“Always wrong but never in doubt.”
― quote from The Faithful Spy
“humans can build as easily as destroy,”
― quote from The Faithful Spy
“Everything depends which side of the shotgun you’re on,”
― quote from The Faithful Spy
“Tarik reappeared from room 104 carrying a soft-sided blue travel bag, large enough to hold a week’s worth of clothes, small enough to fit in an airplane’s overhead bin.”
― quote from The Faithful Spy
“God is on the side with the best artillery. NAPOLEON”
― quote from The Faithful Spy
“Dixie cup” was agency jargon for someone disposable, someone who could be arrested or killed without consequence.”
― quote from The Faithful Spy
“Evelyn belted out the song, her voice sliding across the notes like a car on an icy road.”
― quote from The Faithful Spy
“the reason he had known about Islam long before he studied the religion at Dartmouth. He was one-quarter Muslim by birth. Noor had”
― quote from The Faithful Spy
“Interpretation first appears in the culture of late classical antiquity, when the power and credibility of myth had been broken by the “realistic” view of the world introduced by scientific enlightenment. Once the question that haunts post-mythic consciousness—that of the seemliness of religious symbols—had been asked, the ancient texts were, in their pristine form, no longer acceptable. Then interpretation was summoned, to reconcile the ancient texts to “modern” demands. Thus, the Stoics, to accord with their view that the gods had to be moral, allegorized away the rude features of Zeus and his boisterous clan in Homer’s epics. What Homer really designated by the adultery of Zeus with Leto, they explained, was the union between power and wisdom. In the same vein, Philo of Alexandria interpreted the literal historical narratives of the Hebrew Bible as spiritual paradigms. The story of the exodus from Egypt, the wandering in the desert for forty years, and the entry into the promised land, said Philo, was really an allegory of the individual soul’s emancipation, tribulations, and final deliverance. Interpretation thus presupposes a discrepancy between the clear meaning of the text and the demands of (later) readers. It seeks to resolve that discrepancy. The situation is that for some reason a text has become unacceptable; yet it cannot be discarded. Interpretation is a radical strategy for conserving an old text, which is thought too precious to repudiate, by revamping it. The interpreter, without actually erasing or rewriting the text, is altering it. But he can’t admit to doing this. He claims to be only making it intelligible, by disclosing its true meaning. However far the interpreters alter the text (another notorious example is the Rabbinic and Christian “spiritual” interpretations of the clearly erotic Song of Songs), they must claim to be reading off a sense that is already there.”
― Susan Sontag, quote from Against Interpretation and Other Essays
“FRIENDSHIP is a mirror to presence and a testament to forgiveness”
― David Whyte, quote from Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words
“We broke up because I was afraid.”
― Kyra Davis, quote from Just One Night
“People can’t talk about you behind your back if you are constantly in their faces.”
― J.D. Horn, quote from The Source
“How true it is that words are but the vague shadows of the volumes we mean. Little audible links, they are, chaining together great inaudible feelings and purposes.”
― Theodore Dreiser, quote from Sister Carry
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.