Quotes from The Club Dumas

“One is never alone with a book nearby, don't you agree? Every page reminds us of a day that has passed and makes us relive the emotions that filled it. Happy hours underlined in red pencil, dark ones in black...”
― Arturo Pérez-Reverte, quote from The Club Dumas

“Everyone gets the devil he deserves.”
― Arturo Pérez-Reverte, quote from The Club Dumas

“Because God and the devil could be one and the same thing, and everybody understood it in his own way.”
― Arturo Pérez-Reverte, quote from The Club Dumas

“As for me, all I know is that I know nothing. And when I want to know something, I look it up in books--their memory never fails”
― Arturo Pérez-Reverte, quote from The Club Dumas

“Of all the universal lies she accepted unquestioningly, the happy ending was the most absurd. The hero and heroine lived happily ever after, and the ending seemed indisputable, definitive. No questions asked about how long love or happiness lasts in that 'forever' that can be divided into lifetimes, years, months. Even days”
― Arturo Pérez-Reverte, quote from The Club Dumas

“You’ve just mentioned the price that has to be paid…Pride, freedom…Knowledge. Whether at the beginning or at the end, you have to pay for everything. Even courage, don’t you think? And don’t you think a lot of courage is needed to fight God?”
― Arturo Pérez-Reverte, quote from The Club Dumas

“Films are for everyone, collective, generous, with children cheering when the cavalry arrives. And they're even better on TV: two can watch and comment. But your books are selfish. Solitary. Some of them can't even be read, they fall to bits if you open them. A person who's interested only in books doesn't need other people, and that frightens me”
― Arturo Pérez-Reverte, quote from The Club Dumas

“Whenever I got any money, I invested it in books. When my savings dwindled, I got rid of everything else—pictures, furniture, china. I think you understand what it is to be a passionate collector of books…”
― Arturo Pérez-Reverte, quote from The Club Dumas

“The world is full of banks and rivers running between them, of men and women crossing bridges and fords, unaware of the consequences, not looking back or beneath their feet, and with no loose change for the boatman.”
― Arturo Pérez-Reverte, quote from The Club Dumas

“Becoming a book collector is like joining a religion: it’s for life.”
― Arturo Pérez-Reverte, quote from The Club Dumas

“Who are you?"
"The devil," she said. "The devil in love.”
― Arturo Pérez-Reverte, quote from The Club Dumas

“You can make a text mean anything, especially if it’s old and full of ambiguities.”
― Arturo Pérez-Reverte, quote from The Club Dumas

“I'm afraid of wooden horses, cheap gin, and pretty girls. Especially when they give me presents. And when they go by the name of the woman who defeated Sherlock Holmes.”
― Arturo Pérez-Reverte, quote from The Club Dumas

“And which devil do you prefer? Dante's?"

"No. Much too terrifying. Too medieval for my taste."

"Mephistopheles?"

"Not him, either. He's too pleased with himself. Too much a trickster, like a crooked lawyer ... Anyway, I never trust people who smile a lot."

"What about the one in The Karamazovs?"

"Petty. A civil servant with dirty nails. I suppose the devil I prefer is Milton's fallen angel.”
― Arturo Pérez-Reverte, quote from The Club Dumas

“When he stepped into the shower, the hot water scalded him. He let it run over his face, burning his eyelids. He put up with the pain, his jaw clenched and his muscles taut, suppressing the urge to howl with loneliness in the suffocating steam. For four years, one month, and twelve days, Nikon always got into the shower with him after they made love and soaped his back slowly, interminably. And often she put her arms around him, like a little girl in the rain. One day I'll leave without ever really knowing you. You'll remember my big, dark eyes. The reproachful silences. The moans of anxiety as I slept. The nightmares you couldn't save me from. You'll remember all this when I'm gone.”
― Arturo Pérez-Reverte, quote from The Club Dumas

“Amicizia..." Corso si guardò attorno, aspettando che qualcuno gli spiegasse la parola. "I bar e i cimiteri sono pieni di amici inseparabili.”
― Arturo Pérez-Reverte, quote from The Club Dumas

