“I should not be surprised," said Mr. Graham, "that the day should come when men will refuse to believe in God simply on the ground of the apparent injustice of things. They would argue that there might be either an omnipotent being who did not care, or a good being who could not help, but that there could not be a being both all good and omnipotent or else he would never have suffered things to be as they are.”
― George MacDonald, quote from The Fisherman's Lady
“A library cannot be made all at once, any more than a house or a nation or a tree; they must all take time to grow, and so must a library. I wouldn't even know what books to go and ask for. I dare say, if I were to try, I couldn't at a moment's notice tell you the names of more than two score of books at the outside. Folk must make acquaintance among books as they would among living folk.”
― George MacDonald, quote from The Fisherman's Lady
“...he believed in God and he believed that when the human is still, the Divine speaks to it, because it is its own.”
― George MacDonald, quote from The Fisherman's Lady
“The claim that hung over him haunted his very life, turning the currents of his thought into channels of speculation unknown before.
One day when these questions were fighting in his heart, all at once it seemed as if a soundless voice in the depth of his soul replied, "Thy soul, however it became known to itself, is from the pure heart of God."
And with the thought, the horizon of his life began to clear.”
― George MacDonald, quote from The Fisherman's Lady
“Do you really suppose God cares whether a man comes to good or ill?"
"If He did not, He could not be good himself..."
"...Then He can't be so hard on us as the parsons say, even in the after-life?"
"He will give absolute justice, which is the only good thing. He will spare nothing to bring His children back to himself, their sole well-being, whether He achieve it here--or there.”
― George MacDonald, quote from The Fisherman's Lady
“Cheating isn’t a mistake; it’s a choice.”
― Vi Keeland, quote from Stuck-Up Suit
“It has sick on the sleeve. And no apostrophe.”
― Belinda Bauer, quote from Rubbernecker
“So let the reader who expects this book to be a political exposé slam its covers shut right now.
If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?
During the life of any heart this line keeps changing place; sometimes it is squeezed one way by exuberant evil and sometimes it shifts to allow enough space for good to flourish. One and the same human being is, at various ages, under various circumstances, a totally different human being. At times he is close to being a devil, at times to sainthood. But his name doesn't change, and to that name we ascribe the whole lot, good and evil.
Socrates taught us: Know thyself!
Confronted by the pit into which we are about to toss those who have done us harm, we halt, stricken dumb: it is after all only because of the way things worked out that they were the executioners and we weren't.”
― Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, quote from The Gulag Archipelago, 1918-1956: An Experiment in Literary Investigation, Books I-II
“I’d spent so long pretending to be Scarlet that maybe the old Ivy had faded away.”
― Sophie Cleverly, quote from The Whispers in the Walls
“Good morning, the city says. Fuck you.”
― Marie-Helene Bertino, quote from 2 A.M. at The Cat's Pajamas
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.