Quotes from The Clan of the Cave Bear

Jean M. Auel ·  512 pages

Rating: (194.7K votes)


“But when did you see her, talk to me? When did you see her go into the cave? Why did you threaten to strike a spirit? You still don't understand, do you? You acknowledged her, Broud, she has beaten you. You did everything you could to her, you even cursed her. She's dead, and still she won. She was a woman, and she had more courage than you, Broud, more determination, more self-control. She was more man than you are. Ayla should have been the son of my mate.”
― Jean M. Auel, quote from The Clan of the Cave Bear


“The difference in the brains of men and women was imposed by nature, and only cemented by culture.”
― Jean M. Auel, quote from The Clan of the Cave Bear


“The earth we leave is beautiful and rich; it gave us all we needed for all the generations we have lived. How will you leave it when it is your turn? What can you do?”
― Jean M. Auel, quote from The Clan of the Cave Bear


“And their memory made them extraordinary. In them, the unconscious knowledge of ancestral behavior called instinct had evolved. Stored in the back of their large brains were not just their own memories, but the memories of their forebears. They could recall knowledge learned by their ancestors and, under special circumstances, they could go a step beyond. They could recall their racial memory, their own evolution. And when they reached back far enough, they could merge that memory that was identical for all and join their minds, telepathically.”
― Jean M. Auel, quote from The Clan of the Cave Bear


“He's part me and part Clan, and so is Ura. Or rather, she's part Oda and part that man who killed her baby.”
― Jean M. Auel, quote from The Clan of the Cave Bear



“As Creb looked at the peaceful, trusting face of the strange girl in his lap, he felt a deep love flowering in his soul for her. He couldn’t have loved her more if she were his own.”
― Jean M. Auel, quote from The Clan of the Cave Bear


“Mog-ur has been spending all day and half the night in the place of the spirits. It must be a ceremony. While Ayla was gone, he wouldn't go near it; now he hardly ever comes out. When he does, he's so absentminded he forgets to eat. Sometimes he forgets to eat while he's eating.”
― Jean M. Auel, quote from The Clan of the Cave Bear


“It was a tense moment. If Norg refused them, they would have no choice but to return the long distance back to their cave. It would be a grave breach of propriety, but to allow Ayla entrance would be tantamount to accepting her as a woman of the Clan; at least it would give Brun a clear edge. Norg looked again at his mog-ur, then at the powerful one-eyed man who was The Mog-ur, then back at the man who was leader of the clan ranked first of all the clans. If The Mog-ur said so, what could he do?”
― Jean M. Auel, quote from The Clan of the Cave Bear


“countered. “I suspect the story was made up by a woman who had a”
― Jean M. Auel, quote from The Clan of the Cave Bear


“Más vale ser un hombre viejo que un muchacho que se cree hombre.”
― Jean M. Auel, quote from The Clan of the Cave Bear



“was dark and no more inviting”
― Jean M. Auel, quote from The Clan of the Cave Bear


“Ese aperitivo que es el hambre contribuía a que todo tuviera mejor sabor aún.”
― Jean M. Auel, quote from The Clan of the Cave Bear


“Brun, this is the man Ayla saw as whole. This is the man who set her standard. This is the man she loves and compares with her son. Look at me, my brother! Did I deserve to live? Does Ayla’s son deserve to live less?” The”
― Jean M. Auel, quote from The Clan of the Cave Bear


About the author

Jean M. Auel
Born place: in Chicago, Illinois, The United States
Born date February 18, 1936
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“It’s joyous,” he says. “If I save someone from breaking a commandment, it gives me a little high.” He pumps his fist. “I never took drugs, but I imagine this is what it feels like.”
― A.J. Jacobs, quote from The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible


“The sky pulsed with stars. Some people say it makes them lonesome when they stare up at the night sky. I can't imagine why. There's no shortage of company. By now there's not a constellation I can't name. Orion. Lupus. Serpens. Hercules. Draco. My father taught me all of their stories. So when I look up I see a galaxy of adventures and heroes and villains, all jostling together and trying to outdo one another, and I sometimes want to tell them to hush up and not distract me with their chatter. I've glimpsed all the stars ever discovered by astronomers, and plenty that haven't been.”
― Kenneth Oppel, quote from Airborn


“Music was a kind of penetration. Perhaps absorption is a less freighted word. The penetration or absorption of everything into itself. I don't know if you have ever taken LSD, but when you do so the doors of perception, as Aldous Huxley, Jim Morrison and their adherents ceaselessly remind us, swing wide open. That is actually the sort of phrase, unless you are William Blake, that only makes sense when there is some LSD actually swimming about inside you. In the cold light of the cup of coffee and banana sandwich that are beside me now it appears to be nonsense, but I expect you to know what it is taken to mean. LSD reveals the whatness of things, their quiddity, their essence. The wateriness of water is suddenly revealed to you, the carpetness of carpets, the woodness of wood, the yellowness of yellow, the fingernailness of fingernails, the allness of all, the nothingness of all, the allness of nothing. For me music gives access to everyone of these essences, but at a fraction of the social or financial cost of a drug and without the need to cry 'Wow!' all the time, which is LSD's most distressing and least endearing side effects.
...Music in the precision of its form and the mathematical tyranny of its laws, escapes into an eternity of abstraction and an absurd sublime that is everywhere and nowhere at once. The grunt of rosin-rubbed catgut, the saliva-bubble blast of a brass tube, the sweaty-fingered squeak on a guitar fret, all that physicality, all that clumsy 'music making', all that grain of human performance...transcends itself at the moment of its happening, that moment when music actually becomes, as it makes the journey from the vibrating instrument, the vibrating hi-fi speaker, as it sends those vibrations across to the human tympanum and through to the inner ear and into the brain, where the mind is set to vibrate to frequencies of its own making.
The nothingness of music can be moulded by the mood of the listener into the most precise shapes or allowed to float as free as thought; music can follow the academic and theoretical pattern of its own modality or adhere to some narrative or dialectical programme imposed by a friend, a scholar or the composer himself. Music is everything and nothing. It is useless and no limit can be set to its use. Music takes me to places of illimitable sensual and insensate joy, accessing points of ecstasy that no angelic lover could ever locate, or plunging me into gibbering weeping hells of pain that no torturer could ever devise. Music makes me write this sort of maundering adolescent nonsense without embarrassment. Music is in fact the dog's bollocks. Nothing else comes close.”
― Stephen Fry, quote from Moab Is My Washpot


“She knew she couldn't keep the hope from her gaze, but there was a new sense of longing swirling rapidly within her. She would have her freedom, but she would not have him. She clung to him, unable to let go, unable to stop the surge of anguish that shot through her.”
― Erica Stevens, quote from Captured


“It is true. Indeed, that is why I dared not speak. I have yearned to be again at the side of my beloved Arianllyn, and my thoughts are with her now. But had I chosen to return, I would ever wonder whether my choice was made through wisdom or following the wishes of my own heart. I see this is as it must be, and the destiny laid upon me. I am content to die here.”
― Lloyd Alexander, quote from The Black Cauldron


Interesting books

Imperium: A Novel of Ancient Rome
(19.4K)
Imperium: A Novel of...
by Robert Harris
Revolting Rhymes
(14.7K)
Revolting Rhymes
by Roald Dahl
Magician's Gambit
(75.3K)
Magician's Gambit
by David Eddings
Islands in the Stream
(11.3K)
Islands in the Strea...
by Ernest Hemingway
Purgatorio
(18.5K)
Purgatorio
by Dante Alighieri
The Swarm
(12.1K)
The Swarm
by Frank Schätzing

About BookQuoters

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.