“I don't understand how I can know so little about love and how it works. How I can be so bad at it when it's all I've ever wanted.
All I've ever known is about leaving or being left.”
“Survivors aren't always the strongest; sometimes they're the smartest, but more often simply the luckiest.”
“It's one thing to know a truth in your head but another to understand it in your heart.”
“The broken ones need someone to fight for them even harder.”
“Life is never that simple. And the fact that it's not that simple to you means only one thing: You're still alive.”
“There's one detail I've always remembered: He told me how long it takes the light from the stars to reach through space to us.
How most of the points of light we see actually no longer exist. We're just seeing the remnants of what was-- ghosts of what use to be.”
“Sometimes life isn't about the end. It's not always about tomorrow and the day after that-what we achieve over the years and how we leave the world. Sometimes it's about today...Any of us could die tomorrow regardless of the horde. We could get sick or be injured or anything else. That's the risk we take waking up each morning and stepping outside.”
“I stare at the way the tracks of her tears break across her jaw and along her neck, at how it looks like her face, once shattered, has been carefully put back together. And I wonder if that’s what my scars really are: proof that I’ve put myself back together again.”
“What matters is what we do with the life we have.”
“I feel as though I'm a storm inside and the waves of it can be seen in my eyes.”
“The earth will spin, the stars will rearrange themselves around one another and the world will crawl with the dead who one day will drop into nothingness: no humans left for them to scent, no flesh for them to crave. Everything- all of us will simply cease to be.
They'll find peace only when we're all dead.”
“Knowing that this is what it means to live. That this love, this need is what drives us to push and fight and build and grow. That as long as there's hope and love in this world, there will always be the living.”
“Do you ever think it's the dead that have the happy ending? Just they don't have to worry about surviving."
"But they're dead," he says
"Yeah. That means they don't have to remember anything."
Elias shakes his head. "That means they can't ever love."
I snort. "So they don't know loss.”
“I just sat there, staring out towards the darkness of the ocean and the starlight flashing off the crests of the waves and knew that we were all part of this bigger whole. That somehow I mattered in the course of things and a part of me would always have left its mark on this world.”
“It’s not always about tomorrow and the day after that—what we achieve over the years and how we leave the world. Sometimes it’s about today.”
“Always," I tell him. He catches his breath and I lean away until I can see his eyes. "I'm scared of losing my heart to you. But I think it's a risk I'm willing to take.”
“I catch my breath but he's not finished. "I love you, Annah. And if you're willing to risk everything to be with me, then I'm willing to risk everything to be with you. I'm going to keep fighting for you, every day of my life. If you'll have me.”
“You're stubborn- anyone ever tell you that before?”
“Do you think the dead don’t know what they’ve lost? Don’t you ever wonder why they seek human flesh? That maybe it’s their way of believing again? Of living again—if even for that one pure moment that blood pulses inside their mouths?”
“Broken things can be made whole again. Perhaps not as they were before, but maybe stronger this time.”
“But I don't know how to tell him all this. That I'm scared and I don't know how to be normal. I'm broken, just like him, and I'm not sure I can fix myself.”
“...I realized that life isn't something to be scared of. That you don't have to hold on so tightly that you can't breathe.”
“Every day, the pain of that moment has scored through me. The humiliation and anger and misery and rejection. So many emotions that churn over me, always forcing me to feel it all fresh again and again - never in my life had I felt so ugly and unwanted.”
“It all seems so worthless. Such a waste of lives. We've spent hundreds of years since the Return buffering the Dark City and trying to maintain it - scraping out a life that will soon be wiped out.
And what of the rest of the world that's already fallen? Stars blinking away, their light slowly fading? Somewhere out there a star's just dying and we'll never know about it. Somewhere another's being born whose light we'll never see.
The Earth will spin, the stars will rearrange themselves around one another and the world will crawl with the dead who one day will drop into nothing ness: no humans left for them to scent, no flesh for them to crave. Everything-all of us-will simply cease to be.”
“I want to raise my hand to his cheek. I want to tell him it's okay. That it's pretty here in my head and it doesn't hurt.”
“How did he change? What was he like before?" ...
"He was happy before.”
“As long as there’s hope and love in this world, there will always be the living”
“We're the winners because we get to live. Because we get to survive. Despite the pain of this life, we get to feel.”
“—En ese momento noté que había cometido el error más grande en mi vida. Noté que no soy nada sin ti. No tiene sentido estar vivo si no puedo amarte.”
“I've let the day-to-day existence of life blind me to dreams.”
“She never told her love, but let concealment, like a worm 'i th' bud, feed on her damask cheek. She pinned in thought; and, with a green and yellow melancholy, she sat like Patience on a monument, smiling at grief. Was not this love indeed? We men may say more, swear more; but indeed our shows are more than will; for we still prove much in our vows but little in our love.”
“Truthfulness so often goes with ruthlessness. ”
“For what we suppose to be our love or our jealousy is never a single, continuous and indivisible passion. It is composed of an infinity of successive loves, of different jealousies, each of which is ephemeral, although by their uninterrupted multiplicity they give us the impression of continuity, the illusion of unity.”
“A human being can be good or bad or right or wrong, maybe. But how can you say a person is illegal? You just can't. That's all there is to it.”
“Tell me a story,' she whispered.
'What kind of story?'
'One that'll make me have good dreams.'
'Better give me a rating for that dream.'
'Surprise me.'
....
'Once upon a time there was a girl...'
'Not a princess.'
'No. Definitely not. She was too smart to be a princess. Tough, too.'
'Yeah?'
'Oh yeah. Stronger than anyone realized.'
'Does she live happily ever after?'
'Shouldn't there be something in the middle?'
'I like to read the ending first. So did she?'
'Yes.”
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.