“If it takes a million years for a fish to become a reptile, has Man, in our few hundred, altered out of recognition?”
― T.H. White, quote from The Candle in the Wind
“Lancelot and Guenever were sitting at the solar window. An observer of the present day, who knew the Arthurian legend only from Tennyson and people of that sort, would have been startled to see that the famous lovers were past their prime. We, who have learned to base our interpretation of love on the conventional boy-and-girl romance of Romeo and Juliet, would be amazed if we could step back into the Middle Ages - when the poet of chivalry could write about Man that he had 'en ciel un dieu, par terre une deesse'. Lovers were not recruited then among the juveniles and adolescents: they were seasoned people, who knew what they were about. In those days people loved each other for their lives, without the conveniences of the divorce court and the psychiatrist. They had a God in heaven and a goddess on earth - and, since people who devote themselves to godesses must exercise some caution about the ones to whom they are devoted, they neither chose them by the passing standards of the flesh alone, nor abandoned it lightly when the bruckle thing began to fail.”
― T.H. White, quote from The Candle in the Wind
“Even his conversation was, as it were, a spoken part.”
― T.H. White, quote from The Candle in the Wind
“Do you think that they, with their Battles, Famine, Black Death and Serfdom, were less enlightened than we are, with our Wars, Blockade, Influenza, and Conscription.”
― T.H. White, quote from The Candle in the Wind
“He had conquered murder only to be faced with war. There were no laws for that.”
― T.H. White, quote from The Candle in the Wind
“Any one war seems rooted in its antecedents.”
― T.H. White, quote from The Candle in the Wind
“So think as if your every thought were to be etched in fire upon the sky for all and everything to see. For so, in truth, it is.”
― Mikhail Naimy, quote from The Book of Mirdad: The Strange Story of a Monastery Which Was Once Called the Ark
“I wish we had not followed him! Let us run away.”
― quote from Little Pilgrim's Progress: From John Bunyan's Classic
“People, he told her, are shaped somehow by their climate and the land they live in. Those who live by the sea are like the currents and tides; they go and come, and discover many shores. Their words and loves are like water that slips between one's fingers and is never still. Mountain people have fought the mountain to win their place. Once they have conquered it they protect their mountain, and others coming from far below in the valley risk being seen as enemies. Hill people take some time before greeting each other.”
― Gil Courtemanche, quote from A Sunday at the Pool in Kigali
“To some people, there is no noise on earth as exciting as the sound of three or four big fan-jet engines rising in pitch, as the plane they are sitting in swivels at the end of the runway and, straining against its brakes, prepares for takeoff. The very danger in the situation is inseparable from the exhilaration it yields. You are strapped into your seat now, there is no way back, you have delivered yourself into the power of modern technology. You might as well lie back and enjoy it.”
― David Lodge, quote from Small World
“And so we see the paradox that evolution has handed us. If man is the only animal whose consciousness of self gives him an unusual dignity in the animal kingdom, he also pays a tragic price for it. The fact that the child has to identify -first- means that his very first identity is a social product. His habitation of his own body is built from the outside in; not from the inside out. He doesn't unfold into the world, the world unfolds into him. As the child responds to the vocal symbols learned from his object, he often gives the pathetic impression of being a true social puppet, jerked by alien symbols and sounds. What sensitive parent does not have his satisfaction tinged with sadness as the child repeats with such vital earnestness the little symbols that are taught him?”
― Ernest Becker, quote from The Birth and Death of Meaning: An Interdisciplinary Perspective on the Problem of Man
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.