“Never fall in love with an idea. They're whores: if the one you're with isn't doing the job, there's always, always, always another.”
― Chip Kidd, quote from The Cheese Monkeys
“Commercial Art tries to make you buy things. Graphic Design gives you ideas.”
― Chip Kidd, quote from The Cheese Monkeys
“Kiddies, Graphic Design, if you wield it effectively, is Power. Power to transmit ideas that change everything. Power that can destroy an entire race or save a nation from despair. In this century, Germany chose to do the former with the swastika, and America opted for the latter with Mickey Mouse and Superman.”
― Chip Kidd, quote from The Cheese Monkeys
“Never fall in love with an idea. They’re whores: if the one you’re with isn’t doing the job there’s always, always, always another.”
― Chip Kidd, quote from The Cheese Monkeys
“Yes, Garnett Grey was an Architect. Were a psychoanalyst to approach him from behind, tap his shoulder, and say 'Humanity,' Garrett'd spin and respond, without hesitation, 'Solvable'.”
― Chip Kidd, quote from The Cheese Monkeys
“Just who are the cheese monkeys? And what do they want?”
― Chip Kidd, quote from The Cheese Monkeys
“Graphic Design for its own sake will never happen, because the concept cancels itself out — a poster about nothing other than itself is not Graphic Design, it's … makin' ART.”
― Chip Kidd, quote from The Cheese Monkeys
“After age twenty-five, you're not a victim anymore — you're a volunteer.”
― Chip Kidd, quote from The Cheese Monkeys
“Nothing worth knowing can ever be taught in a classroom.”
― Chip Kidd, quote from The Cheese Monkeys
“Design is, literally, purposeful planning. Graphic Design, then, is the form those plans will take.”
― Chip Kidd, quote from The Cheese Monkeys
“My longing for someone to talk to made Himillsy the lightning bug in my honey jar. I punched holes in the lid so she could breathe.”
― Chip Kidd, quote from The Cheese Monkeys
“But at the end of the day, you can't major in Making Stuff, so it was Art by default.”
― Chip Kidd, quote from The Cheese Monkeys
“It's not Art. And Art is not Design.”
― Chip Kidd, quote from The Cheese Monkeys
“(...) photography opened up quite a little Pandora's box, kiddies. (...) Once we no longer had to depend on drawing and painting to record our existence — once they became an option — they mutated . . . into a form of expression. And Art for its own sake, God help us, was born.”
― Chip Kidd, quote from The Cheese Monkeys
“Never let your mouth write a check that your ass can't cash.”
― Chip Kidd, quote from The Cheese Monkeys
“Did they want what I wanted?
Did they want to understand, to unlock it? To decode it? To glean, to touch, to learn, to get something, to proceed, to get somewhere, to graduate, to work, to thrive; to someday, sometime, finally earn the luxury, the permission to … stop, to stop all of this, to relax, and forget?”
― Chip Kidd, quote from The Cheese Monkeys
“On the first day of class, the Visual Arts building reclined before me like an old brick whore, egging me to show her one, last, good time. I doubted I was up to the task, but regardless, I entered from the rear, just to give myself the slightest mental edge.”
― Chip Kidd, quote from The Cheese Monkeys
“(...) I'm not much of anything, (...) besides bored and boring, punctuated by fits of scant self-amusement. And you are ...?”
― Chip Kidd, quote from The Cheese Monkeys
“Twenty-six letters: Marjorie Morningstar or Ulysses.
The man-made world means exactly that. There isn't an inch of it that doesn't have to be dealt with, figured out, executed. And it's waiting for you to decide what it's going to look like.”
― Chip Kidd, quote from The Cheese Monkeys
“Penguin Classic, with the orange bands at the top and bottom; and the Gill Sans thirty-sixpoint title, all caps, centered and medium weight, in black on the white band in the middle. One of the designer Tschichold's prouder moments, when he finally woke the hell up and joined the twentieth century.”
― Chip Kidd, quote from The Cheese Monkeys
“Isn't love any fun? Marjorie said.
"No," Nick said.”
― Ernest Hemingway, quote from In Our Time
“Can I tell the ladies you’ll be visiting?”
Dixon looked back at the cart as if it were a dead body. “If you got some rope, I could clear that chimney for you.”
“I could get some rope.”
“Don’t buy it. Borrow some from Henry the Fisher at the south docks. He ain’t using it today. Tell him it’s for me. He’ll be…” He looked at her and chuckled. “How about I go get it.”
“Whatever you think is best.”
“Best not to send a woman who looks like you across town to a surly fisherman’s bar.” He stared at her a moment and shook his head.
“What?”
“You’re a beautiful woman, Gwen.”
“Thank you, Dixon.”
“What I meant is that no one should ever mistake you for a man.”
“I don’t think anyone ever has.”
“You keep acting this way and they might. For a second there I did.”
“That’s not good news for a woman in my profession.”
“How do you think it makes me feel? Just got a new job and discovered I’m blind all in the same day.”
“Just so long as you’re not deaf and dumb.”
“No promises. You get me as I am.”
“I’ll take it.”
― Michael J. Sullivan, quote from The Crown Tower
“Wisdom is the power to admit that you cannot understand and judge the people in their entirety.”
― Anthony Powell, quote from A Dance to the Music of Time: 1st Movement
“never see them again. Surely, a couple so young, so”
― Philippa Gregory, quote from The Boleyn Inheritance
“God didn't come down and kill us. I don't see God shooting children and priests. None of us met God beating up Jews and shoving them into railroad cars. This is men doing the murdering. Talk to men about their evil, kill the evil men, but pray to God. You can't expect God to come down and do our living for us. We have to do that ourselves.”
― Louise Murphy, quote from The True Story of Hansel and Gretel
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.