“violence is an evil thing, but when the guns are all in the hands of the men without respect for human rights, then men are really in trouble.”
“You stick your finger in the water and you pull it out, and that is how much of a hole you leave when you're gone.”
“Folks who talk about no violence are always the ones who are first to call a policeman and usually they are sure there is one handy.”
“People have a greater tolerance for evil than for violence. If crooked gamboling, thieving and robing are covered over folks will tolerate it longer than out right violence, even when the violence may be cleansing.”
“Not that folks disliked me or that I ever went around being mean, but folks never did get close to me and it was most likely my fault. There was always something standoffish about me. I liked folks, but I liked the wild animals, the lonely trails, and the mountains better.”
“...people have a greater tolerance for evil than for violence. If crooked gambling, thieving, and robbing are covered over, folks will tolerate it longer than outright violence, even when the violence may be cleansing.”
“Wife, to him, was someone who stood for stability, for
coming home, for dealing with all the shit he wasn’t able to deal with. For providing a real life and not this insanity.”
“The fact that she made this beeline for me both warmed my soul and made me want to turn around, walk out the door, and find a cliff to fling myself off of.”
“In my old age, I have come to believe that love is not a noun but a verb. An action. Like water, it flows to its own current. If you were to corner it in a dam, true love is so bountiful it would flow over. Even in separation, even in death, it moves and changes. It lives within memory, in the haunting of a touch, the transience of a smell, or the nuance of a sigh. It seeks to leave a trace like a fossil in the sand, a leaf burned into baking asphalt.”
“Most people never get there. They're afraid or unwilling to demand enough of themselves and take the easy road, the path of least resistance. But struggling and suffering, as I now saw it, were the essence of a life worth living. If you're not pushing yourself beyond the comfort zone, if you're not constantly demanding more from yourself--expanding and learning as you go--your choosing a numb existence. Your denying yourself an extraordinary trip.”
“He saw the girl watching him and he smiled at her. It was an old smile that he had been using for fifty years, ever since he first smiled...”
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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