Quotes from The Elementals

Michael McDowell ·  292 pages

Rating: (3.9K votes)


“Alcoholism is a disease,” she said. “Like athlete’s foot. Or herpes. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. Luker and I have lots of friends who are alcoholics. And speed freaks too.” “Well,”
― Michael McDowell, quote from The Elementals


“To have a family is real strange,” said India thoughtfully. “All these people you wouldn’t have anything to do with except that they’re related to you.”
― Michael McDowell, quote from The Elementals


“She’s got manners, but what has she got in the way of morals?” “Oh,” said Luker blithely, “she and I don’t have any morals. We have to get along with a scruple or two.” “I”
― Michael McDowell, quote from The Elementals


“You know what you should have done, added Luker, you should have ripped his balls off and stapled them to the back of his throat.”
― Michael McDowell, quote from The Elementals


“It’s bad when the dead talk in dreams,” said Odessa.”
― Michael McDowell, quote from The Elementals



“Daylight had not brought a solution, but it had accorded indifference. Having”
― Michael McDowell, quote from The Elementals


About the author

Michael McDowell
Born place: in Enterprise, AL, The United States
Born date June 1, 1950
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“Man must prepare for the thing he has asked for, when there isn't the slightest sign of it in sight.”
― quote from The Game Of Life How To Play It


“Evolution has produced us more recently, and that makes us the smartest ever. After all, we invented the parking lot.”
― N.D. Wilson, quote from Leepike Ridge


“[John C.] Calhoun was a minority spokesman in a democracy, a particularist in an age of nationalism, a slaveholder in an age of advancing liberties, and an agrarian in a furiously capitalistic country. His weakness was to be inhumanly schematic and logical, which is only to say that he thought as he lived. His mind, in a sense, was too masterful - it imposed itself upon realities. The great human, emotional, moral complexities of the world escaped him because he had no private training for them, had not even the talent for friendship, in which he might have been schooled. It was easier for him to imagine, for example, that the South had produced upon its slave base a better culture than the North because he had no culture himself, only a quick and muscular mode of thought. It may stand as a token of Calhoun's place in the South's history that when he did find culture there, at Charleston, he wished a plague upon it.”
― Richard Hofstadter, quote from The American Political Tradition and the Men Who Made It


“Should I kill myself, or have a cup of coffee? But in the end one needs more courage to live than to kill himself.”
― Albert Camus, quote from A Happy Death


“He remembered enthusiasm, hope, and a kind of jubilation or exultation. Cheerfulness, yes, and joviality, and the brief gratification of sex. Gladness, too, fullness of heart, appreciation, and many other emotions. But not joy. No, that belonged to simpler minds.”
― Evan S. Connell, quote from Mrs. Bridge


Interesting books

The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster
(3.6K)
The Age of Empathy: Nature's Lessons for a Kinder Society
(1.5K)
The Age of Empathy:...
by Frans de Waal
All the Stars in the Sky
(2.1K)
All the Stars in the...
by Sarah Lyons Fleming
Autobiography of a Geisha
(2.6K)
The Obelisk Gate
(26.8K)
The Obelisk Gate
by N.K. Jemisin
The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself
(3.4K)
The Big Picture: On...
by Sean Carroll

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.