“A century from now,” he murmured as he lifted a page and examined it against the light, closing one eye, “almost all the contents of today’s libraries will have disappeared. But these books, printed two hundred or even five hundred years ago, will remain intact. We have the books, and the world, that we deserve. . . . Isn’t that so, Pablo?” “Lousy books printed on lousy paper.”
― Arturo Pérez-Reverte, quote from The Club Dumas

“Quien sólo se interesa por los libros no necesita a nadie, y eso me da miedo.”
― Arturo Pérez-Reverte, quote from The Club Dumas

“As for me, all I know is that I know nothing. And when I want to know something, I look it up in books—their memory never fails.”
― Arturo Pérez-Reverte, quote from The Club Dumas

“Audience turn to archetype packed stories to enjoy, whether consciously or unconsciously, the device of repeated plots with small variations. Dispositio rather than elocution. That's why the serial, even the most trite television serial, can become a cult both for a naïve audience and for a more sophisticated one.”
― Arturo Pérez-Reverte, quote from The Club Dumas

“Начинът, по който някои хора пипат книги, е направо престъпен.”
― Arturo Pérez-Reverte, quote from The Club Dumas

“Ông đã đọc câu chuyện hài hước của Nodier về người sưu tầm sách chưa? Chuyện xảy ra với tôi đúng như thế. Tôi sẵn lòng bắn chết bất kỳ một tay thợ đóng sách nào nếu hắn dùng máy xén giấy quá vụng. Tôi cực kỳ hạnh phúc nếu phát hiện một bản in để lề rộng hơn hai milimet so với thứ được mô tả trong các thư mục chuẩn.”
― Arturo Pérez-Reverte, quote from The Club Dumas

“found out later that he lived alone, surrounded by books, both his own and other people’s, and that as well as being a hired hunter of books he was an expert on Napoleon’s battles. He could set out on a board, from memory, the exact positions of troops on the eve of Waterloo. A”
― Arturo Pérez-Reverte, quote from The Club Dumas

“One day he reads his friend's novel and discovers that Ishmael's account and his own memories of what happened are completely different. So he writes his own version of the story. Call me Queequeg the story begins, and he titles it A Whale. From the harpooner's point of view, Ishmael was a pedantic scholar who blew things out of proportion. Moby Dick wasn't to blame, he was a whale like any other. It was all a matter of an incompetent captain wanting to settle a personal score instead of filling barrels with oil. "What does it matter who tore his leg off?" writes Queequeg.”
― Arturo Pérez-Reverte, quote from The Club Dumas

“Non mi piacciono i regali” mormorò Corso, cupo. “Una volta dei tipi accettarono un certo cavallo di legno. Artigianato acheo, c'era scritto sull'etichetta. Che idioti.”
― Arturo Pérez-Reverte, quote from The Club Dumas

“- Само след един век почти цялото съдържание на днешните библиотеки ще е отишло на боклука. Но тези книги, отпечатани преди двеста, дри петстотин години, ще останат непокътнати. Така е, и книгите, и светът, в който живеем, са такива, каквито заслужаваме… Не е ли така, Пабло?
- Калпави книги, отпечатани на калпава хартия.”
― Arturo Pérez-Reverte, quote from The Club Dumas

“En cuanto a mí, sólo sé que no sé nada. Y cuando quiero saber busco en los libros, a los que nunca falla la memoria.”
― Arturo Pérez-Reverte, quote from The Club Dumas

“Me llamo Boris Balkan y una vez traduje La Cartuja de Parma. Por lo demás, las críticas y recensiones que escribo salen en suplementos y revistas de media Europa, organizo cursos sobre escritores contemporáneos en las universidades de verano, y tengo algunos libros editados sobre novela popular del XIX. Nada espectacular, me temo; sobre todo en estos tiempos donde los suicidios se disfrazan de homicidios, las novelas son escritas por el médico de Rogelio Ackroyd, y demasiada gente se empeña en publicar doscientas páginas sobre las apasionantes vivencias que experimenta mirándose al espejo.”
― Arturo Pérez-Reverte, quote from The Club Dumas

