Michael Talbot · 406 pages
Rating: (366 votes)
“We're still in the Dark Ages. The scared and the superstitious savage still lurks behind the mask of civilization and he will remain there for untold generations to come.”
― Michael Talbot, quote from The Delicate Dependency: A Novel of the Vampire Life
“How disorienting and isolating immortality must be, and how strong he must be to weather it.”
― Michael Talbot, quote from The Delicate Dependency: A Novel of the Vampire Life
“I told you, knowledge is our Holy Grail, and I daresay the wisdom possessed by the vampire would boggle your imagination. You see, we don't have political allegiances to worry about, or religion, or differing mores. We all work together for one purpose: to further our achievements and our learning.”
― Michael Talbot, quote from The Delicate Dependency: A Novel of the Vampire Life
“It is a sad truth, but it is a truth, indeed, that the knowledge of the human species far surpasses their wisdom.”
― Michael Talbot, quote from The Delicate Dependency: A Novel of the Vampire Life
“Alas, but you do not recognize one thing, Monsieur le Docteur, one thing that you will find very difficult to comprehend. The twelfth century was quite different from today, different in a most special way. You see, the entire world believed in magic, and this affected things. It altered the world we perceived, everyone perceived, mortal and vampire alike. You will not be able to accept this, but it altered the very laws of physics. Magic was a little more real.”
― Michael Talbot, quote from The Delicate Dependency: A Novel of the Vampire Life
“Hey, Bex?” Jack said as he grated. “Just so we’re clear, if we were alone, I’d probably kiss you right now.”
I gave him a swift glance as the hallway laughter made its way back to the kitchen. “Just so we’re clear, I’d probably let you.”
― Jenn Bennett, quote from The Anatomical Shape of a Heart
“Sociopaths cannot love, by definition they do not have higher values, and they almost never feel comfortable in their own skins. They are loveless, amoral, and chronically bored, even the few who become rich and powerful.”
― Martha Stout, quote from The Sociopath Next Door
“For Paley, a watch is purposeful and thus must have been created by a being with a purpose. A watch needs a watchmaker, just as a world needs a world-maker—God. Yet both Wallace and Paley might have heeded the lesson from Voltaire's Candide (1759), in which Dr. Pangloss, a professor of "metaphysico-theology-cosmolonigology," through reason, logic, and analogy "proved" that this is the best of all possible worlds: '"Tis demonstrated that things cannot be otherwise; for, since everything is made for an end, everything is necessarily for the best end. Observe that noses were made to wear spectacles; and so we have spectacles. Legs were visibly instituted to be breeched, and we have breeches" (1985, p. 238). The absurdity of this argument was intended on the part of the author, for Voltaire firmly rejected the Panglossian paradigm that all is best in the best of all possible worlds. Nature is not perfectly designed, nor is this the best of all possible worlds. It is simply the world we have, quirky, contingent, and flawed as it may be.”
― Michael Shermer, quote from Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of Our Time
“I grunted. It's something I picked up over a fifteen-year career in law enforcement. Men have managed to create a complex and utterly impenetrable secret language consisting of monosyllabic sounds and partial words—and they are apparently too thick to realize it exists. Maybe they really are from Mars. I'd been able to learn a few Martian phrases over time, and one of the useful ones was the grunt that meant "I acknowledge that I've heard what you said; please continue.”
― Jim Butcher, quote from Side Jobs: Stories from the Dresden Files
“Political freedom would mean liberation of the individuals from politics over which they have no effective control. Similarly,”
― Herbert Marcuse, quote from One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society
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.