Quotes from The English Teacher

“I returned from the village. The house seemed unbearably dull. But I bore it. "There is no escape from loneliness and separation...." I told myself often. "Wife, child, brothers, parents, friends.... We come together only to go apart again. It is one continuous movement. They move away from us as we move away from them. The law of life can't be avoided. The law comes into operation the moment we detach ourselves from our mother's womb. All struggle and misery in life is due to our attempt to arrest this law or get away from it or in allowing ourselves to be hurt by it. The fact must be recognized. A profound unmitigated loneliness is the only truth of life. All else is false. My mother got away from her parents, my sisters from our house, I and my brother away from each other, my wife was torn away from me, my daughter is going away with my mother, my father has gone away from his father, my earliest friends - where are they? They scatter apart like the droplets of a waterspray. The law of life. No sense in battling against it...." Thus I reconciled myself to this separation with less struggle than before.”
― R.K. Narayan, quote from The English Teacher

“This education has reduced us to a nation of morons; we were strangers to our own culture and camp followers of another culture, feeding on leavings and garbage . . . What about our own roots? . . . I am up against the system, the whole method and approach of a system of education which makes us morons, cultural morons, but efficient clerks for all your business and administration offices.”
― R.K. Narayan, quote from The English Teacher

“He then explained his new philosophy, which followed the devastating discovery that Love and Friendship were the veriest illusions. He explained that people married because their sexual appetite had to be satisfied and there must be somebody to manage the house. There was nothing deeper than that in any man and woman relationship.”
― R.K. Narayan, quote from The English Teacher

“We stood at the window, gazing on a slender, red streak over the eastern rim of the earth. A cool breeze lapped our faces. The boundaries of our personalities suddenly dissolved. It was a moment of rare, immutable joy--a moment for which one feels grateful to Life and Death.”
― R.K. Narayan, quote from The English Teacher

“The next three days I was very busy. My table was placed in the front room of the new house. All my papers and books were arranged neatly. My clothes hung on a peg. The rest of the house was swept and cleaned.”
― R.K. Narayan, quote from The English Teacher

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Popular quotes

“I saw your name in lights last night.
It's the middle of the night,
and I can't sleep,
thinking all my trumpeting thoughts,
and I get out of bed,
open the curtains,
and look into the night full of stars,
and you know what I saw?
Your name.
Like the stars joined up and spelled the word for me.
Like a sign.”
― Jaclyn Moriarty, quote from The Year of Secret Assignments

“تمنيت لو كان العالم مكاناً بسيطاً كل الناس فيه اما أخيار أو أشرار.”
― Marina Nemat, quote from Prisoner of Tehran

“The next day she’d examined her red satin sandals
and with a frown said, “I’m thinking about buying two
snakes.”
His are you kidding me “Why?” had caused her to
shrug.
“I’d name them Leftie and Rightie and when they
were big enough, they’d become Mamma’s boots.”
― Gena Showalter, quote from Dark Taste of Rapture

“I don’t want to talk.” Dan’s neck muscles tensed resisting Vadim’s hand.
He didn’t know the words and he didn’t want to search for them. “I just want to feel.” But no, that wasn’t it. “I want to feel human.”
― Aleksandr Voinov, quote from Special Forces

“And Bram?"
Panic punched me in the chest. So far today she'd been willing to touch me, laugh with me, confide in me, and now she was wondering if Chas shouldn't go out with me? Had I misread something somewhere?
Chas shook her head and grinned. "Nah. Bram's too busy waiting."
"Waiting?" Nora didn't take her eyes from me. Maybe she wanted me to answer.
"For the right girl," I said curtly.
"And he has very specific physical preferences," Chas said. I grabbed her wrist and squeezed. She'd better not.
She did. "For some reason, he is terribly attracted to black hair. Tom's a leg man, himself...attached, unattached, doesn't really mtter. But Bram likes the hair."
With all the various methods of Chastity Disposal flying through my imagination-should I just shoot her, or should I open her skull and puree her brains with a motorized mixer, or perhaps set her on fire?-It took me a minute to notice me a very shy smile.
I dropped Chas's wrist. I almost dropped my machete.
Nora looked away and moved a few steps in front of us, leaping into the grass to flatten it for herself as she went.
"I win," Chas whispered.
"Smoke all you want," I whispered back.”
― Lia Habel, quote from Dearly, Departed

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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.