Quotes from The Contortionist's Handbook

“A person’s life story is equal to what they have plus what they want most in the world, minus what they’re actually willing to sacrifice for it.”
― Craig Clevenger, quote from The Contortionist's Handbook

“It's taken me years of practice to learn how to act natural.”
― Craig Clevenger, quote from The Contortionist's Handbook

“i learned that predators don't intentionally choose the weak or old or sick. they kill what they can, which means the slow members of the pack. thus, they strengthen the very gene pool they're feeding from. the threshold for what is weak, old or sick gets raised, and the strength, speed and instincts of new generations of hunters grow. a beautiful, self-perpetuating system where evolution is the antithesis of entropy.”
― Craig Clevenger, quote from The Contortionist's Handbook

“When you’re in love, your brain secretes endorphins into your blood. Organic morphine leaks out of a gland in your skull, feels like a low-grade opium rush. Some people confuse the two, the head rush and the love. You think you’re in love with a person, but you’re in love with a syringe.”
― Craig Clevenger, quote from The Contortionist's Handbook

“...what they show tells you what they want to hide.”
― Craig Clevenger, quote from The Contortionist's Handbook

“I love you, I said, but not out loud.”
― Craig Clevenger, quote from The Contortionist's Handbook

“The combination to be on guard for is young and bored, or young and resentful. You can spot them at social gatherings, the grad students or interns who tell you about syndromes, conditions, deviances, and disorders, and they love, love, love to talk. They speak in half-sentences with a knowing smile-squint, watch you falter at the pause, and then keep talking.”
― Craig Clevenger, quote from The Contortionist's Handbook

“If no God, there must at least be a pattern-making demiurge.”
― Craig Clevenger, quote from The Contortionist's Handbook

“People can numb themselves, get used to anything.”
― Craig Clevenger, quote from The Contortionist's Handbook

“Carisoprodol. Comes in a white tablet like a big-ass vitamin, 350 mg of muscle liquefier for those tense, recovering athletes and furniture movers. Too much, and those relaxed muscles include your diaphragm, then your heart.”
― Craig Clevenger, quote from The Contortionist's Handbook

“They see my fingers, they run. Dominique. Alicia. Penny.

They see my fingers, they want their hair pulled. Alex. Renee. Kristin.”
― Craig Clevenger, quote from The Contortionist's Handbook

“My left hand is a Rorschach blotch all its own, a six-fingered, skin-blood-and-bone ink splatter. People see it and fly their worst fears and secret fetishes at full mast when they think they’re being discreet. They see it as strange, fascinating, ugly, beautiful, disgusting or erotic depending on what’s behind their eyes.”
― Craig Clevenger, quote from The Contortionist's Handbook

“A person's life story is equal to what they have plus what they want most in the world, minus what they're actually willing to sacrifice for it.”
― Craig Clevenger, quote from The Contortionist's Handbook

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Popular quotes

“Hadrian caught her arm. “You go back and we’ll continue searching.”

“I’m not going to rest while you risk your life. Are you nuts? You stay. I stay.”

Hadrian cupped her cheek. “Think of the babies. They need their mother. You’re much more fierce than I am. Go back and we’ll keep looking.”

She hated it whenever he pulled the children card on her. It was the one and only thing he knew she wouldn’t argue against. “You’re a rank bastard, Hadrian Scalera!”

Instead of getting angry, he flashed that charming grin that always melted her heart. “Hadrian Erixour.” He pressed his helmet to hers and turned her around to head back without him.”
― Sherrilyn Kenyon, quote from Born of Defiance

“She cursed me at such length and with such inventiveness I had to check both my watch and my dictionary.”
― Viet Thanh Nguyen, quote from The Sympathizer

“You don't go to battle because you're sure of victory. [...] You go into battle because it's the right thing to do.”
― C.J. Redwine, quote from The Shadow Queen

“Perhaps he can avoid being stretched by falling in a horizontal position, legs and head at the same altitude. Yet when the giant tries it, he finds a new discomfort; the stretching sensation is replaced by an equal feeling of compression. He feels as if his head is being pressed toward his feet. To understand why this is so, let’s temporarily imagine that the Earth is flat. Here is what it would look like. The vertical lines, together with the arrows, indicate the direction of the gravitational force—not surprisingly, straight down. But more than that, the strength of the gravitational pull is entirely uniform. The 2,000-Mile Man would have no trouble in this environment, whether he fell vertically or horizontally—not until he hit the ground anyway. But the Earth is not flat. Both the strength and the direction of gravity vary. Instead of pulling in a single direction, gravity pulls directly toward the center of the planet, like this: This creates a new problem for the giant if he falls horizontally. The force on his head and feet will not be the same because gravity, as it pulls toward the center of the Earth, will push his head toward his feet, leading to the strange sensation of being compressed. Let’s return”
― Leonard Susskind, quote from The Black Hole War: My Battle with Stephen Hawking to Make the World Safe for Quantum Mechanics

“Can anything harm us, mother, after the night-lights are lit?"
Nothing, precious," she said; "they are the eyes a mother leaves behind her to guard her children.”
― J.M. Barrie, quote from Peter Pan (Illustrated with Interactive Elements)

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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.