“We make enemies, sometimes through no fault of our own, and sometimes our enemies become badges of honor.”
― quote from The Divorce Papers
“I know I’m a difficult parent, bruised and bruising.”
― quote from The Divorce Papers
“functions of a caretaking parent, such as bathing and putting her to bed at night, making doctors’ appointments for her and taking her there, arranging playdates and parties for her, attending school conferences, coaching her at sports, providing her with religious education, making her meals, buying her clothes, and the like.”
― quote from The Divorce Papers
“I don't want anyone else but sometimes, surprisingly, there's someone, not the prettiest or the most available, but you know that in another life it would be her. Or him, don't you find? A small quickening. The room responds slightly to being entered. Like a raised blind. Nothing intended, and a long way from doing anything, but you catch the glint of being someone else's possibility, and it's a sort of politeness to show you haven't missed it, so you push it a little, well within safety, but there's that sense of a promise almost being made in the touching and kissing without which no one can seem to say good morning in this poney business and one more push would do it.
-The Real Thing (London 1982), p.73
Today, I bought a copy of the play at the co-op, I thought I should send it to you- out of a sort of politeness.”
― quote from The Divorce Papers
“the 5 basic food groups: fat, salt, sugar, alcohol, tobacco):”
― quote from The Divorce Papers
“Our marriage ended because I couldn’t make him see me or hear me or do anything I wanted or needed. I could only be as selfish and mean as he was to get his attention. And that was ruinous.”
― quote from The Divorce Papers
“It's a special form of scholarly neurosis,´ said Camel. `He's no longer able to distinguish between life and literature.´”
― David Lodge, quote from The British Museum Is Falling Down
“Man is out of nature and hopelessly in it; he is dual, up in the stars and yet housed in a heart-pumping, breath-gasping body that once belonged to a fish and still carries the gill-marks to prove it. His body is a material fleshy casing that is alien to him in many ways—the strangest and most repugnant way being that it aches and bleeds and will decay and die. Man is literally split in two: he has an awareness of his own splendid uniqueness in that he sticks out of nature with atowering majesty, and yet he goes back into the ground a few feet in order blindly and dumbly to rot and disappear forever.”
― Ernest Becker, quote from The Denial of Death
“graced lawn parties at Fernbank.” Hoppy stood and applauded.”
― Jan Karon, quote from A Light in the Window
“He absent-mindedly fondled his crotch and then whipped his hand away.No masturbation,he suddenly decided.He tried to think about this but sustained logical thought on one topic was difficult and unnecessary.No,i am not wasting any semen on Madna.It was an impulse,but he felt that he should record it.In the diary under that date,he wrote,'From today no masturbation.Test your will,you bastard'. Then he wondered at his bravado.No masturbation at all?That was impossible.”
― Upamanyu Chatterjee, quote from English, August: An Indian Story
“A barren woman was always tragic, she thought despairingly, but at least her tragedy belonged to herself and her husband alone. When a queen was barren, the tragedy belonged to a nation.”
― Joan Wolf, quote from The Road to Avalon
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.