“What is fear after all? It is indecision. You seek some way to resist, escape. There is none.”
― quote from The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty
“It seems an insult to the night to speak of purpose and intent, when this common moment is so brimming full of blessed design tranquility. All things follow their course.”
― quote from The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty
“This was the real world then- Beauty and I free to have each other and all the others gone. Just the two of us in my bedchamber, where I should envelop her naked soul in rituals and ordeals beyond our past experiences, our dreams. No one to save her from me. No one to save me from her. My slave, my poor helpless slave...”
― quote from The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty
“Why do I think these particular books have been popular? Two reasons. First, I think it is because they involve no harsh, garish violence at all. They involve game playing, really. No one is burned or cut or hurt. Certainly no one is killed. Indeed the whole sadomasochistic predicament is presented as a glorified game played out in luxurious rooms and with very attractive people, and involving very attractive slaves. There are endless motifs offered for dominance and submission, for surrender and love. It’s like a theme park of dominance and submission, a place to go to enjoy the fantasy of being overpowered by a beautiful man or woman and delightfully compelled to surrender and feel keening pleasure, without the slightest serious harm. I think it’s authentic to the way many who share this kind of fantasy really feel. I think what makes it work for people is the combination of the very graphic and unsparing sexual details mixed with the elegant fairy-tale world. Unfortunately a lot of hackwork pornography is written by those who don’t share the fantasy, and they slip into hideous violence and ugliness, thinking the market wants all that, when the market never really did. Second, this is shamelessly erotic. It pulls no punches at being what it is. It’s excessive and it is erotica. Before these books, a lot of women read what were called “women’s romances” where they had to mark the few “hot pages” in the book. I said, well, look, try this. Maybe this is what you really want, and you don’t have to mark the hot pages because every page is hot. Every page is about sexual fulfillment. Every page is meant to give you pleasure. There are no boring parts. Yet it’s very “romantic.” And well, I think this worked.”
― quote from The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty
“Well, surely you know. Didn’t you rebel? Don’t you? Why, Leon said of you there is a core in you which no one touches."
"Nonsense. I merely know and accept everything. There is no resistance."
"But how can it be?"
"Beauty, you must learn it. You must accept and yield, and then you shall see everything is simple."
"I would not be here with you if I yielded because of the Prince..."
"Yes, you could be here with me. I adore my Queen and I am here with you. I love you both. I yield to that entirely as well as everything else and even the knowledge I may be punished. And when I am punished, I shall dread it, and suffer it and understand it and accept it. Beauty, when you accept you will flower in the pain, you will flower in your suffering.”
― quote from The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty
“A pen name enables you not only to cloak what you are doing from friends and family; it gives you a new freedom to do something you would not do as yourself.”
― quote from The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty
“I adore my Queen and I am here with you. I love you both. I yield to that entirely as well as everything else and even the knowledge I may be punished. And when I am punished, I shall dread it, and suffer it and understand it and accept it. when you accept you will flower in the pain, you will flower in your suffering”
― quote from The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty
“You’re different, I’ll give you that. They didn’t break you, but don’t
think you can fight me. You won’t win.”
― Pepper Winters, quote from Tears of Tess
“The monkeys solved the puzzle simply because they found it gratifying to solve puzzles. They enjoyed it. The joy of the task was its own reward.”
― Daniel H. Pink, quote from Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us
“The way to see the world was to see it drunk. Everything was created to be seen drunk.”
― Patricia Highsmith, quote from Strangers on a Train
“Boys don’t always make the right decisions. It takes years before they become men and wise up.”
― Abbi Glines, quote from Until Friday Night
“Every athlete learns by theft and mimicry.”
― Pat Conroy, quote from My Losing Season: A Memoir
The Unwanted: A Memo...
Groundwork of the Me...
Lying Season
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Life After Death
The Prize: The Epic...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.
