“Only those who still have hope can benefit from tears.”
― Nathanael West, quote from The Day of the Locust
“Their boredom becomes more and more terrible. They realize that they’ve been tricked and burn with resentment. Every day of their lives they read the newspapers and went to the movies. Both fed them on lynchings, murder, sex crimes, explosions, wrecks, love nests, fires, miracles, revolutions, war. This daily diet made sophisticates of them. The sun is a joke. Oranges can’t titillate their jaded palates. Nothing can ever be violent enough to make taut their slack minds and bodies. They have been cheated and betrayed. They have slaved and saved for nothing.”
― Nathanael West, quote from The Day of the Locust
“Only those who still have hope can benefit from tears. When they finish, they feel better. But to those without hope, whose anguish is basic and permanent, no good comes from crying. Nothing changes for them. They usually know this, but still can’t help crying.”
― Nathanael West, quote from The Day of the Locust
“Let him ride a horse. He's a cowboy ain't he?”
― Nathanael West, quote from The Day of the Locust
“I'm going to be a star some day," she announced as though daring him to contradict her.
"I'm sure you..."
"It's my life. It's the only thing in the whole world that I want."
"It's good to know what you want. I used to be a bookkeeper in a hotel,
but..."
"If I'm not, I'll commit suicide.”
― Nathanael West, quote from The Day of the Locust
“The sun is a joke. Oranges can’t titillate their jaded palates. Nothing can ever be violent enough to make taut their slack minds and bodies.”
― Nathanael West, quote from The Day of the Locust
“Being with her was like being backstage during an amateurish, ridiculous play.”
― Nathanael West, quote from The Day of the Locust
“She wasn’t hard-boiled. It was just that she put love on a special plane, where a man without money or looks couldn’t move.”
― Nathanael West, quote from The Day of the Locust
“But whether he was happy or not it is hard to say. Probably he was neither, just as a plant is neither. He had memories to disturb him and a plant hasn't, but after the first bad night his memories were quiet.”
― Nathanael West, quote from The Day of the Locust
“What a perfect escape the return to the womb was. Better by far than Religion or Art or the South Sea Islands. It was so snug and warm there, and the feeding was automatic.”
― Nathanael West, quote from The Day of the Locust
“Every day of their lives they read the newspapers and went to the movies. Both fed them on lynchings, murder, sex crimes, explosions, wrecks, love nests, fires, miracles, revolutions, war. This daily diet made sophisticates of them. The sun is a joke. Oranges can't titillate their jaded palates. Nothing can ever be violent enough to make taut their slack minds and bodies. They have been cheated and betrayed. They have slaved and saved for nothing. Tod”
― Nathanael West, quote from The Day of the Locust
“„Biću zvezda jednog dana,” izjavila je kao da ga izaziva da joj protivreči.
„Siguran sam...”
„To je moj život. To je jedina stvar na svetu koju želim.”
„Dobro je znati šta želiš. Ja sam bio knjigovođa u hotelu, ali...”
„Ako ne bude tako, izvršiću samoubistvo.”
― Nathanael West, quote from The Day of the Locust
“He crossed the bridge and followed a little path that ended at a Greek temple dedicated to Eros. The god himself lay face downward in a pile of old newspapers and bottles. From”
― Nathanael West, quote from The Day of the Locust
“Tod didn't laugh at the man's rhetoric. He knew it was unimportant. What mattered were his messianic rage and the emotional response of his hearers. They sprang to their feet, shaking their fists and shouting.”
― Nathanael West, quote from The Day of the Locust
“He got out of bed in sections, like a poorly made automaton, and carried his hands into the bathroom. He turned on the cold water. When the basin was full, he plunged his hands in up to the wrists. They lay quietly on the bottom like a pair of strange aquatic animals. When they were thoroughly chilled and began to crawl about, he lifted them out and hid them in a towel. He was cold. He ran hot water into the tub and began to undress, fumbling with the buttons of his clothing as though he were undressing a stranger. He was naked before the tub was full enough to get in and he sat down on a stool to wait. He kept his enormous hands folded quietly on his belly. Although absolutely still, they seemed curbed rather than resting.”
― Nathanael West, quote from The Day of the Locust
“We look at the galaxy and fall in love, but the universe cares less about us than we do about it, and the stars stay in their courses however much we may wish upon them to do otherwise. It’s true that if you watch the sky-wheel turn for a while you’ll see a meteor fall, flame and die. That’s not a star worth following; it’s just an unlucky rock. Our fates are here on earth. There are no guiding stars.”
― Salman Rushdie, quote from The Moor's Last Sigh
“We all live with our losses. We don't want to, but we can”
― Carrie Jones, quote from Captivate
“It’s hard to fall in love with assholes, Warren.”..
“Maybe you just haven’t met the right asshole yet.”
― Colleen Hoover, quote from Maybe Not
“As we drove back to Enugu, I laughed loudly,above Fela's stringent singing. I laughed because Nsukka's untarred roads coat cars with dust in the harmattan and with sticky mud in the rainy season. Because the tarred roads spring potholes like surprise presents and the air smells of hills and history and the sunlight scatters the sand and turns it into gold dust. Because Nsukka could free something deep inside your belly that would rise up to your throat and come out as freedom song. As laughter.(299)”
― Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, quote from Purple Hibiscus
“The instances of honesty that one comes across in this world are just as amazing as the instances of dishonesty. After forty-five years of mixing with one's kind, one ought to have acquired the habit of being able to know something about one's fellow beings. But one doesn't”
― Ford Madox Ford, quote from The Good Soldier
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.
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