Quotes from The Book of Ruth

“I feel like I don't have all the ingredients a person is supposed to have.”
― Jane Hamilton, quote from The Book of Ruth

“We're only passers-by, and all you can do is love what you have in your life. A person has to fight the meanness that sometimes comes with you when you're born, sometimes grows if you aren't in lucky surroundings. It's our challenge to fend it off, leave it behind us choking and gasping for breath in the mud. It's our task to seek out something with truth for us, no matter if there is a hundred-mile obstacle course in the way, or a ramshackle old farmhouse that binds and binds.”
― Jane Hamilton, quote from The Book of Ruth

“We all need people to tell us that we were the ones who had been deeply wronged.”
― Jane Hamilton, quote from The Book of Ruth

“Sometimes I couldn't figure it out, what all the living was for.”
― Jane Hamilton, quote from The Book of Ruth

“I heard the phrases and I wanted all of me to call out in a song, a song that doesn't have words, a song that almost doesn't have noise. A lot of people take a short cut and call that feeling of song love. They just call it that because there isn't a way to describe it. But the word love doesn't describe the half of it. It doesn't do anything to bring to mind the song we all want so desperately to sing.”
― Jane Hamilton, quote from The Book of Ruth

“It must be strange to keep your strong mind in a body that grows older and weaker and no longer resembles your own image of yourself.”
― Jane Hamilton, quote from The Book of Ruth

“In Charles Dickens's books I had to admire the way the meanest enemies spoke to each other, with what seemed to me to be the greatest civility.”
― Jane Hamilton, quote from The Book of Ruth

“I have given up on speech with the Rev; there is no use explaining that you have to learn where your pain is. You have to burrow down and find the wound, and if the burden of it is too terrible to shoulder you have to shout it out; you have to shout for help. My trust, even down in that dark place I carry, is that some person will come running. And then finally the way through grief is grieving.”
― Jane Hamilton, quote from The Book of Ruth

“Miss Finch said she meant to listen to new books as well as her old favorites, even the ones that pierced her heart, before she departed this world.”
― Jane Hamilton, quote from The Book of Ruth

“I knew that we were two humans, that's all, two humans walking around blindly in the night, looking for a warm hand.”
― Jane Hamilton, quote from The Book of Ruth

“However, Mr. Darcy was the man I truly admired. I see him clearly. He is exceptionally tall, and his head is covered with black curly hair. He looks serious except when he smiles at you; it knocks you right straight across the room. His smile is that brilliant. He doesn't ever do anything to hurt girls. I longed for him to walk out of his book and reach for my hand.”
― Jane Hamilton, quote from The Book of Ruth

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“For the direct, lawful, immediate fruit of consciousness is inertia – that is, a conscious sitting with folded arms. I’ve already mentioned this above. I repeat, I emphatically repeat: ingenuous people and active figures are all active simply because they are dull and narrow minded. How to explain it? Here’s how: as a consequence of their narrow-mindedness, they take the most immediate and secondary causes for the primary ones, and thus become convinced more quickly and easily than others that they have found an indisputable basis for their doings, and so they feel at ease; and that, after all, is the main thing. For in order to begin to act, one must first be completely at ease, so that no more doubts remain. Well, and how am I, for example, to set myself at ease? Where are the primary causes on which I can rest, where are my bases? Where am I going to get them? I exercise thinking, and, consequently, for me every primary cause immediately drags with it yet another, still more primary one, and so on ad infinitum. Such is precisely the essence of all consciousness and thought. So,”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, quote from Notes from the Underground

“You tried to kill yourself,” she said, rolling her eyes up to heaven and biting her knuckle. “Andrew Hardy was gonna die one way or the other, and one of the choices gave me a daughter in exchange while the other left me with no one.” “I”
― Meredith Russo, quote from If I Was Your Girl

“Kettleburn retired to Hogsmeade but was unable, due to his physical infirmities, to take part in the Battle of Hogwarts. Determined to play his part, he clambered into his attic and threw his entire stock of Flobberworms out of the skylight at passing Death Eaters. While this may not have had much effect on the outcome of the battle, it was generally felt to show the right spirit.”
― J.K. Rowling, quote from Short Stories from Hogwarts of Heroism, Hardship and Dangerous Hobbies

“All physics is rooted in the notion of law, the belief that we live in an ordered universe that can be understood by the application of rational reasoning. But”
― Richard Feynman, quote from The Character of Physical Law

“The god honors the faithful. And who is more true than a man who keeps his oath, though it breaks his heart?”
― Juliet Marillier, quote from Wolfskin

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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.

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