Jean Sasson · 826 pages
Rating: (770 votes)
“understood that from this moment, the stepping-stones”
― Jean Sasson, quote from The Complete Princess Trilogy: Princess; Princess Sultana's Daughters; and Princess Sultana's Circle
“I believe that the children of this generation have decayed with the ease of their lives, and that their great fortune has deprived them of any ambitions or real satisfactions. Surely the weakness of our monarchy in Saudi Arabia is bound up in our addiction to extravagance. I fear it will be our undoing.”
― Jean Sasson, quote from The Complete Princess Trilogy: Princess; Princess Sultana's Daughters; and Princess Sultana's Circle
“Surely the weakness of our monarchy in Saudi Arabia is bound up in our addiction to extravagance. I fear it will be our undoing.”
― Jean Sasson, quote from The Complete Princess Trilogy: Princess; Princess Sultana's Daughters; and Princess Sultana's Circle
“suddenly remembered a beautiful verse by the great Lebanese philosopher Kahlil Gibran: “Mayhap a funeral among men is a wedding feast among the angels.” I imagined my mother at the side of her mother and father, with her own little ones gathered in her arms.”
― Jean Sasson, quote from The Complete Princess Trilogy: Princess; Princess Sultana's Daughters; and Princess Sultana's Circle
“Riyadh was the base of the government, but none of the Al Sa’ud family particularly enjoyed the city; their complaints never ended about the dreariness of life in Riyadh. It was too hot and dry, the men of religion took themselves too seriously, the nights were too cold. Most of the family preferred Jeddah or Taif.”
― Jean Sasson, quote from The Complete Princess Trilogy: Princess; Princess Sultana's Daughters; and Princess Sultana's Circle
“that the children of this generation have decayed with the ease of their lives, and that their great fortune has deprived them of any ambitions or real satisfactions.”
― Jean Sasson, quote from The Complete Princess Trilogy: Princess; Princess Sultana's Daughters; and Princess Sultana's Circle
“Interpretation first appears in the culture of late classical antiquity, when the power and credibility of myth had been broken by the “realistic” view of the world introduced by scientific enlightenment. Once the question that haunts post-mythic consciousness—that of the seemliness of religious symbols—had been asked, the ancient texts were, in their pristine form, no longer acceptable. Then interpretation was summoned, to reconcile the ancient texts to “modern” demands. Thus, the Stoics, to accord with their view that the gods had to be moral, allegorized away the rude features of Zeus and his boisterous clan in Homer’s epics. What Homer really designated by the adultery of Zeus with Leto, they explained, was the union between power and wisdom. In the same vein, Philo of Alexandria interpreted the literal historical narratives of the Hebrew Bible as spiritual paradigms. The story of the exodus from Egypt, the wandering in the desert for forty years, and the entry into the promised land, said Philo, was really an allegory of the individual soul’s emancipation, tribulations, and final deliverance. Interpretation thus presupposes a discrepancy between the clear meaning of the text and the demands of (later) readers. It seeks to resolve that discrepancy. The situation is that for some reason a text has become unacceptable; yet it cannot be discarded. Interpretation is a radical strategy for conserving an old text, which is thought too precious to repudiate, by revamping it. The interpreter, without actually erasing or rewriting the text, is altering it. But he can’t admit to doing this. He claims to be only making it intelligible, by disclosing its true meaning. However far the interpreters alter the text (another notorious example is the Rabbinic and Christian “spiritual” interpretations of the clearly erotic Song of Songs), they must claim to be reading off a sense that is already there.”
― Susan Sontag, quote from Against Interpretation and Other Essays
“What we have named as anger on the surface is the violent outer response to our own inner powerlessness, a powerlessness connected to such a profound sense of rawness and care that it can find no proper outer body or identity or voice, or way of life to hold it.”
― David Whyte, quote from Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words
“I need you,” he says, his voice so quiet I have to lean forward to hear. “That’s my secret. I need you more than you have ever needed me.”
― Kyra Davis, quote from Just One Night
“Dawn broke over Savannah, scraping the night sky bloody before letting the sun rise over the horizon.”
― J.D. Horn, quote from The Source
“When a man, however passively, becomes an obstacle to the fulfillment of a woman's desires, he becomes an odious thing in her eyes, - or will, given time enough.”
― Theodore Dreiser, quote from Sister Carry
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.