“Half the world's work's done by hopeless neurotics.”
― Pat Barker, quote from The Eye in the Door
“(In response to 'In the end moral and political truths have to proved on the body.[ ie put one's body on the line to prove a truth]
That's a very dangerous idea. It comes quite close to saying that the willingness to suffer proves the rightness of belief. But is doesn't. The most it can ever prove is the believer's sincerity. And not always that. some people just like suffering.”
― Pat Barker, quote from The Eye in the Door
“The past is a palimpsest. Early memories are always obscured by accumulations of later knowledge.”
― Pat Barker, quote from The Eye in the Door
“One began by finding mental illness mystifying, and ended by being still more mystified by health.”
― Pat Barker, quote from The Eye in the Door
“Half the world's work is done by hopeless neurotics”
― Pat Barker, quote from The Eye in the Door
“But storing magazines full of bullets was a bad idea. Leave them long enough, the spring in the magazine learns its compressed shape and won’t function right. More jams are caused by tired magazine springs than any other single reason. Better to keep the gun with a single shell locked in the chamber and all the other bullets loose. You can fire once right-handed while you thumb loose shells into an empty magazine with your left. Slower than the ideal, but a lot better than pulling the trigger and hearing nothing at all except a dull click. He closed the kitchen”
― Lee Child, quote from Without Fail
“Yes Headwoman Azaze. But I never lie to Rosethorn. She, um, discourages it."
"Evvy and I have an understanding." She grabbed the teakettle and poured hot water into the mug. "She tells me the truth, and I don't hang her in the first well we come to. It's a solution that works tolerably well for both of us.”
― Tamora Pierce, quote from Melting Stones
“What's the matter?" asked the teacher, seeing her bewildered face.
"Why—why," said Elizabeth Ann, "I don't know what I am at all. If I'm second-grade arithmetic and seventh-grade reading and third-grade spelling, what grade am I?"
The teacher laughed at the turn of her phrase. "you aren't any grade at all, no matter where you are in school. You're just yourself, aren't you? What difference does it make what grade you're in! And what's the use of your reading little baby things too easy for you just because you don't know your multiplication table?”
― Dorothy Canfield Fisher, quote from Understood Betsy
“The past can't be changed," she said. "The future can't be predicted. All we really have is the present. So none of that matters to me.”
― Olivia Cunning, quote from Wicked Beat
“There's no such thing as im-POSSIBLE, Hiccup,' snorted Old Wrinkly, 'only im-PROBABLE. The only thing that limits us are the limits to our imaginations... and I used to think of you as an imaginative boy. Give up, if you want to... but I used to think of you as the sort of boy who would NEVER give up, however bad things looked.”
― Cressida Cowell, quote from How to Cheat a Dragon's Curse
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.