“Some men spend their lives looking for ways to punish themselves for having been born.”
― Ross Macdonald, quote from The Chill
“Pour alcohol on a bundle of nerves and it generally turns into a can of worms.”
― Ross Macdonald, quote from The Chill
“In wine was truth, perhaps, but in whisky, the way Hoffman sluiced it down, was an army of imaginary rats climbing your legs.”
― Ross Macdonald, quote from The Chill
“He was half a politician, and like most of his kind he was an insecure man.”
― Ross Macdonald, quote from The Chill
“The sea was surging among the pilings like the blithe mindless forces of dissolution.”
― Ross Macdonald, quote from The Chill
“A moon like a fallen fruit reversing gravity was hoisting itself above the rooftops.”
― Ross Macdonald, quote from The Chill
“Ugliness is in the eye of the beholder. I learned that at my mother’s knee and other low joints,”
― Ross Macdonald, quote from The Chill
“his manner had the heavy ease of a politician, poised between bullying and flattery.”
― Ross Macdonald, quote from The Chill
“A young man with an untrimmed beard and rebellious eyes looked like a conscientious objector to everything.”
― Ross Macdonald, quote from The Chill
“I could smell fog even at this level now. It was rolling down from the mountains, flooding out the moon, as well as rising from the sea. The”
― Ross Macdonald, quote from The Chill
“For small erections may be finished by their first architects; grand ones, true ones, ever leave the copestone to posterity. God keep me from ever completing anything. This whole book is but a draught—nay, but the draught of a draught. Oh, Time, Strength, Cash, and Patience!”
― Herman Melville, quote from Moby Dick: or, the White Whale
“if fallacious reasoning always led to absurd conclusions, it would be found out at once and corrected. But once an easy, shortcut mode of reasoning has led to a few correct results, almost everybody accepts it; those who try to warn against it are not listened to.”
― E.T. Jaynes, quote from Probability Theory: The Logic of Science
“But the foolish children will have to learn some day that, rebels though they be and riotous from nature, they are too weak to maintain the spirit of mutiny for any length of time.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky, quote from The Grand Inquisitor
“Responding to bereavement by trying to make a difference is certainly both understandable and admirable, but it doesn't give you good reason to raise money for one specific cause of death rather than any other. If that person had died in different circumstances it would have been no less tragic. What we care about when we lose someone close to us is that they suffered or died, not that they died from a specific cause. By all means, the sadness we feel at the loss of a loved one should be harnessed in order to make the world a better place. But we should focus that motivation on preventing death and improving lives per se, rather than preventing death and improving lives in one very specific way. Any other decision would be unfair on those we could have helped more.”
― William MacAskill, quote from Doing Good Better: How Effective Altruism Can Help You Make a Difference
“Friends, loved ones, and even enemies influence us, but that doesn’t mean their comments are relevant to your destiny.”
― T.D. Jakes, quote from Destiny: Step into Your Purpose
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.