Quotes from The Counterfeiters

“On ne découvre pas de terre nouvelle sans consentir à perdre de vue, d'abord et longtemps, tout rivage.

(One doesn't discover new lands without consenting to lose sight, for a very long time, of the shore.)”
― André Gide, quote from The Counterfeiters

“I prefer granting with a good grace what I know I shan't be able to prevent.”
― André Gide, quote from The Counterfeiters

“There's no better cure for the fear of taking after one's father, than not to know who he is.”
― André Gide, quote from The Counterfeiters

“Je ne me sens jamais vivre plus intensément que quand je m'échappe à moi-même pour devenir n'importe qui.”
― André Gide, quote from The Counterfeiters

“...Gradation; gradation; and then a sudden leap...”
― André Gide, quote from The Counterfeiters

“When I was younger, I used to make resolutions which imagined were virtuous. I was less anxious to be what I was, than to become what I wished to be. Now, I am not far from thinking that in irresolution lies the secret of not growing old.”
― André Gide, quote from The Counterfeiters

“C'est dans l'extraordinaire que je me sens le plus naturel.”
― André Gide, quote from The Counterfeiters

“In a world in which everyone cheats, it's the honest man who passes for a charlatan.”
― André Gide, quote from The Counterfeiters

“For what use is it to forbid what we can't prevent? If books are forbidden, children read them on the sly.”
― André Gide, quote from The Counterfeiters

“Each one of a pair of lovers fashions himself to meet the other's requirements—endeavors by a continual effort to resemble that idol of himself which he beholds in the other's heart.... Whoever really loves abandons all sincerity.”
― André Gide, quote from The Counterfeiters

“When I was younger, I used to make resolutions, which I imagined were virtuous. I was less anxious to be what I was, than to become what I wished to be. Now, I am not far from thinking that in irresolution lies the secret of not going old.”
― André Gide, quote from The Counterfeiters

“One can always find hands for a work of destruction.”
― André Gide, quote from The Counterfeiters

“Characters in a novel or a play who act all the way through exactly as one expects them to... This consistency of theirs, which is held up to our admiration, is on the contrary the very thing which makes us recognise that they are artificially composed.”
― André Gide, quote from The Counterfeiters

“Those [who] assiduously fabricate for themselves a self-conscious originality, and after having made a choice of certain practices, their principal preoccupation is never to depart from them, to remain for ever on their guard and allow themselves not a moment's relaxation.”
― André Gide, quote from The Counterfeiters

“Le style des Faux-Monnayeurs ne doit présenter aucun intérêt de surface, aucune saillie. Tout doit être dit de la manière la plus plate, celle qui fera dire à certains jongleurs : que trouvez-vous à admirer là-dedans ?”
― André Gide, quote from The Counterfeiters

“Dès que Séraphine l'a laissé seul, Gontran se jette à genoux au pied du lit ; il enfonce son front dans les draps, mais ne parvient pas à pleurer ; aucun élan ne soulève son cœur. Ses yeux désespérément restent secs. Alors il se relève. Il regarde ce visage impassible. Il voudrait, en ce moment solennel, éprouver je ne sais quoi de sublime et de rare, écouter une communication de l'au-delà, lancer sa pensée dans des régions éthérées,suprasensibles - mais elle reste accrochée, sa pensée, au ras du sol. Il regarde les mains exsangues du mort, et se demande combien de temps encore les ongles continueront de pousser.”
― André Gide, quote from The Counterfeiters

“- Am rămas multă vreme cu pistolul la tâmplă. Eram cu degetul pe trăgaci. Chiar apăsam puţin ; dar nu destul de puternic. Îmi spuneam : "Peste o clipă voi apăsa mai tare şi glonţul va porni." Simţeam răceala metalului şi îmi spuneam "Peste o clipă n-o să mai simt nimic. Dar înainte o să aud un zgomot îngrozitor..." Dă-ţi seama, atât de aproape de ureche !... Şi asta mai cu seamă m-a reţinut : frica de zgomot...
Ceea ce e absurd ; căci din moment ce mori... Da! dar după mine moartea e un fel de somn ; iar o detunăturą nu te adoarme, dimpotrivă, te trezeşte... Da, fără îndoială că de asta-mi era frică. Mi-era teamă că în loc să adorm o să mă trezesc brusc.”
― André Gide, quote from The Counterfeiters

“Je sens en moi, confusément, des aspirations extraordinaires, des sortes de lames de fond, des mouvements, des agitations incompréhensibles, et que je ne veux pas chercher à comprendre, que je ne veux même pas observer, par crainte de les empêcher de se produire.”
― André Gide, quote from The Counterfeiters

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Popular quotes

“Early risers strolling along the Thames would see the toshers wading through the muck of low tide, dressed almost comically in flowing velveteen coats, their oversized pockets filled with stray bits of copper recovered from the water’s edge. The toshers walked with a lantern strapped to their chest to help them see in the predawn gloom, and carried an eight-foot-long pole that they used to test the ground in front of them, and to pull themselves out when they stumbled into a quagmire. The pole and the eerie glow of the lantern through the robes gave them the look of ragged wizards, scouring the foul river’s edge for magic coins.”
― Steven Johnson, quote from The Ghost Map: The Story of London's Most Terrifying Epidemic - and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World

“Hi, I’m Kirk Cameron. I know I’m late . . .” “You are,” he said. He looked at his watch. “The audition was at 4:30. It’s 5.” He started to close the door. Instinctively, I put my foot out so he couldn’t close it. “I know, I know. But my mom will kill me if I don’t do this audition. Please can I read just to tell her I did it?” He looked over his shoulder, probably to ask what the others thought, then opened the door. I had no idea what I was auditioning for except that it was a “pilot”—the first episode of a TV series that determines whether the network will put the show on its schedule. I’d gotten the script ahead of time but had really only glanced at it. I knew nothing about the show. To me, the title Growing Pains sounded dramatic and gritty. I left the audition without a sense of how things had gone. They laughed, but I wasn’t sure they were supposed to.”
― Kirk Cameron, quote from Still Growing: An Autobiography

“Like so much in Atlanta, Stone Mountain had become a bland and inoffensive consumable: the Confederacy as hood ornament. Not for the first time, though more deeply than ever before, I felt a twinge of affinity for the neo-Confederates I'd met in my travels. Better to remember Dixie and debate its philosophy than to have its largest shrine hijacked for Coca-Cola ads and MTV songs.”
― Tony Horwitz, quote from Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War

“There were two kinds of students who liked the library: those who devoured one book after another and those who savored the same book repeatedly. Now she understood those rereaders differently ... she realized it was not the rereading that led to fresh insights. It was the rereader-- because when a person is changing inside, there are inevitably new things to see.”
― Rachel Simon, quote from The Story of Beautiful Girl

“You're seriously suggesting this?" Az interrupted, his face full of disbelief. "That I what, dump her so she kills herself? That's fucked up.”
― Leah Clifford, quote from A Touch Mortal

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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.