“Perdiste tu inocencia en el mundo de afuera. No podrás recuperarla aquí adentro, en el mundo de los afectos. Quizá tuviste tu jardín. Yo también tuve el mío, mi pequeño paraíso. Ahora ambos lo hemos perdido. Trata de recordar. No puedes encontrar en mí lo que ya sacrificaste, lo que ya perdiste para siempre y por tu propia obra. No sé de dónde vienes. No sé qué has hecho. Sólo sé que en tu vida perdiste lo que después me hiciste perder a mí: el sueño, la inocencia. Ya nunca seremos los mismos.”
― Carlos Fuentes, quote from The Death of Artemio Cruz
“Tú y yo, miembros de esa masonería: la orden de la chingada. Eres quien eres porque supiste chingar y no te dejaste chingar; eres quien eres porque no supiste chingar y te dejaste chingar: cadena de la chingada que nos aprisiona a todos...”
― Carlos Fuentes, quote from The Death of Artemio Cruz
“¿Morirás? No será la primera vez. Habrás vivido tanta vida muerta, tantos momentos de mera gesticulación”
― Carlos Fuentes, quote from The Death of Artemio Cruz
“Artemio Cruz...nombre..."inútil"..."corazón"..."masaje"..."inutil"...ya no sabrás...te traje adentro y moriré contigo...los tres...moriremos...Tú...mueres..has muerto...moriré”
― Carlos Fuentes, quote from The Death of Artemio Cruz
“¿A poco no somos los meros chingones? ¿Sabes? Escoge siempre a tus amigos entre los grandes chingones, porque con ellos no hay quien te chingue a ti.”
― Carlos Fuentes, quote from The Death of Artemio Cruz
“Quiza fue pudor. Quiza unas ganas de que este amor a oscuras fuese, de verdad, excepcional.”
― Carlos Fuentes, quote from The Death of Artemio Cruz
“Vivir es traicionar a tu Dios; cada acto de la vida, cada acto que nos afirma como seres vivos, exige que se violen los mandamientos de tu Dios”
― Carlos Fuentes, quote from The Death of Artemio Cruz
“Tu valor será gemelo de tu cobardía, tu odio habrá nacido de tu amor, toda tu vida habrá contenido y prometido tu muerte; que no habrás sido bueno ni malo, generoso ni egoísta, entero ni traidor. Dejarás que todos los demás afirmen tus cualidades y tus defectos; pero tu mismo, ¿cómo podrás negar que cada una de tus afirmaciones se negará, que cada una de tus negaciones se afirmará?”
― Carlos Fuentes, quote from The Death of Artemio Cruz
“-Esé es el drama. No hay más que ellos. No sé si te acuerdas del principio. Fue hace tan poco, pero parece tan lejano...cuando no importaban los jefes. Cuando esta se hacía no para elevar a un hombre, sino a todos”
― Carlos Fuentes, quote from The Death of Artemio Cruz
“-Quisiera recordarte de pequeño. Te quise entonces, porque en la juventud una madre debe querer a todos sus hijos. De viejos sabemos mejor. No hay por qué querer a nadie sin razón. La sangre natural no es una razón. La única razón es la sangre amada sin razón.”
― Carlos Fuentes, quote from The Death of Artemio Cruz
“Однажды утром ты встанешь — Я заставляю тебя вспоминать, — встанешь, посмотришь в зеркало и увидишь наконец, что кое-что осталось позади. Ты припомнишь этот первый день наступившей старости, первый день нового времени — отметь его. И ты отметишь, окаменев, как статуя, и отныне по-новому глядя на все вокруг себя.”
― Carlos Fuentes, quote from The Death of Artemio Cruz
“Regina de la mirada soñadora y encendida.”
― Carlos Fuentes, quote from The Death of Artemio Cruz
“pesa de un lado mis culpas y del otro mi amor y verás que mi amor es más grande…”
― Carlos Fuentes, quote from The Death of Artemio Cruz
“He thought that even naturalness can be feigned; at times, a mask disguises too well the expressions of a face that does not exist either outside or under it.”
― Carlos Fuentes, quote from The Death of Artemio Cruz
“Pensarás que has hecho tantas cosas cobardes que el valor te resulta fácil.”
― Carlos Fuentes, quote from The Death of Artemio Cruz
“let not God speak to us, lest we die.”
― quote from The New Oxford Annotated Bible: New Revised Standard Version
“It's easy to get rid of people, Christophe. All you have to do is rely on them.”
― Lili St. Crow, quote from Jealousy
“Above all else, be true to yourself. Do what YOU want to do. Walk alone and be your own judge. It’ll be a bumpy road sometimes, but you’ll carry yourself a little taller at the end of each and every journey. In the end nobody except you cares whether you run your life at the beck and call of everyone else or whether you choose to be a Warrior-Sage, living your own life.
And that’s the way it should be.”
― Karl Wiggins, quote from You Really Are Full of Shit, Aren't You?
“We don't know ourselves, we knowledgeable people—we are personally ignorant
about ourselves. And there's good reason for that. We've never tried to find out who
we are. How could it ever happen that one day we'd discover our own selves? With
justice it's been said that "Where your treasure is, there shall your heart be also." Our
treasure lies where the beehives of our knowledge stand. We are always busy with our
knowledge, as if we were born winged creatures—collectors of intellectual honey. In
our hearts we are basically concerned with only one thing, to "bring something
home." As far as the rest of life is concerned, what people call "experience"—which
of us is serious enough for that? Who has enough time? In these matters, I fear, we've
been "missing the point."
Our hearts have not even been engaged—nor, for that matter, have our ears! We've
been much more like someone divinely distracted and self-absorbed into whose ear
the clock has just pealed the twelve strokes of noon with all its force and who all at
once wakes up and asks himself "What exactly did that clock strike?"—so we rub
ourselves behind the ears afterwards and ask, totally surprised and embarrassed "What
have we really just experienced? And more: "Who are we really?" Then, as I've
mentioned, we count—after the fact—all the twelve trembling strokes of the clock of
our experience, our lives, our being—alas! in the process we keep losing the count. So
we remain necessarily strangers to ourselves, we do not understand ourselves, we
have to keep ourselves confused. For us this law holds for all eternity: "Each man is
furthest from himself." Where we ourselves are concerned, we are not
"knowledgeable people.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche, quote from On the Genealogy of Morals/Ecce Homo
“ليس هناك فقر اسوأ من فقر الأثرياء المفلسين؛ لأن عليهم أن يتظاهروا بما لايملكون”
― Isabel Allende, quote from Portrait in Sepia
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.