilt, sorrow, lies, and regret. The good wolf needs a diet of love and honesty, spiced up with big spoonfuls of compassion and faith. So if you want the good wolf to win, you’re going to have to starve the other one.”
― Deborah Harkness, quote from The Book of Life
“Vote?” Matthew said, incredulous. “Since when did we vote in this family?” “Since Marcus took over the Knights of Lazarus,” Gallowglass replied, drawing a silver lighter from his pocket. “We’ve been choking on democracy since the day you left.”
― Deborah Harkness, quote from The Book of Life
“Take care, Gallowglass,” Matthew murmured. It was no casual farewell, but an order. His nephew nodded. “As if your wife were my own.”
― Deborah Harkness, quote from The Book of Life
“No wonder Philippe always looked so exhausted,” he said ruefully when he was through. “It’s very fatiguing pretending you’re in charge when your wife actually rules the roost.”
― Deborah Harkness, quote from The Book of Life
“Fear.’ My mother had warned me of its power, but I had misunderstood, as children often do. I’d thought it was the fear of others that I needed to guard against, but it was my own terror. Because of that misunderstanding, I’d let the fear take root inside me until it clouded my thoughts and affected how I saw the world. Fear”
― Deborah Harkness, quote from The Book of Life
“Blue had always struck her as such a serene, soothing color, yet all social media offered was endless agitation and posturing. It was worse than the court of Versailles.”
― Deborah Harkness, quote from The Book of Life
“If you truly love someone, you will cherish what they despise most about themselves" - Fernando Conclaves”
― Deborah Harkness, quote from The Book of Life
“Baldwin had never grasped the concept of atonement. His view of Matthew’s faith was purely transactional—you went to church, confessed, and walked out a clean man. But salvation was more complicated. Philippe had come to understand that in the end, although he had long found Matthew’s constant search for forgiveness irritating and irrational.”
― Deborah Harkness, quote from The Book of Life
“There was an avocado green slow cooker, a venerable coffeemaker, two coffee grinders, and a blender. These were the tools of the modern witch, though Sarah kept a big black cauldron by the fireplace for old times’ sake.”
― Deborah Harkness, quote from The Book of Life
“You’re taking this very well, Gallowglass,” Diana said gratefully. “Matthew would be trying to talk me out of it.” “That’s what you get for falling in love with the wrong man,” he said under his breath, slipping the phone back into his pocket.”
― Deborah Harkness, quote from The Book of Life
“Here’s Fernando,” Sarah said in a tone suggesting that deliverance had come at last.”
― Deborah Harkness, quote from The Book of Life
“Los secretos, como los muertos, no siempre permanecen enterrados.”
― Deborah Harkness, quote from The Book of Life
“Now I want nothing more than to grow old with you,” Matthew said.”
― Deborah Harkness, quote from The Book of Life
“She could not imagine why these companies all chose shades of blue for their logos. Blue had always struck her as such a serene, soothing color, yet all social media offered was endless agitation and posturing. It was worse than the court of Versailles. Come”
― Deborah Harkness, quote from The Book of Life
“Fear had also choked out any desire to work magic. It had been my crutch and my cloak, keeping me from exercising my power. Fear had sheltered me from the curiosity of others and provided an oubliette where I could forget who I really was: a witch. I’d”
― Deborah Harkness, quote from The Book of Life
“No, I’m a vampire.” Matthew stepped forward, joining Chris under the projector’s light. “And before you ask, I can go outside during the day and my hair won’t catch fire in the sunlight. I’m Catholic and have a crucifix. When I sleep, which is not often, I prefer a bed to a coffin. If you try to stake me, the wood will likely splinter before it enters my skin.” He bared his teeth. “No fangs either. And one last thing: I do not, nor have I ever, sparkled.” Matthew’s face darkened to emphasize the point. I”
― Deborah Harkness, quote from The Book of Life
Deborah Harkness
Born place: in The United States
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“Son, that's a pretty hard question to answer. But I do believe that any wish you make can come true if you help the wish. I don't think that the Lord meant for our lives to be so simple and easy that every time we wanted something, all we had to do was wish for it and we'd get it. I don't believe that at all. If that were true, there would be a lot of lazy people in this old world. No one would be working. Everyone would be wishing for what they needed or wanted.
"Papa," I asked, "how can you help a wish?"
"Oh, there are a lot of ways," Papa said. "Hard work, faith, patience, and determination. I think prayer and really believing in your wish can help more than anything else.”
― Wilson Rawls, quote from Summer of the Monkeys
“When your parents die, Alessandro, you feel that you have betrayed them."
"Why?" Luciana asked.
"Because you come to love your children more. I lost my mother and father to images in photographs and handwriting on letters, and as I abandoned them for you, the saddest thing was that they made no protest.
"Even now that I'm going back to them, I regret above all that I must leave you."
"You're not going back to anybody," Alessandro told him. "We'll solve those problems later."
"Alessandro," his father said, almost cheerfully. "You don't understand. This kind of problem is very special: it has no solution.”
― Mark Helprin, quote from A Soldier of the Great War
“People whose freedom is taken away always end up hating somebody.”
― Haruki Murakami, quote from Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage
“The future is only an indifferent void no one cares about, but the past is filled with life, and its countenance is irritating, repellent, wounding, to the point that we want to destroy or repaint it. We want to be masters of the future only for the power to change the past.”
― Milan Kundera, quote from The Book of Laughter and Forgetting
“But it's hard for a man to give up all his pleasures, even when they don't pleasure him no more.”
― Richard Bachman, quote from Thinner
The Crystal Cave
The Third Policeman
Aesop's Fables
The Forever War
North and South
About a BoyBookQuoters 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.