“Excellent papier. Rien à voir avec les pâtes mécaniques d'aujourd'hui... Vous savez quelle est la durée de vie moyenne d'un livre imprimé à l'heure actuelle ?... Dis lui, Pablo.
- Soixante-dix ans, répondit l'autre avec rancœur, comme si Corso était le coupable. Soixante-dix misérables années.
Le frère aîné cherchait quelque chose parmi les objets dispersés sur la table. Finalement, il s'empara d'une loupe spéciale à fort grossissement et l'approcha du livre.
- Dans moins d'un siècle, murmura-t-il tandis qu'il soulevait une page pour l'étudier à contre-jour en fermant un œil, presque tout ce qui se trouve aujourd'hui dans les librairies aura disparu. Mais ces volumes imprimés il y a deux cents ou cinq cents ans, demeureront intacts... Nous avons les livres, comme le monde, que nous méritons... N'est-ce pas, Pablo ?
- Des livres de merde pour un monde de merde.”
― Arturo Pérez-Reverte, quote from The Club Dumas

“One is never alone with a book nearby, don't you agree?...Every page reminds us of a day that has passed and makes us relive the emotions that filled it. Happy hours underlined in red pencil, dark ones in black...Where was I, then? What prince called me his friend, what beggar called me his brother?”
― Arturo Pérez-Reverte, quote from The Club Dumas

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Popular quotes

“What did I think? Right then I was thinking about my father, specifically his habit of treating everyone with courtesy and consideration, of how he used to stop on lower Division Street and converse genially with old black men from the Hill whom he knew from his early days as a route man. His kindness and interest weren't feigned, nor did they derive, I'm convinced, from any perceived send of duty. His behavior was merely an extension of who he was. But here's the thing about my father that I've come to understand only reluctantly and very recently. If he wasn't the cause of what ailed his fellow man, neither was he the solution. He believed in "Do unto Others." It was a good, indeed golden, rule to by and it never occurred to him that perhaps it wasn't enough. "You ain't gotta love people," I remember him proclaiming to the Elite Coffee Club guys at Ikey's back in the early days. Confused by mean-spirited behavior, he was forever explaining how little it cost to be polite, to be nice to people. Make them feel good then they're down because maybe tomorrow you'll be down. Such a small thing. Love, he seemed to understand, was a very big thing indeed, its cost enormous and maybe more than you could afford if you were spendthrift. Nobody expects that of you, asny more than they expected you to hand out hundred-dollar bills on the street corner.
And I remember my mother's response when he repeated over dinner what he'd told the men at the store. "Really, Lou? Isn't that exactly what we're supposed to do? Love people? Isn't that what the Bible says?”
― Richard Russo, quote from Bridge of Sighs

“It was Valentine's Day and I had spent the day in bed with my life partner, Ketel One. The two of us watched a romance movie marathon on TBS Superstation that made me wonder how people who write romantic comedies can sleep at night.

At some point during almost every romantic comedy, the female lead suddenly trips and falls, stumbling helplessly over something ridiculous like a leaf, and then some Matthew McConaughey type either whips around the corner just in the nick of time to save her or is clumsily pulled down along with her. That event predictably leads to the magical moment of their first kiss. Please. I fall all-the-time. You know who comes and gets me? The bouncer.

Then, within the two hour time frame of the movie, the couple meet, fall in love, fall out of love, break up, and then just before the end of the movie, they happen to bump into each other by "coincidence" somewhere absolutely absurd, like by the river. This never happens in real life. The last time I bumped into an ex-boyfriend was at three o'clock in the morning at Rite Aid. I was ringing up Gas-X and corn removers.”
― Chelsea Handler, quote from My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One-Night Stands

“If only customs were logical. If only the rules were as simple as "Don't do anything that will hurt others." If that were the only rule, I’d have at least a fifty percent chance of getting it right. I would, for example, ask myself whether saying the Rosary silently on the train would hurt others. The answer would be no and so I would say it. As it is, the reasons as to why something is right and something is not seem arbitrary.”
― Francisco X. Stork, quote from Marcelo in the Real World

“Los mortales se olvidan de advertir que el tiempo pasa.”
― Jackson Pearce, quote from As You Wish

“Lizards that blend into the rock do so to catch flies.”
― Margaret Weis, quote from Dragon Wing

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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.