Quotes from The Dreamer Wakes

“When grief for fiction’s idle words More real than human life appears, Reflect that life itself’s a dream And do not mock the reader’s tears.”
― Cao Xueqin, quote from The Dreamer Wakes

“Better by far the destiny of plant or stone, bereft of knowledge and consciousness, but blessed at least with purity and peace of mind!”
― Cao Xueqin, quote from The Dreamer Wakes

“When grief for fiction’s idle words
More real than human life appears,
Reflect that life itself’s a dream
And do not mock the reader’s tears.”
― Cao Xueqin, quote from The Dreamer Wakes

“Better by far the destiny of plant or stone, bereft of knowledge and consciousness, but blessed at least with purity and peace of mind!’ These”
― Cao Xueqin, quote from The Dreamer Wakes

“In the courtyard before them grew a clump of bright green bamboo, while by the main doorway stood a row of dark pine-trees.”
― Cao Xueqin, quote from The Dreamer Wakes

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Popular quotes

“Prohibition... goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control a man's appetite by legislation…” ― Abraham Lincoln”
― Nikki Sex, quote from Accuse

“A familiar sensation sparks inside me, the one I had a few years ago, the one that hurts because it’s dangerous and overwhelming. Knowing how it is to truly love someone is torturous. You try to bury that feeling. So you become lonely, deprived, and when you sense anything remotely like it, the emotion comes back to haunt you. It’s one sick fucking game.”
― Danielle Esplin, quote from Give It Back

“if you ask me, the best way to go about flying is to cut the strings tying you down ”
― Renee Ahdieh, quote from The Rose & the Dagger

“A Great Rabbi stands, teaching in the marketplace. It happens that a husband finds proof that morning of his wife's adultery, and a mob carries her to the marketplace to stone her to death.

There is a familiar version of this story, but a friend of mine - a Speaker for the Dead - has told me of two other Rabbis that faced the same situation. Those are the ones I'm going to tell you.

The Rabbi walks forward and stands beside the woman. Out of respect for him the mob forbears and waits with the stones heavy in their hands. 'Is there any man here,' he says to them, 'who has not desired another man's wife, another woman's husband?'
They murmur and say, 'We all know the desire, but Rabbi none of us has acted on it.'

The Rabbi says, 'Then kneel down and give thanks that God has made you strong.' He takes the woman by the hand and leads her out of the market. Just before he lets her go, he whispers to her, 'Tell the Lord Magistrate who saved his mistress, then he'll know I am his loyal servant.'

So the woman lives because the community is too corrupt to protect itself from disorder.

Another Rabbi. Another city. He goes to her and stops the mob as in the other story and says, 'Which of you is without sin? Let him cast the first stone.'

The people are abashed, and they forget their unity of purpose in the memory of their own individual sins. ‘Someday,’ they think, ‘I may be like this woman. And I’ll hope for forgiveness and another chance. I should treat her as I wish to be treated.’

As they opened their hands and let their stones fall to the ground, the Rabbi picks up one of the fallen stones, lifts it high over the woman’s head and throws it straight down with all his might it crushes her skull and dashes her brain among the cobblestones. ‘Nor am I without sins,’ he says to the people, ‘but if we allow only perfect people to enforce the law, the law will soon be dead – and our city with it.’

So the woman died because her community was too rigid to endure her deviance.

The famous version of this story is noteworthy because it is so startlingly rare in our experience. Most communities lurch between decay and rigor mortis and when they veer too far they die. Only one Rabbi dared to expect of us such a perfect balance that we could preserve the law and still forgive the deviation.

So of course, we killed him.

-San Angelo
Letters to an Incipient Heretic”
― Orson Scott Card, quote from La voz de los muertos

“Home is not a place, Not a smell, Not a face, But a space In your heart.”
― Staci Hart, quote from A Thousand Letters

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About BookQuoters

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.