“Shooting stars are not really stars at all but meteorites, burning their way through our atmosphere, sometimes landing in the oceans and in the middle of farms...you could make wishes on them if you like, but they are really just pieces of rock falling down from the sky, and they could land on your head and kill you just as you look up to make a wish. Really, they're just rocks. They don't care about your wishes at all.”
― Laura Moriarty, quote from The Center of Everything
“I know that sometimes when you are really worried about something, it ends up not being nearly as bad as you think it will be, and you get to be relieved that you were just being silly, worrying so much over nothing. But sometimes it is just the opposite. It can happen that whatever you are worried about will be even worse than you could have possibly imagined, and you find that you were right to be worried, and even that, maybe, you weren't worried enough.”
― Laura Moriarty, quote from The Center of Everything
“Someone needs to give the Pope thirteen babies. Just for a week or so. See how he likes no birth control then.”
― Laura Moriarty, quote from The Center of Everything
“It's like swimming, underwater, this whole year. I just close my eyes. hold my breath, and keep kicking.”
― Laura Moriarty, quote from The Center of Everything
“This is how it is now. This is my life.”
― Laura Moriarty, quote from The Center of Everything
“Ah, but the rich are different,’ the footman said, ‘they take a lot more looking after.”
― Kate Atkinson, quote from Human Croquet
“....the regional mental asylum. The SS is in charge. They have built a special crematorium. Those who are not wanted are taken up in a kind of police van.People here call it "the whispering coach". The relatives receive the urn. Recently one family here received two urns at once.
- We now have pure communism. But communism murders more honestly.”
― Victor Klemperer, quote from I Will Bear Witness 1933-41 A Diary of the Nazi Years
“The capital-T Truth is about life before death.
It is about making it to 30, or maybe even 50, without wanting to shoot yourself in the head.
It is about the real value of a real education, which has almost nothing to do with knowledge, and everything to do with simple awareness: awareness of what is so real and essential, so hidden in plain sight all around us, all the time, that we have to keep reminding ourselves over and over: 'This is water. This is water. These Eskimos might be much more than they seem.'
It is unimaginably hard to do this, to stay conscious and alive in the adult world day in and day out. Which means yet another grand cliché turns out to be true: your education really is the job of a lifetime. And it commences now.
I wish you way more than luck.”
― David Foster Wallace, quote from This Is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered on a Significant Occasion, about Living a Compassionate Life
“You can't leave, Zach," Corinne said through gritted teeth.
He walked right past her. "Watch me.”
― Anastasia Hopcus, quote from Shadow Hills
“That was the day she learned she was the daughter of a lioness.”
― Tess Gerritsen, quote from The Keepsake
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.