“A person who thought he knew everything simply didn’t understand how much there was to know.”
― Jeanne DuPrau, quote from The Diamond of Darkhold
“Maybe there was no happily ever after [...] but there was happiness sometimes and she had it now, doing what she knew she was born for.”
― Jeanne DuPrau, quote from The Diamond of Darkhold
“A darkness different from Ember's, but just as frightening...”
― Jeanne DuPrau, quote from The Diamond of Darkhold
“It wasn't because they had extraordinary powers, really, but because of how well they used the ordinary powers everyone had: the power of courage, the power of kindness, the powers of curiosity and knowledge.”
― Jeanne DuPrau, quote from The Diamond of Darkhold
“You know, son, I don't think there's such a thing as an easy life. There's always going to be hard work and there will always be misfortunes we can't control, lurking out at the edges - storms, sickness, wolves. But there is such a thing as a good life and I think that we have one here.”
― Jeanne DuPrau, quote from The Diamond of Darkhold
“Sure", he said. He started moving the bits around. "Lets see. This looks like it must say . . . and so then this would go here . . . and this . . . " He paused and looked up at her. "Haven't we done this before?”
― Jeanne DuPrau, quote from The Diamond of Darkhold
“Lina laughed. So did Doon. A look went between them, like a quick current of electricity”
― Jeanne DuPrau, quote from The Diamond of Darkhold
“I don’t think there’s such a thing as an easy life. There’s always going to be hard work, and there will always be misfortunes we can’t control lurking out at the edges—storms, sickness, wolves. But there is such a thing as a good life, and I think we have one here.”
― Jeanne DuPrau, quote from The Diamond of Darkhold
“She could not understand why this world, which was so full of beauty and wonder, had to also be so full of horrors.”
― Jeanne DuPrau, quote from The Diamond of Darkhold
“Then there might be dead people.”
― Jeanne DuPrau, quote from The Diamond of Darkhold
“It is life that does the thinking all around us, forming with playful ease the connections our reason can only laboriously patch together piecemeal, and never to such kaleidoscopic effect.”
― Robert Musil, quote from The Man Without Qualities
“No utopia can ever give satisfaction to everyone, all the time. As their material conditions improve, men raise their sights and become discontented with power and possessions that once would have seemed beyond their wildest dreams. And even when the external world has granted all it can, there still remain the searchings of the mind and the longings of the heart.”
― Arthur C. Clarke, quote from Childhood's End
“How did men believe in something that preached love on one hand, yet taught destruction of unbelievers on the other? How did one rationalize belief with no proof? How could they honestly expect him to have faith in something that taught of miracles and wonders in the far past, but carefully gave excuses for why such things didn't occur in the present day?”
― Brandon Sanderson, quote from The Hero of Ages
“Life would be fabric-softener, tuna-salad-on-white, PTA-meeting normal.”
― Augusten Burroughs, quote from Running with Scissors
“When you stop to examine the way in which our words are formed and uttered, our sentences are hard-put to it to survive the disaster of their slobbery origins. The mechanical effort of conversation is nastier and more complicated than defecation. That corolla of bloated flesh, the mouth, which screws itself up to whistle, which sucks in breath, contorts itself, discharges all manner of viscous sounds across a fetid barrier of decaying teeth—how revolting! Yet that is what we are adjured to sublimate into an ideal. It's not easy. Since we are nothing but packages of tepid, half-rotted viscera, we shall always have trouble with sentiment. Being in love is nothing, its sticking together that's difficult. Feces on the other hand make no attempt to endure or grow. On this score we are far more unfortunate than shit; our frenzy to persist in ourpresent state—that's the unconscionable torture.
Unquestionably we worship nothing more divine than our smell. All our misery comes from wanting at all costs to go on being Tom, Dick, or Harry, year in year out. This body of ours, this disguise put on by common jumping molecules, is in constant revolt against the abominable farce of having to endure. Our molecules, the dears, want to get lost in the universe as fast as they can! It makes them miserable to be nothing but 'us,' the jerks of infinity. We'd burst if we had the courage, day after day we come very close to it. The atomic torture we love so is locked up inside us by our pride.”
― Louis-Ferdinand Céline, quote from Journey to the End of the Night
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.