“Simon called you 'Machiavelli disguised as a debutante.'" "Gosh," I said, not sure whether to feel flattered or insulted.”
― quote from The FitzOsbornes in Exile
“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife,' I said, sighing.
'Is it?' said Veronica, looking surprised. 'Universally acknowledged? Surely that presupposes life similar to human societies beyond this planet, and besides--'
'No, no, it's a quote from ... Never mind,' I said.”
― quote from The FitzOsbornes in Exile
“Do you know what it is?' [Toby] said thoughtfully. 'It's that they haven't had anything really awful happen to them. No wonder they seem so superficial and unfeeling.'
It was certainly an interesting theory, ... [but] surely one didn't need to have suffered in order to possess empathy for those who had? All it required was a bit of imagination and a well-stocked library.”
― quote from The FitzOsbornes in Exile
“I wondered whether mad people would be better off if their memories could be neatened up, or taken off the shelves on which they were stored and replaced with nicer ones, and if they'd be the same person then, or completely different ones, and whether dreams were like a vandal rampaging through a library of memories, tearing out random pages and turning them into paper boats...”
― quote from The FitzOsbornes in Exile
“Sometimes I think Life is best summed up as
(a) Awful Bits
and
)b) This That Successfully Distract One from the Awful Bits”
― quote from The FitzOsbornes in Exile
“Out of the firelight everything was black and silver, black island, rocks and trees carved cleanly out of the sky and silver river with a flashing light rippling back and forth along the lip of the fall.”
― William Golding, quote from The Inheritors
“los mejores inspectores de homicidios admitirán que en noventa de cada cien casos lo que salva la investigación es la abrumadora predisposición del asesino a la incompetencia o, cuando menos, al error garrafal.”
― David Simon, quote from Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets
“Burton Malkiel, professor of economics, Princeton University and author of A Random Walk Down Wall Street: "Through the past thirty years more than two-thirds of professional portfolio managers have been outperformed by the unmanaged S&P 500 Index.”
― quote from The Bogleheads' Guide to Investing
“Something he had heard some wise man say. About the three stages of empire, the three generations. First came the conquerers, unstoppable in war. Then came the administrators, who bound it all together into one apparently unshakable, immortal edifice. Then came the wasters, who knew no responsibility and squandered the capital of their inheritance upon whims and vices. And fell to other conquerers.”
― Glen Cook, quote from The Books of the South
“Sometimes the idol does not fall all at once. And sometimes when he breaks, people devour the pieces.”
― Eduardo Galeano, quote from Soccer in Sun and Shadow
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.